Teban54
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I have more to say on the ongoing discussion about Urban Ring routings and objectives (those comments will take anywhere between minutes and weeks), but I wanted to post this one last piece about my "Binney & Gilmore" proposal:
Turns out, I may have overthought the part north of Lechmere. There seems to be a surprisingly easy way to build a flying junction that ties the Kendall-Binney-Land viaduct directly into Lechmere GLX:
Basically, shift the current eastbound GLX track outward, with a split into southbound Kendall track. Northbound Kendall track flies over the EB track, and descends onto the original EB track before joining the westbound GLX track. You may need to take some space on McGrath to expand the viaduct, but it should be doable (e.g. by moving the bike lane and sidewalk underneath the viaduct).
This is basically a "harmonized" proposal that runs directly to Lechmere. From there, the easiest way to reach Sullivan is likely through the unbuilt yard lead at Brickbottom to the northern half of Grand Junction, essentially creating a Sullivan-Lechmere connection. There are some challenges with that, but it's nowhere near as complex if you don't need connections to Union Square and Kendall-bound Grand Junction. It should be quite doable without any tunnels: I may sketch it out another day or find some old posts about it.
In addition to having a same-platform transfer for all GLX riders, this alignment offers great flexibility and allows many potential service patterns (though whether you want to run them is another question):
This flying junction doesn't preclude Urban Ring from going further north via Gilmore Bridge if needed. For example, you can still do a deinterlined build to Sullivan via Gilmore (possibly as a later phase to increase capacity), but leave this flying junction as a non-revenue connection. Or you can run a streetcar branch into Charlestown.
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Some quick replies:
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One piece that I do want to bring up now regarding Urban Ring.
For the moment, forget about ROWs and suppose you can build TBM tunnels anywhere without cost concerns, for either Urban Ring or other pieces of the rapid transit network. In other words, you're simply drawing a crayon map by connecting the dots.
Then... What should the goal of Urban Ring be?
I think one important function of the Urban Ring should be to reduce transfers downtown and thus free up capacity there. For this to function well, 2-seat-rides vs 3-seat-rides will be significant. A Malden resident working at Kendall is much more likely to choose a Malden-Sullivan-Kendall ride via Urban Ring than Malden-DTX-Kendall. But if that Urban Ring ride becomes Malden-Sullivan-Central-Kendall or even Malden-Sullivan-Harvard-Kendall... Now distance itself matters much less, and it may not even be faster than DTX.
Btw, @TheRatmeister I do very much appreciate you bringing up the topic for discussion, even though I might have sounded a bit harsh in earlier replies.
Turns out, I may have overthought the part north of Lechmere. There seems to be a surprisingly easy way to build a flying junction that ties the Kendall-Binney-Land viaduct directly into Lechmere GLX:
Basically, shift the current eastbound GLX track outward, with a split into southbound Kendall track. Northbound Kendall track flies over the EB track, and descends onto the original EB track before joining the westbound GLX track. You may need to take some space on McGrath to expand the viaduct, but it should be doable (e.g. by moving the bike lane and sidewalk underneath the viaduct).
This is basically a "harmonized" proposal that runs directly to Lechmere. From there, the easiest way to reach Sullivan is likely through the unbuilt yard lead at Brickbottom to the northern half of Grand Junction, essentially creating a Sullivan-Lechmere connection. There are some challenges with that, but it's nowhere near as complex if you don't need connections to Union Square and Kendall-bound Grand Junction. It should be quite doable without any tunnels: I may sketch it out another day or find some old posts about it.
In addition to having a same-platform transfer for all GLX riders, this alignment offers great flexibility and allows many potential service patterns (though whether you want to run them is another question):
- Sullivan - Lechmere - Kendall, the standard Urban Ring service
- (Everett/Chelsea) - Sullivan - Lechmere - Downtown, a "wrap-around" branch if Everett and Chelsea residents prefer the OSR over an Orange Line transfer
- Medford/Tufts - Lechmere - Kendall, possibly a rush hour service if Somerville riders want an OSR to Kendall, and/or if GLX needs a capacity boost
This flying junction doesn't preclude Urban Ring from going further north via Gilmore Bridge if needed. For example, you can still do a deinterlined build to Sullivan via Gilmore (possibly as a later phase to increase capacity), but leave this flying junction as a non-revenue connection. Or you can run a streetcar branch into Charlestown.
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Some quick replies:
I was mostly thinking of the Fitchburg St alt, though I don't think the difference matters too much for the summary table. The harmonized alt should score better on operational flexibility and a little bit better on cost, but possibly worse on speed.(Actually, I just realized: are you assessing the Fitchburg St alt, or the "harmonized" alt?)
This is a well-acknowledged problem, but I believe it was pointed out that future developments at Readville Maintenance Facility (?) may remove the need to use Grand Junction for equipment moves, freeing up the ROW for rapid transit. I think F-Line or someone else mentioned it before, but can't find it now.As a side-note, I didn't mention the other major problem with using the Grand Junction, which is that now there isn't a (somewhat) good rail link between North Station and South Station for things like rolling stock transfers, which means that unless NSRL happens as far as I can tell any reuse of the alignment is dead in the water. If NSRL does happen, I think reusing the route as a busway/bike path/linear park actually makes more sense than rail service, as this is an area where feeding many local buses into enhanced local stops for the MIT campus and bajillion lab buildings nearby would make more sense then a couple consolidated stops.
View attachment 43948
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One piece that I do want to bring up now regarding Urban Ring.
For the moment, forget about ROWs and suppose you can build TBM tunnels anywhere without cost concerns, for either Urban Ring or other pieces of the rapid transit network. In other words, you're simply drawing a crayon map by connecting the dots.
Then... What should the goal of Urban Ring be?
- Connecting employment centers?
- Connecting residential areas?
- Is it to serve transit deserts and let them transfer to another radial line, or to give these residents OSR to somewhere else?
- Connecting existing transit hubs?
- Just simply giving a transfer to all (or most) radial lines?
- Trying to be competitive with a transfer in the downtown core?
- Or a mix of the above?
- If this is the case, how? How should we decide that workplace A deserves a direct connection to neighborhood B, but not workplace C to neighborhood D?
I think one important function of the Urban Ring should be to reduce transfers downtown and thus free up capacity there. For this to function well, 2-seat-rides vs 3-seat-rides will be significant. A Malden resident working at Kendall is much more likely to choose a Malden-Sullivan-Kendall ride via Urban Ring than Malden-DTX-Kendall. But if that Urban Ring ride becomes Malden-Sullivan-Central-Kendall or even Malden-Sullivan-Harvard-Kendall... Now distance itself matters much less, and it may not even be faster than DTX.
- Obviously, the same can be said to someone working at Harvard. But this exercise shows that you can't really do Kendall and Harvard on the same route.
Btw, @TheRatmeister I do very much appreciate you bringing up the topic for discussion, even though I might have sounded a bit harsh in earlier replies.
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