Crazy Transit Pitches

[BeyondRevenue]

I don’t even know where to post this, since apparently it’s a real thing and not just a Crazy Transit Pitch, but… Apparently Merrimack Valley Transit has won a federal grant to both institute ferry service between Newburyport and Haverhill, and apparently design the (bespoke?) solar powered ferries that would run the service? Sounds like a very cool idea! Just not sure I would’ve figured on an RTA being the one to (I think?) design the boats.

StackPath

Let me pre-disaster this. The dollar amounts in the story smell like...
A) crony kickback cash through a doomed BS company, or
B) seed money for a superlative-laden sales pitch based in delusion.

Either way, I see most of the cash embezzled in less than 4 years.
That's why it's not in Crazy Pitches. Because criminal/bonehead treasury depletion is our normal operating procedure.

 

[Riverside]

Prompted in part by the headache I described in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread, I'm spitballing a bit here.

When we’ve talked about putting LRT on the Grand Junction (the “Gold Line” in this post), we usually have figured on connecting it to Sullivan via the Green Line Maintenance Facility (GLMF). This makes sense in a lot of ways, because the yard itself stretches close to halfway from Brickbottom Junction to Sullivan, so the thing’s practically already half built.

However, as I outlined in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread, that alignment creates headaches when trying to plot a northbound course from Cambridge through Brickbottom Junction to the GLMF. It’s somewhat feasible going southbound, but much harder going northbound, requiring either a massive viaduct crossing over the commuter rail maintenance facility, or a tunnel cutting through the heart of the junction.

What does that headache get you? To overstate the point somewhat, the GLMF alignment gets you a one-seat ride from Sullivan to Cambridgeport that manages to miss direct transfers with all three transit lines it crosses (Medford Branch, Union Branch, Red Line). The missed transfer to Red isn’t the end of the world, in part because Kendall is probably more of a destination for this service rather than a transfer node.

But missing the Green Line transfers stings. As close as I can figure, you maybe – maybe – can slot a Medford-Gold transfer near the southwest corner of the GLMF yard, but that would involve shoving a one or possibly two platforms into the spaghetti there (possibly needing to put one of the platforms underground). Such a station would also have almost no walkshed, reducing ROI further on an already costly design.

The primary way we’ve figured on mitigating the missed transfer is by running a Central Subway <> Grand Junction Green Line service via Lechmere. This is workable, but inelegant. North Station <> Kendall is a useful OSR provided by this service, but by definition almost everything else would be faster via a Red Line transfer. And while northside Green Line capacity isn’t as constrained as southside, a Grand Junction branch still means that a hookaround service is taking capacity away from other more efficient radial services.

All of which is to say, a GLMF alignment for the Gold Line isn’t as simple as it first appears, and also has significant drawbacks.

Let’s take a step back and reset: what would the “ideal” route for a northeast Urban Ring be? Obviously you want to hit Sullivan, as well as Kendall. You also want to provide transfers to both branches of the Green Line. Lechmere would be one potential transfer point, but is relatively close to downtown – the other Urban Ring nodes tend to sit closer to 2-3 miles from downtown. The next transfer opportunities would then be at East Somerville and Union Square.

Could we do a Sullivan <> Union <> Kendall LRT route? Sullivan <> Union is at least a straight shot down Washington St, but going Union <> Kendall is much hairier.

But…

Let’s suppose for a minute that we add an infill on the Union Branch between McGrath Highway and Medford St. This would provide a Union-Gold transfer point that is easier to access from Kendall (Grand Junction) than a transfer at Union would be. (Not to say it would be easy, just easier.) I’m gonna call this station “McGrath” for the moment.

So then we need to find a path that goes Sullivan <> East Somerville <> McGrath <> Kendall. And that… that might be doable.

Sullivan <> East Somerville is sorta straightforward. Washington St itself would require a subway or el, but New Washington St just to the south already has a freight rail track running along it, with potentially as few as two grade crossings and enough space between buildings to create a dedicated two-track surface ROW.

From the other direction, Kendall to McGrath Station should be relatively straightforward: tracks rise up from the Grand Junction ROW on to a viaduct that crosses over the Union Branch, putting an elevated platform perpendicular on the northern side of the Green Line above Somerville Ave Extension.

Getting from McGrath Station to East Somerville is hairier, but… well, there already is an elevated structure traversing most of that distance: McGrath Highway itself. If McGrath can be put on a road diet and dropped to surface level, and the elevated decking turned over to LRT, then you can have an el that isn’t any closer to houses/business than the current state.

Then you need to get between the McGrath Highway viaduct and the surface ROW on New Washington. This would require about 1000 feet of a greenfield elevated, either over Washington St proper, or over the adjacent lots (presumably purchased by the Commonwealth), with an elevated station above/above-and-north-of the current East Somerville station.

And… there you go. A Kendall <> Sullivan LRT line that provides transfers to both branches of the Green Line, and which serves actual neighborhoods instead of a no-man’s-land of maintenance facilities.

This alignment is about 1.3 miles, as opposed to the GLMF alignment which is about 1.1 miles. However, the East Somerville alignment would serve more riders, provide better transfers, avoid costly modifications to Brickbottom Junction, avoid operational conflicts with the Green Line, and would do so primarily by using rights-of-way that are already devoted to transportation.

The problems I see:

• Putting McGrath Hwy on a road diet is hardly an original idea but obviously it's also not a straightforward one, given that we've been talking about it for over 10 years
  • And, it should be noted, replacing one elevated structure with another isn't, you know, great
• Grade crossings on New Washington
  • Not necessarily a huge problem now, but if/when that area is redeveloped that may change
• Imposing elevated near East Somerville
  • See above; if McGrath finally is taken down, blocking out the sky again with another elevated structure is kinda a bummer
  • On the other hand, depending on how the el and station are designed, it's possible that this could provide station access to East Somerville significantly more directly than the current station's placement
• Harder to build in stages – harder to use a Lechmere <> Grand Junction branch as a “minimum viable product” as Phase 1
  • I think this is still doable, if you just plan to continue running a Lechmere <> Grand Junction branch and drop McGrath Station from the plans; you lose the Gold <> Union transfer, but gain a Green <> Gold transfer somewhere along the Grand Junction branch to the south

Visual:

 

[Charlie_mta]

Prompted in part by the headache I described in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread, I'm spitballing a bit here.

