Alrighty. so here is why I was asking about the Canal Street Incline...
About a year-and-a-half ago, this thread turned its discussion to rail service to the North End. In general, the group sentiment was skeptical, but
I was a bit less so. In terms of stop-spacing, a station near Prince & Hanover would not be out of place, though there wasn't an obvious corridor to stitch it into.
Near the end of my post, I noted parenthetically:
(For what it's worth, if you feel that there's a must-have need for rail rather than bus in order to attract riders, one could consider a "heritage trolley" line -- perhaps South Station-Greenway-Aquarium-Commercial Street-Hanover Street-Haymarket. Or even just up and down Hanover Street from Haymarket. You could also consider a westward extension via Cambridge St -- if Blue-Red construction ends up closing Bowdoin, there would be a sizable gap.)
A heritage trolley line along the Greenway is hardly a new idea. It's appealing in its way, but in my opinion has never quite brought enough to the table. The trolleys would be pretty, yes, but would they be
useful? Rowes Wharf aside, a Greenway-only routing (paralleling the Central Artery below) wouldn't provide access to any new locations, and in a real sense wouldn't "go" anywhere. (And I'm pessimistic that "heritage trolleys" actually are viable at all... San Francisco's PCCs are cute, but are also inaccessible [literally and figuratively], not air-conditioned, and not particularly comfortable. What's more, what would pass as "heritage trolleys" at this point are probably, like, the Type 7s? Not nearly enough "charm" there, in my opinion.)
And I kept coming back to this:
The prevailing standard for stop-spacing in the core is a 5-7 minute walk between stations, and that drives (and is driven by) a fair number of local behaviors and other factors. One of those is the idea that you only have to walk ~3-4 minutes to reach your destination from the nearest T stop. Next to that, a 10-minute walk one-way is a significant difference. ...A 12-minute walk becomes significantly less hospitable when it's cold, raining, snowy, or if you have some sort of limitation on your mobility -- whether that's groceries, children, or a physical difficulty. Again, not impossible by any means, but discouraging.
Both the North End and the West End (if Bowdoin closes) will sit in these gaps where transit is more distant. It doesn't require true out-and-out rapid transit, but I
do think auto usage would decrease if traveling to a fancy Italian restaurant in the North End did not entail a 10 minute walk in bad weather (which we get
every three days).
While pondering this, an idea occurred to me: we call it the
Greenway, which is poor for line-naming purposes because we already have a Green Line.
BUT: the full name of the park is the
Rose Kennedy Greenway.
Which I just absolutely could not resist, and thus was born
the Rose Line:
Being shown on this map alongside the NSRL and Congress Street BRT is meant to highlight that this is
not a North Station-South Station shuttle. Rather, this is meant to provide a one-seat ride from both North Station and South Station (as well as all four subway lines) to:
- the Greenway
- the Aquarium
- Quincy Market
- Boston Public Market
- Hanover Street in the North End
- Copps Hill in the North End
All major tourist/entertainment destinations, and many of interest to families with young children.
And what's more, it's meant to provide a
scenic ride through old Boston while you journey. Picture modern low-floor light rail vehicles with large windows. We want to use transit to create moments of beauty.
One oddity of the route is the "divot" meant to serve Haymarket. For a rapid transit route, this would be inefficient, but for a "beauty transit" route, this is reasonable, as Haymarket is a destination unto itself, and passengers coming from the southern and western Orange and Green Lines will want to transfer directly at Haymarket and ride straight up Hanover, rather than going up to North Station and doubling back down.
At street level, serving Haymarket door-to-door will require a small loopback, but nothing extreme. (I'm imagining a surface stop on the eastern side of
Boston Public Market.) Something like this (track positions are approximate, not sure whether inner-lane or outer-lane on the Greenway is better):
The Rose Line would connect to the rest of the light rail system via a non-revenue connector track running out of a reopened Canal Street Portal. In earlier iterations of this idea, the Rose Line continued north to Charlestown, but I believe that is better (and sufficiently) served by more typical transit methods.
That is Phase 1.
Phase 2 looks to the south. The Mass Turnpike slices the city down the middle, severing Bay Village from the South End. This should be rectified by decking the Pike with a combination of new buildings and new linear park as extension of the Greenway, stitching the city back together. The Rose Line can extend south from South Station (via
Chinatown Gate) to this new park and connect to Back Bay.
There are things I like about this extension, but I think it's less necessary, for example, if a Green Line extension to South Station is built. I would note that the objectives are slightly different, however: a Green-to-Seaport extension would use the corridor in question as a way to move passengers
through this stretch of Boston, while the Rose Line's purpose would be to
placemake this part of Boston. The Rose Line isn't a way to get
through the "South Greenway", it's a way to
experience the South Greenway.
(A South Greenway extension would also provide opportunity to hook into the southern half of the LRT system, likely via whatever alignment is used to connect the Washington St branch. This would allow for more robust operations than could be accommodated via a single track at Canal St.)
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