When we’ve talked about putting LRT on the Grand Junction (the “Gold Line” in this post), we usually have figured on connecting it to Sullivan via the Green Line Maintenance Facility (GLMF). This makes sense in a lot of ways, because the yard itself stretches close to halfway from Brickbottom Junction to Sullivan, so the thing’s practically already half built.

However, as I outlined in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread, that alignment creates headaches when trying to plot a northbound course from Cambridge through Brickbottom Junction to the GLMF. It’s somewhat feasible going southbound, but much harder going northbound, requiring either a massive viaduct crossing over the commuter rail maintenance facility, or a tunnel cutting through the heart of the junction.

What does that headache get you? To overstate the point somewhat, the GLMF alignment gets you a one-seat ride from Sullivan to Cambridgeport that manages to miss direct transfers with all three transit lines it crosses (Medford Branch, Union Branch, Red Line). The missed transfer to Red isn’t the end of the world, in part because Kendall is probably more of a destination for this service rather than a transfer node.

But missing the Green Line transfers stings. As close as I can figure, you maybe – maybe – can slot a Medford-Gold transfer near the southwest corner of the GLMF yard, but that would involve shoving a one or possibly two platforms into the spaghetti there (possibly needing to put one of the platforms underground). Such a station would also have almost no walkshed, reducing ROI further on an already costly design.

The primary way we’ve figured on mitigating the missed transfer is by running a Central Subway <> Grand Junction Green Line service via Lechmere. This is workable, but inelegant. North Station <> Kendall is a useful OSR provided by this service, but by definition almost everything else would be faster via a Red Line transfer. And while northside Green Line capacity isn’t as constrained as southside, a Grand Junction branch still means that a hookaround service is taking capacity away from other more efficient radial services.

All of which is to say, a GLMF alignment for the Gold Line isn’t as simple as it first appears, and also has significant drawbacks.

Let’s take a step back and reset: what would the “ideal” route for a northeast Urban Ring be? Obviously you want to hit Sullivan, as well as Kendall. You also want to provide transfers to both branches of the Green Line. Lechmere would be one potential transfer point, but is relatively close to downtown – the other Urban Ring nodes tend to sit closer to 2-3 miles from downtown. The next transfer opportunities would then be at East Somerville and Union Square.

Could we do a Sullivan <> Union <> Kendall LRT route? Sullivan <> Union is at least a straight shot down Washington St, but going Union <> Kendall is much hairier.

But…

Let’s suppose for a minute that we add an infill on the Union Branch between McGrath Highway and Medford St. This would provide a Union-Gold transfer point that is easier to access from Kendall (Grand Junction) than a transfer at Union would be. (Not to say it would be easy, just easier.) I’m gonna call this station “McGrath” for the moment.

So then we need to find a path that goes Sullivan <> East Somerville <> McGrath <> Kendall. And that… that might be doable.

Sullivan <> East Somerville is sorta straightforward. Washington St itself would require a subway or el, but New Washington St just to the south already has a freight rail track running along it, with potentially as few as two grade crossings and enough space between buildings to create a dedicated two-track surface ROW.

From the other direction, Kendall to McGrath Station should be relatively straightforward: tracks rise up from the Grand Junction ROW on to a viaduct that crosses over the Union Branch, putting an elevated platform perpendicular on the northern side of the Green Line above Somerville Ave Extension.

Getting from McGrath Station to East Somerville is hairier, but… well, there already is an elevated structure traversing most of that distance: McGrath Highway itself. If McGrath can be put on a road diet and dropped to surface level, and the elevated decking turned over to LRT, then you can have an el that isn’t any closer to houses/business than the current state.

Then you need to get between the McGrath Highway viaduct and the surface ROW on New Washington. This would require about 1000 feet of a greenfield elevated, either over Washington St proper, or over the adjacent lots (presumably purchased by the Commonwealth), with an elevated station above/above-and-north-of the current East Somerville station.

And… there you go. A Kendall <> Sullivan LRT line that provides transfers to both branches of the Green Line, and which serves actual neighborhoods instead of a no-man’s-land of maintenance facilities.

This alignment is about 1.3 miles, as opposed to the GLMF alignment which is about 1.1 miles. However, the East Somerville alignment would serve more riders, provide better transfers, avoid costly modifications to Brickbottom Junction, avoid operational conflicts with the Green Line, and would do so primarily by using rights-of-way that are already devoted to transportation.

The problems I see:

• Putting McGrath Hwy on a road diet is hardly an original ideabut obviously it's also not a straightforward one, given that we've been talking about it for over 10 years
  • And, it should be noted, replacing one elevated structure with another isn't, you know, great
• Grade crossings on New Washington
  • Not necessarily a huge problem now, but if/when that area is redeveloped that may change
• Imposing elevated near East Somerville
  • See above; if McGrath finally is taken down, blocking out the sky again with another elevated structure is kinda a bummer
  • On the other hand, depending on how the el and station are designed, it's possible that this could provide station access to East Somerville significantly more directly than the current station's placement
• Harder to build in stages – harder to use a Lechmere <> Grand Junction branch as a “minimum viable product” as Phase 1
  • I think this is still doable, if you just plan to continue running a Lechmere <> Grand Junction branch and drop McGrath Station from the plans; you lose the Gold <> Union transfer, but gain a Green <> Gold transfer somewhere along the Grand Junction branch to the south

Visual:

View attachment 34375

This is a great solution. I really like the elevated Gold Line along McGrath, after McGrath Hwy itself has been grounded. Your plan is cost effective (no tunneling needed), politically doable (because McGrath Hwy has been elevated for 65 years, and the new elevated LRV line would be much less obtrusive), and your route connects with both Green Line branches.
One thought: The grade crossings on New Washington could be eliminated by extending the elevated structure for the Gold Line over those crossings.

 

[Teban54]

Great work as usual, @Riverside !

Coincidentally or not, your idea is very similar to the recommended alternative for the SL6 bus between Sullivan and Kendall, which uses McGrath. Just that SL6 also stops at Lechmere.

The primary way we’ve figured on mitigating the missed transfer is by running a Central Subway <> Grand Junction Green Line service via Lechmere. This is workable, but inelegant. North Station <> Kendall is a useful OSR provided by this service, but by definition almost everything else would be faster via a Red Line transfer. And while northside Green Line capacity isn’t as constrained as southside, a Grand Junction branch still means that a hookaround service is taking capacity away from other more efficient radial services.

Another advantage of a Central Subway - Grand Junction service is to provide one-seat rides with one southside GL branch, probably Nubian (though you can make an argument for Huntington). This will at least relieve some load from the Red Line between Park St and Kendall/MIT, which is one of the busiest sections of the line. However, how much this OSR helps is the question.

I also think North Station-Kendall is more important than estimated here, especially before NSRL.

You also want to provide transfers to both branches of the Green Line. Lechmere would be one potential transfer point, but is relatively close to downtown – the other Urban Ring nodes tend to sit closer to 2-3 miles from downtown.

I actually don't think Lechmere is too close. With all the current and future developments in the area, it may become a destination itself with jobs and residents in nearby condos.

The challenge is mostly in engineering: A GJ-Kendall-Lechmere-Sullivan route doesn't seem doable easily, if at all. My best effort after a 5-minute brainstorming session involves streetrunning on Binney St and Edwin H Land Blvd, having a "Lechmere" station where it crosses GLX, then turn towards the CR ROW over Gilmore Bridge... Yikes.

Visual:

View attachment 34375

Can this potentially allow a Sullivan-Lechmere connection via a flying junction SE of East Somerville?

 

[Aprehensive_Words]

Prompted in part by the headache I described in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread, I'm spitballing a bit here.

When we’ve talked about putting LRT on the Grand Junction (the “Gold Line” in this post), we usually have figured on connecting it to Sullivan via the Green Line Maintenance Facility (GLMF). This makes sense in a lot of ways, because the yard itself stretches close to halfway from Brickbottom Junction to Sullivan, so the thing’s practically already half built.

However, as I outlined in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread, that alignment creates headaches when trying to plot a northbound course from Cambridge through Brickbottom Junction to the GLMF. It’s somewhat feasible going southbound, but much harder going northbound, requiring either a massive viaduct crossing over the commuter rail maintenance facility, or a tunnel cutting through the heart of the junction.

What does that headache get you? To overstate the point somewhat, the GLMF alignment gets you a one-seat ride from Sullivan to Cambridgeport that manages to miss direct transfers with all three transit lines it crosses (Medford Branch, Union Branch, Red Line). The missed transfer to Red isn’t the end of the world, in part because Kendall is probably more of a destination for this service rather than a transfer node.

But missing the Green Line transfers stings. As close as I can figure, you maybe – maybe – can slot a Medford-Gold transfer near the southwest corner of the GLMF yard, but that would involve shoving a one or possibly two platforms into the spaghetti there (possibly needing to put one of the platforms underground). Such a station would also have almost no walkshed, reducing ROI further on an already costly design.

Great work!! A couple additional thoughts:

First: Your work explaining the difficulty in connecting to the GLMF and the connectivity problems that creates should, IMO, make us take another look at the idea that any Urban Ring project should use Green Line rolling stock, even the long boi Type 10.

There's a powerful argument to be made that the T would benefit from trying to rationalize its rolling stock in any future expansion given the veritable petting zoo it maintains now, and the back-of-house problems that inevitably creates. And since the current street grid is going to have to dictate turning radii because we'll either have to be tunneling via cut-and-cover or elevating, something like the Type 10s' cornering ability will be necessary. And F-Line has made a strong point about the difficulty getting anything other than surface-running LRT across the Red Line/Main Street corridor in Kendall if the Grand Junction ROW is stuck to.

But here's the thing: Designing it for low-floor Green Line rolling stock could put a too-low ceiling on the system's capacity when you look at things over a 20- or 30-year time frame. The metric most news stories ran with when the Type 10 procurement was announced (I can't find anything more specific than that in a quick search of presentations to the T board about the cars) was that one Type 10 (113 feet long) could carry the equivalent of two Type 8s (100 pax ea.). This means you can carry more people in four cars of tight-turning Blue Line rolling stock (76 pax ea., 48 feet long) as in two Type 10s and still build shorter stations. That kind of passenger density matters when the areas any such line will connect are being planned as the inner core's next major growth centers -- Suffolk Downs, Everett's Commercial Triangle and Encore/Lower Broadway, Sullivan, Allston, JFK/Morrissey area -- not to mention the intensification of land uses that are both desirable from a climate perspective and possible, even in NIMBY Cambridge (PDF).

It'd be a shame to repeat Sound Transit's mistake in choosing to rely on glorified trams, then having to run huge, space-inefficient consists to keep up with demand.

Second: Modern elevated rail structures can be pretty, or delicate, even, without being made of Santiago Calatrava-brand Renderite. Check out what the elevated tracks for Montreal's REM de l'Est (RIP) would have looked like, complete with sound barriers:

Or, for some actual concrete, Melbourne's new Skyrail elevated regional rail infrastructure:

(Edit: Correcting unfinished sentence)

 

[Teban54]

Second: Modern elevated rail structures can be pretty, or delicate, even, without being made of Santiago Calatrava-brand Renderite. Check out what the elevated tracks for Montreal's REM de l'Est (RIP) would have looked like, complete with sound barriers:

View attachment 34379

Or, for some actual concrete, Melbourne's new Skyrail elevated regional rail infrastructure:

View attachment 34380

Now can we use this to put an El back on Washington St to replace SL4/5?

(Not a serious proposal)

 

[Charlie_mta]

Prompted in part by the headache I described in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread, I'm spitballing a bit here.

When we’ve talked about putting LRT on the Grand Junction (the “Gold Line” in this post), we usually have figured on connecting it to Sullivan via the Green Line Maintenance Facility (GLMF). This makes sense in a lot of ways, because the yard itself stretches close to halfway from Brickbottom Junction to Sullivan, so the thing’s practically already half built.

However, as I outlined in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread, that alignment creates headaches when trying to plot a northbound course from Cambridge through Brickbottom Junction to the GLMF. It’s somewhat feasible going southbound, but much harder going northbound, requiring either a massive viaduct crossing over the commuter rail maintenance facility, or a tunnel cutting through the heart of the junction.

What does that headache get you? To overstate the point somewhat, the GLMF alignment gets you a one-seat ride from Sullivan to Cambridgeport that manages to miss direct transfers with all three transit lines it crosses (Medford Branch, Union Branch, Red Line). The missed transfer to Red isn’t the end of the world, in part because Kendall is probably more of a destination for this service rather than a transfer node.

But missing the Green Line transfers stings. As close as I can figure, you maybe – maybe – can slot a Medford-Gold transfer near the southwest corner of the GLMF yard, but that would involve shoving a one or possibly two platforms into the spaghetti there (possibly needing to put one of the platforms underground). Such a station would also have almost no walkshed, reducing ROI further on an already costly design.

The primary way we’ve figured on mitigating the missed transfer is by running a Central Subway <> Grand Junction Green Line service via Lechmere. This is workable, but inelegant. North Station <> Kendall is a useful OSR provided by this service, but by definition almost everything else would be faster via a Red Line transfer. And while northside Green Line capacity isn’t as constrained as southside, a Grand Junction branch still means that a hookaround service is taking capacity away from other more efficient radial services.

All of which is to say, a GLMF alignment for the Gold Line isn’t as simple as it first appears, and also has significant drawbacks.

Let’s take a step back and reset: what would the “ideal” route for a northeast Urban Ring be? Obviously you want to hit Sullivan, as well as Kendall. You also want to provide transfers to both branches of the Green Line. Lechmere would be one potential transfer point, but is relatively close to downtown – the other Urban Ring nodes tend to sit closer to 2-3 miles from downtown. The next transfer opportunities would then be at East Somerville and Union Square.

Could we do a Sullivan <> Union <> Kendall LRT route? Sullivan <> Union is at least a straight shot down Washington St, but going Union <> Kendall is much hairier.

But…

Let’s suppose for a minute that we add an infill on the Union Branch between McGrath Highway and Medford St. This would provide a Union-Gold transfer point that is easier to access from Kendall (Grand Junction) than a transfer at Union would be. (Not to say it would be easy, just easier.) I’m gonna call this station “McGrath” for the moment.

So then we need to find a path that goes Sullivan <> East Somerville <> McGrath <> Kendall. And that… that might be doable.

Sullivan <> East Somerville is sorta straightforward. Washington St itself would require a subway or el, but New Washington St just to the south already has a freight rail track running along it, with potentially as few as two grade crossings and enough space between buildings to create a dedicated two-track surface ROW.

From the other direction, Kendall to McGrath Station should be relatively straightforward: tracks rise up from the Grand Junction ROW on to a viaduct that crosses over the Union Branch, putting an elevated platform perpendicular on the northern side of the Green Line above Somerville Ave Extension.

Getting from McGrath Station to East Somerville is hairier, but… well, there already is an elevated structure traversing most of that distance: McGrath Highway itself. If McGrath can be put on a road diet and dropped to surface level, and the elevated decking turned over to LRT, then you can have an el that isn’t any closer to houses/business than the current state.

Then you need to get between the McGrath Highway viaduct and the surface ROW on New Washington. This would require about 1000 feet of a greenfield elevated, either over Washington St proper, or over the adjacent lots (presumably purchased by the Commonwealth), with an elevated station above/above-and-north-of the current East Somerville station.

And… there you go. A Kendall <> Sullivan LRT line that provides transfers to both branches of the Green Line, and which serves actual neighborhoods instead of a no-man’s-land of maintenance facilities.

This alignment is about 1.3 miles, as opposed to the GLMF alignment which is about 1.1 miles. However, the East Somerville alignment would serve more riders, provide better transfers, avoid costly modifications to Brickbottom Junction, avoid operational conflicts with the Green Line, and would do so primarily by using rights-of-way that are already devoted to transportation.

The problems I see:

• Putting McGrath Hwy on a road diet is hardly an original ideabut obviously it's also not a straightforward one, given that we've been talking about it for over 10 years
  • And, it should be noted, replacing one elevated structure with another isn't, you know, great
• Grade crossings on New Washington
  • Not necessarily a huge problem now, but if/when that area is redeveloped that may change
• Imposing elevated near East Somerville
  • See above; if McGrath finally is taken down, blocking out the sky again with another elevated structure is kinda a bummer
  • On the other hand, depending on how the el and station are designed, it's possible that this could provide station access to East Somerville significantly more directly than the current station's placement
• Harder to build in stages – harder to use a Lechmere <> Grand Junction branch as a “minimum viable product” as Phase 1
  • I think this is still doable, if you just plan to continue running a Lechmere <> Grand Junction branch and drop McGrath Station from the plans; you lose the Gold <> Union transfer, but gain a Green <> Gold transfer somewhere along the Grand Junction branch to the south

Visual:

View attachment 34375

Riverside, I changed the route to avoid an elevated along McGrath Highway, but instead routing the elevated Gold Line straight across McGrath Hwy, on a two-level high elevated bridge, This would also cross over Gore Street but at one level height, and then touch down to the surface north of Cambridge Street, avoiding buildings along its route. Here's the layout, with stations, pretty much as you had them, at the junctions with the two GL branches. There's also this link to the Google map.

 

[Riverside]

Thanks for all the positive feedback and suggestions everyone! Glad to see it's interesting to folks.

One thought: The grade crossings on New Washington could be eliminated by extending the elevated structure for the Gold Line over those crossings.

Yes, that's true, and, like with your alternative suggestion below, I think the answer depends on how high we want to turn the "crazy" dial on this one. Grade crossings would be less expensive than an el over New Washington, and given the limited number of them, their impact might be low enough that an el isn't worth it. Likewise, we could look at grade-separation via a small embankment and a partially dug out underpass.

Coincidentally or not, your idea is very similar to the recommended alternative for the SL6 bus between Sullivan and Kendall, which uses McGrath. Just that SL6 also stops at Lechmere.

I wasn't directly thinking about the similarity to SL6, but I agree. That said, there's an irony here: the GLMF alignment is proposed because it looks on paper like the shorter and easier route; the SL6 alignment (to me) looks like it would also prefer to cut across the GLMF lot but obviously can't and so needs to go "the long way" around.

Another advantage of a Central Subway - Grand Junction service is to provide one-seat rides with one southside GL branch, probably Nubian (though you can make an argument for Huntington). This will at least relieve some load from the Red Line between Park St and Kendall/MIT, which is one of the busiest sections of the line. However, how much this OSR helps is the question.

Yeahhhh, so... I'm pretty skeptical about the benefits of "wraparound" OSRs. (A lot of my objections to the Seaport wraparound also apply to a Grand Junction wraparound.) I mean, just purely based on time/distance: Park <> Kendall/MIT is 1.3 miles with one stop taking 5 minutes, while Park <> Lechmere <> Kendall/Main St is 3 miles (i.e. twice as long) and would be six or seven stops. If the Green Line flew at an average of 30 miles an hour (not realistic, especially with stops), you could clear that in 6 minutes (still losing the race, but at least being competitive). But at the more realistic (but still somewhat aggressive) 15 mph, it would be twelve minutes. And 12 mph bumps you down to fifteen minutes -- triple the travel time on the Red Line. Even with the wait-time for a transfer at Park, Green <> Red will still be faster than the wraparound.

I'd argue that a better way to reduce crowding on Red is to maximize Kendall <> Sullivan and Kendall <> BU Bridge frequencies on a Gold Line, diverting Kendall commuters away from downtown altogether. One downside of a wraparound is that you reduce the potential number of Kendall <> Sullivan trains due to slots being taken by Kendall <> Lechmere trains.

To your point, I think the degree to which the wraparound OSR helps is the open question, and I'm pessimistic: that 5-min 1-stop Red Line leg is just too good to pass up.

I also think North Station-Kendall is more important than estimated here, especially before NSRL.

I agree that North Station is a possible exception, and it was something I thought about. Two thoughts here.

First, I'd argue that a better solution for providing Regional Rail riders access to Kendall is by providing transfers before North Station. For Fitchburg riders, this is already achieved via a transfer to Red at Porter. For Rockburyport (and Reading) riders, a transfer at Sullivan will largely negate the need to travel all the way in to North Station.

That leaves the Lowell Line (+ Haverhill via Wildcat). As far as I can tell, there's no reason mainline platforms could not be added at East Somerville itself, replicating Sullivan's and Porter's roles to provide rapid transit transfers for access to "satellite downtowns" without going into the core proper.

With those three transfers in place, I think the demand for a North Station <> Kendall OSR becomes significantly lower.

That all being said, EZ Ride today claims that it can make the North Station <> Kendall run in 10-20 minutes. It does so on a constrained number of roads, some of which already have bus lanes, and others of which are mostly wide enough that they could receive lanes. If that runtime can be reliably kept at the low end of 10-20 min, then it would likely be competitive with a wraparound LRT service.

Like I said, though, I do agree that North Station <> Kendall is the hardest to dismiss.

I actually don't think Lechmere is too close. With all the current and future developments in the area, it may become a destination itself with jobs and residents in nearby condos.

The challenge is mostly in engineering: A GJ-Kendall-Lechmere-Sullivan route doesn't seem doable easily, if at all. My best effort after a 5-minute brainstorming session involves streetrunning on Binney St and Edwin H Land Blvd, having a "Lechmere" station where it crosses GLX, then turn towards the CR ROW over Gilmore Bridge... Yikes.

You make a fair case for Lechmere. And to the point you made earlier, it's not without precedent, given the SL6 proposal. But yes, it would be a huge challenge to design, and would be a massive cost that surely would rival any modifications we might consider at Brickbottom Junction. So, difficult to justify.

Can this potentially allow a Sullivan-Lechmere connection via a flying junction SE of East Somerville?

I wasn't particularly considering it, but yes, I think that could be part of the mix. In some ways, it faces the same set of problems that we face at Brickbottom Junction: going Lechmere -> Sullivan is easy, going Sullivan -> Lechmere requires you to swing wide and high above the Green Line's northbound tracks. And, if your eye is on service to Chelsea, an alignment via East Somerville is even more roundabout than the GLMF version.

@Charlie_mta's alignment probably stands the best chance of being able to add a Lechmere <> Sullivan connection, in part because in his proposal the Gold Line crosses above the Green Line in an alignment that's more parallel than perpendicular. More on that below.

 

[Riverside]

Great work!! A couple additional thoughts:

First: Your work explaining the difficulty in connecting to the GLMF and the connectivity problems that creates should, IMO, make us take another look at the idea that any Urban Ring project should use Green Line rolling stock, even the long boi Type 10.

There's a powerful argument to be made that the T would benefit from trying to rationalize its rolling stock in any future expansion given the veritable petting zoo it maintains now, and the back-of-house problems that inevitably creates. And since the current street grid is going to have to dictate turning radii because we'll either have to be tunneling via cut-and-cover or elevating, something like the Type 10s' cornering ability will be necessary. And F-Line has made a strong point about the difficulty getting anything other than surface-running LRT across the Red Line/Main Street corridor in Kendall if the Grand Junction ROW is stuck to.

But here's the thing: Designing it for low-floor Green Line rolling stock could put a too-low ceiling on the system's capacity when you look at things over a 20- or 30-year time frame. The metric most news stories ran with when the Type 10 procurement was announced (I can't find anything more specific than that in a quick search of presentations to the T board about the cars) was that one Type 10 (113 feet long) could carry the equivalent of two Type 8s (100 pax ea.). This means you can carry more people in four cars of tight-turning Blue Line rolling stock (76 pax ea., 48 feet long) as in two Type 10s and still build shorter stations. That kind of passenger density matters when the areas any such line will connect are being planned as the inner core's next major growth centers -- Suffolk Downs, Everett's Commercial Triangle and Encore/Lower Broadway, Sullivan, Allston, JFK/Morrissey area -- not to mention the intensification of land uses that are both desirable from a climate perspective and possible, even in NIMBY Cambridge (PDF).

It'd be a shame to repeat Sound Transit's mistake in choosing to rely on glorified trams, then having to run huge, space-inefficient consists to keep up with demand.

Your point is well made. That being said, one advantage of de-interlining the Green Line and Gold Line as I've done here is that you can eventually make separate rolling stock decisions if needed. For example, Gold Line trains might typically run a single T10 while Green Line trains run in pairs. But, to game this out further, keeping them separate means that you can also evaluate them separately when/if you want to convert any LRT lines to HRT. Being a smaller network, the Gold Line would likely be a more tractable conversion compared to the Green Line.

At the end of the day, though, we need the Urban Ring to be LRT (at least in its first iteration) because we need to be able to have it interface with surface traffic and pedestrians. HRT with full grade separation will pose too many additional challenges, and make it harder to build in phases. (Even if not interlined, a Gold Line via East Somerville could still operate out of the GLMF via yard tracks connecting toward Sullivan, providing a "starter" service between Sullivan, Kendall and something TBD on the other side of the Charles River in Allston.)

To your point, though, my thinking would be to build along corridors that could eventually be replaced with a fully grade separated service at some point in the future, whether by el or subway. And I think the East Somerville alignment fulfills that criterion.

Or, for some actual concrete, Melbourne's new Skyrail elevated regional rail infrastructure:

View attachment 34380

(Edit: Correcting unfinished sentence)

Yes, I had been imagining something like the Melbourne example. Nothing like the Els that still loom large in Boston's memory, but still an imposing part of the landscape nonetheless.

Riverside, I changed the route to avoid an elevated along McGrath Highway, but instead routing the elevated Gold Line straight across McGrath Hwy, on a two-level high elevated bridge, This would also cross over Gore Street but at one level height, and then touch down to the surface north of Cambridge Street, avoiding buildings along its route. Here's the layout, with stations, pretty much as you had them, at the junctions with the two GL branches. There's also this link to the Google map.

Yeah, this is a really interesting alternative. Like I said above, it depends how high we want to turn the crazy dial here. I like this alignment a lot more in most respects -- less curvy, more direct, less impact on the neighborhood, and as mentioned above seems like the best candidate for keeping the door open for a Lechmere <> Sullivan connection.

The crazy part is about cutting through those lots along Linwood and Chestnut Streets. It looks like you have plotted a path that avoids any existing buildings (kudos for that!), but it would still preclude development on those parcels, which always makes me more nervous.

That said, you could perhaps sweeten the deal by shifting the "McGrath" station a bit further north so that it straddles both the highway and Green Line ROW, providing pedestrian access to both from Linwood St (and provide access to Twin City Plaza, which of course is a stone's throw away, but require a lengthy walk down to Medford St and back). That could serve to stitch the neighborhoods back together and make it all more walkable.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Your point is well made. That being said, one advantage of de-interlining the Green Line and Gold Line as I've done here is that you can eventually make separate rolling stock decisions if needed. For example, Gold Line trains might typically run a single T10 while Green Line trains run in pairs. But, to game this out further, keeping them separate means that you can also evaluate them separately when/if you want to convert any LRT lines to HRT. Being a smaller network, the Gold Line would likely be a more tractable conversion compared to the Green Line.

At the end of the day, though, we need the Urban Ring to be LRT (at least in its first iteration) because we need to be able to have it interface with surface traffic and pedestrians. HRT with full grade separation will pose too many additional challenges, and make it harder to build in phases. (Even if not interlined, a Gold Line via East Somerville could still operate out of the GLMF via yard tracks connecting toward Sullivan, providing a "starter" service between Sullivan, Kendall and something TBD on the other side of the Charles River in Allston.)

To your point, though, my thinking would be to build along corridors that could eventually be replaced with a fully grade separated service at some point in the future, whether by el or subway. And I think the East Somerville alignment fulfills that criterion.

Yes, I had been imagining something like the Melbourne example. Nothing like the Els that still loom large in Boston's memory, but still an imposing part of the landscape nonetheless.

Yeah, this is a really interesting alternative. Like I said above, it depends how high we want to turn the crazy dial here. I like this alignment a lot more in most respects -- less curvy, more direct, less impact on the neighborhood, and as mentioned above seems like the best candidate for keeping the door open for a Lechmere <> Sullivan connection.

The crazy part is about cutting through those lots along Linwood and Chestnut Streets. It looks like you have plotted a path that avoids any existing buildings (kudos for that!), but it would still preclude development on those parcels, which always makes me more nervous.

That said, you could perhaps sweeten the deal by shifting the "McGrath" station a bit further north so that it straddles both the highway and Green Line ROW, providing pedestrian access to both from Linwood St (and provide access to Twin City Plaza, which of course is a stone's throw away, but require a lengthy walk down to Medford St and back). That could serve to stitch the neighborhoods back together and make it all more walkable.

Thank you for the feedback. I offered that alignment as an option but I still like the McGrath Hwy as a route for the elevated line, per your proposed alignment. Here's what I see a McGrath elevated looking like, although the McGrath corridor is actually wider than this, making more room to spread things out more than shown in this typical section:

 

[Teban54]

Yeah, this is a really interesting alternative. Like I said above, it depends how high we want to turn the crazy dial here. I like this alignment a lot more in most respects -- less curvy, more direct, less impact on the neighborhood, and as mentioned above seems like the best candidate for keeping the door open for a Lechmere <> Sullivan connection.

The crazy part is about cutting through those lots along Linwood and Chestnut Streets. It looks like you have plotted a path that avoids any existing buildings (kudos for that!), but it would still preclude development on those parcels, which always makes me more nervous.

Here are some alternative ideas that are more curvy but do not interrupt the parcels:

Both will potentially have relatively sharp turns, but given the short distance between the two stations, I don't expect trains to be running very fast anyway, so it might be workable.

I like the light green alignment better:

• Poplar St is much wider than Fitchburg St for a viaduct.
• Less interruption with the Medford branch, which means no hassle of figuring out how to place the Gold Line tracks directly above 4-track Green Line.
• The walking distance to a Union Sq branch's McGrath station is also significantly shorter (especially Alt 2a). You really can't move the Union Sq branch station further east, due to the existing crossover and ramps.

At the end of the day, though, we need the Urban Ring to be LRT (at least in its first iteration) because we need to be able to have it interface with surface traffic and pedestrians. HRT with full grade separation will pose too many additional challenges, and make it harder to build in phases. (Even if not interlined, a Gold Line via East Somerville could still operate out of the GLMF via yard tracks connecting toward Sullivan, providing a "starter" service between Sullivan, Kendall and something TBD on the other side of the Charles River in Allston.)

To your point, though, my thinking would be to build along corridors that could eventually be replaced with a fully grade separated service at some point in the future, whether by el or subway. And I think the East Somerville alignment fulfills that criterion.

How the hell do you achieve grade separation on the Grand Junction near Main St though? There's already an MIT building above the tracks, and building a tunnel beneath the Red Line will be ridiculously expensive as per F-Line's posts. That alone may kill any hope of grade separating or HRT-ifying the full Urban Ring.

 

[Aprehensive_Words]

Here's where I realize I should probably just change my username to "That El Stan."

How the hell do you achieve grade separation on the Grand Junction near Main St though? There's already an MIT building above the tracks, and building a tunnel beneath the Red Line will be ridiculously expensive as per F-Line's posts. That alone may kill any hope of grade separating or HRT-ifying the full Urban Ring.

Of a piece with what I posted above about LRT capacity constraints, I've been wondering for a few months now (and *think* it's possible doing some very, very rough math using Google Maps' measurement tool?) if a viaduct is the answer. The core of the idea is that the GJ ROW gives you a long run-up on either side of the Mass. Ave., Main and Broadway intersections, and the MIT Visitor lot at Vassar and Mass. Ave. gives you the space you need to translate back to the GJ.

IDK if you'd want to/have to eliminate the Mass. Ave. stop due to the security theater related to the nuclear reactor (blue circle), and you'd definitely have to fight MIT over the parking and turn lanes on Vassar, whose footprint would be needed to place supporting columns. But it does seem to sidestep the underpinning problem.

 

[Riverside]

Here are some alternative ideas that are more curvy but do not interrupt the parcels:

View attachment 34408

Both will potentially have relatively sharp turns, but given the short distance between the two stations, I don't expect trains to be running very fast anyway, so it might be workable.

I like the light green alignment better

Yeah, I also prefer the light green (Alt 2) options. The problem with Alt 1 is that you need run the viaduct at "double height" across both the highway and the community path, and, as you say, it forces the Gold Line station further away from the Green Line station. One advantage of Alt 2 is that, by relocating the section parallel to McGrath Highway a little bit to the south (i.e. above Somerville Ave Extension) and having the highway itself descend to ground level immediately north of the overpass, you may be able to keep the viaduct overall at "single height" -- i.e. don't turn northeast until the highway has had a chance to drop to surface level.

That's a good point about the distance between the stations restricting speeds anyway.

One downside, though, of both your proposal and @Charlie_mta's is that it builds out East Somerville station further away from the current neighborhood. And because of the Lowell Line ROW, even if the Inner Belt neighborhood gets heavy redevelopment, building a platform in the triangle between the Lowell Line and the Medford Branch really won't expand the walkshed significantly.

But I think one way or another it looks like there are several potential options that could make this approach viable.

How the hell do you achieve grade separation on the Grand Junction near Main St though? There's already an MIT building above the tracks, and building a tunnel beneath the Red Line will be ridiculously expensive as per F-Line's posts. That alone may kill any hope of grade separating or HRT-ifying the full Urban Ring.

Oh sorry, to be a bit clearer, it's the fact that the East Somerville alignment potentially allows you to separate the Green Line and Gold Line networks that contributes to creating an HRT-able network. There are still loads of other problems elsewhere: the MIT building over Main St, kicking BRT out of the northeast quadrant in Chelsea, anything to do with Longwood-Ruggles-Nubian... I'm really just making the narrow point that deinterlining from the Green Line removes one barrier.

I think @Aprehensive_Words' idea about a short el over Vassar St is an interesting one, and illustrates a larger point: if an LRT Urban Ring really is such a runaway success that a conversion to HRT seems necessary, then it's likely that sufficient public support could be rallied for a larger-footprint "Urban Ring v2.0" that could reduce the craziness of some of these proposals.

 

[ceo]

Interesting set of proposals. There's one big problem with repurposing the Yard 10 lead for GJ light rail: right now that's the freight connection from the Lowell Line to the other northside lines. So your GJ branch would have to be elevated above it, then ramp down after the (former) wye to get under the Leverett Connector ramps.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Interesting set of proposals. There's one big problem with repurposing the Yard 10 lead for GJ light rail: right now that's the freight connection from the Lowell Line to the other northside lines. So your GJ branch would have to be elevated above it, then ramp down after the (former) wye to get under the Leverett Connector ramps.

It could be sunk below in an open cut. That's probably easier.

I diagrammed out how in this post a couple of years ago.

 

[ceo]

It could be sunk below in an open cut. That's probably easier.

I diagrammed out how in this post a couple of years ago.

Sure, and I came to the same conclusion here. But the proposal I'm referring to is to repurpose the entire length of the Yard 10 lead, from East Somerville to Sullivan, as LRT.

 

[Riverside]

Sure, and I came to the same conclusion here. But the proposal I'm referring to is to repurpose the entire length of the Yard 10 lead, from East Somerville to Sullivan, as LRT.

The corridor/ROW in question is pretty wide -- my quick eyeballing suggests that it'd be possible to fit a 40'-wide ROW even in the most constrained section, which should be enough space for 2 LRT tracks plus a slightly relocated freight track. At the western end, the LRT tracks would need to rise above grade well before needing to cross the freight track, so no problem there; at the eastern end, you'd need to play around, but there still should be space to do some sort of duck-under as @F-Line to Dudley proposed.

If there isn't space, then we could of course look at extending the elevated viaduct further, and leave the freight track at-grade untouched. But that brings me to an interesting question:

There's a good amount of analysis out there on the average cost-per-mile of subway/tunnel projects; there's also plenty of relatively straightforward data available to make rough estimates about cost-per-mile of surface rail projects. But I've struggled to find useful data about building modern elevateds.

The two main examples I've found are WMATA's Silver Line Extension to Dulles, and the Honolulu Rapid Transit project; but, both of those seem like outliers or otherwise not ideal for comparisons: the Silver Line is something like $6.3 billion for 21 miles (I think), which would be a $315 million cost per mile (cheaper than GLX), and HART seems like a mess to untangle in order to estimate but my initial read points to $4.8 billion for 15 miles so far, which comes out to basically the same cost of $320 million per mile. (The remaining section is only 5 miles but through the urban core and apparently is estimated at $8 billion, for $1.6 billion per mile.)

Both WMATA and HART have avoided building in a built-up urban space so far: the Silver Line was built largely in an interstate median, and HART has been built primarily above the grassy median of six-lane stroads. On the other hand, the corridor in question for my proposal also is modestly underbuilt for an urban space. So maybe it's reasonable to suggest that the cost-per-mile would be comparable to GLX's ~$500 million per mile?

Any other projects in North America (or Western Europe, though we know those costs often are not apples to apples) that are building/have recently built modern elevateds?

 

[Charlie_mta]

As shown on this Google map, I would connect a a two-track revenue service LRV surface line on the RKG to the existing GL at its portal on Martha Rd. Each track of the new 2-track surface LRV line would straddle the portal to connect to the GL. As I measured it on Google Earth, I think there's enough room to fit in the westbound leg of the new LRV line between the existing WB portal wall and the Expressway ramp. Then the surface LRV 2-track line would continue on a reservation carved out of the overly wide Merrimac St, and tie into the RKG as shown on the map. It would then continue to South Station, ideally dipping down into a portal somewhere north of S Station to tie into the existing Silverline tunnel (in which LRV would continue south and west as discussed on other threads here on AB),
Here's a screenshot of the Google map also, showing the route:

 

[Brattle Loop]

I would connect a a two-track revenue service LRV surface line on the RKG to the existing GL at its portal on Martha Rd. Each track of the new 2-track surface LRV line would straddle the portal to connect to the GL.

Hard to tell if there's enough room to shiv tracks in there at all (particularly on the outbound side where the existing GL is about at its closest to the Leverett onramps). Given that we'd be talking about a junction on or adjacent to one of the steepest inclines on the GL, I think it'd be operationally tricky; they'd definitely be likely to make that thing even slower than it is now. And while I'd agree that some of those streets have spare width that doesn't need to be traffic lanes, running through those big intersections (especially Causeway) is going to tank the schedule reliability of this thing at certain times.

. It would then continue to South Station, ideally dipping down into a portal somewhere north of S Station to tie into the existing Silverline tunnel (in which LRV would continue south and west as discussed on other threads here on AB),

The Transitway is under buildings north of the Federal Reserve, and under Atlantic south of there, so at least one lane's going to have to be sacrificed (and having spent too long sitting in traffic in the horror show that is Dewey Square, I don't relish that thought). More problematically, the Transitway runs the opposite direction. LRVs running southbound off the Greenway into this tunnel would be heading for the loop near Essex Street, they couldn't get anywhere else without a boomerang through the loop to the Seaport. And if we're talking a scenario where the Green Line has been connected to the Transitway in line with other proposals in this thread, this line becomes particularly redundant.

I'll reiterate my previous commentary on other suggestions for Greenway LRT: I don't think it's viable as a transit option, but could well see utility as a tourist option. But as a load-bearing element of the Green Line, no, I don't think that'd work.

 

[Charlie_mta]

More problematically, the Transitway runs the opposite direction. LRVs running southbound off the Greenway into this tunnel would be heading for the loop near Essex Street, they couldn't get anywhere else without a boomerang through the loop to the Seaport.

The surface LRV line would ramp down to the existing busway tunnel in an alignment aimed at the Essex Street loop (at South Station). Ideally that existing busway tunnel would carry the new LRV line and be extended south and west toward a connection with the Green Line system south of Copley Square or elsewhere as previously discussed on AB. The intent is not to route the RKG LRV line toward the Seaport. I'll get out my old Big Dig plans when I have time and see if a portal to the existing busway tunnel somewhere north of the South Station area is physically possible. As for a surface LRV line on the RKG, yes, it will impact vehicular traffic, especially at the on/off ramps to the Central Artery, and it would eat one lane in each direction of the surface road as well. But, again, priorities. Is the RKG to be hard-wired for cars only, or can some of that traffic capacity be sacrificed for transit? I would vote for the latter.