Crazy Transit Pitches

[JeffDowntown]

Ok

Agreed. I was referring only to the busway segment in Chelsea. The bridge is bad.

Busway segments in Chelsea are solid BRT. We need to extend them on to Everett.

 

[bigeman312]

Ok

Agreed. I was referring only to the busway segment in Chelsea. The bridge is bad.

We can certainly all agree that there are elements of BRT. None of the routes meet the internationally recognized BRT Standard, though. I defer to that standard, as it is quite sensible.

 

[JeffDowntown]

We can certainly all agree that there are elements of BRT. None of the routes meet the internationally recognized BRT Standard, though. I defer to that standard, as it is quite sensible.

We get handed the BRT crap in the US because too few Americans have actually experienced real BRT; with level boarding, actual stations, fare controlled protected waiting areas, fully dedicated ROW, etc. Most of our BRT is a rebranded bus.

 

[bigeman312]

We get handed the BRT crap in the US because too few Americans have actually experienced real BRT; with level boarding, actual stations, fare controlled protected waiting areas, fully dedicated ROW, etc. Most of our BRT is a rebranded bus.

True! It’s worth pointing out that Hartford has BRT, though. Hartford! (shame, shame, shame)

 

[MBTA DMA]

Ok

Agreed. I was referring only to the busway segment in Chelsea. The bridge is bad.

Unfortunately, that issue may never be eliminated.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Unfortunately, that issue may never be eliminated.

The only solutions for the SL crossing of Chelsea Creek would be either a tunnel, or a high-level bridge.

 

[Teban54]

True, BRT stands for Bus Rapid Transit. And the MBTA does claim that the Silver Line is BRT. That said, most people who understand what is meant by BRT would not so label the Silver Line. It fails on most tests of the definition.

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy evaluated the Silver Line in 2017 (Click for PDF of report) and concluded that it was not BRT, giving it a score of 37 points. You can argue that it is in fact BRT, and I'd be interested in seeing such a discussion, but the mere fact that the transit agency labels it as such, does not mean that it is. The label and words in the acronym do not define the service so much as the actual characteristics of the bus route.

Thanks for sharing this! The metrics for their "BRT score" is on Page 76. Here are a few notable features that Silver Line Waterfront as a whole lacks when the report was written:

• Bus lanes in central verge of the road (0/7)
• Off-vehicle fare collection (4/7)
• Physically-separated right-of-way (3/7)
• Platform-level boarding (0/5)
• Intersection treatments (signal priority, elimination of turns) (0/4)

Using the complete list of metrics, I myself would give the following scores to corridors that they did not examine: (the original study gave 37/100 for the full SL Waterfont system)

• SL Waterfront Transitway only: 65/100, Bronze-level BRT
  • Dedicated ROW, off-vehicle fare collection
  • No platform-level boarding, no signal priority at D St (I gave it 3/4 since it's the only signal)
• SL3 Chelsea only: 46/100, Not BRT
  • Dedicated ROW
  • No off-vehicle fare collection, no platform-level boarding, no signal priority
• SL3 full route: 42/100, Not BRT
  • Some dedicated ROW, some off-vehicle fare collection
  • No platform-level boarding, no signal priority
• Green Line surface branches in dedicated medians (B, C, E east of Brigham): 54/100, "Bronze-level BRT"
  • Dedicated ROW
  • No off-vehicle fare collection, no signal priority
  • Platform-level boarding is a mixed bag due to many inaccessible stations

In general, I feel that their criteria were designed with street-running BRT in road medians in mind, and many rubric items do not fit well to a BRT tunnel. Some items were also setting too high of a standard (e.g. express and local services), while others (platforms should be offset from intersections) are emerging learning points from recent years that do not bode well to legacy systems like the Green Line.

That being said, there's clearly a lot of room for improvement, as seen from how even SL3 in Chelsea didn't hit the bronze level (50 pts) and how even the Green Line surface branches barely made the cut.

I think some of the biggest areas of improvement (for both SL and GL) are:

• Signal priority
• Off-vehicle fare collection
• Platform-level boarding (high platforms that allow buses to get close enough to eliminate gaps)
• Pedestrian-friendliness at both the station and its surrounding areas (wide stations with canopies, pedestrian and bicycle access to station)
  • BRT should be seen as an opportunity to improve the whole corridor for non-car travels

Spoiler: Detailed scores

	SL full system, ITDP 2017 (reference)	SL Waterfront Transitway only	SL3 Chelsea only	SL3 full route	Green Line surface branches (B/C/E east of Brigham)
Total	37	65	46	42	54
BRT Standard	Not BRT	Bronze	Not BRT	Not BRT	Bronze
Center bus lanes (7 pts)	0	7	7	3 (I feel the initial 0 is too harsh for fully dedicated ROWs)	7
Off-vehicle fare collection (7 pts)	4	6 (Silver Line Way)	0	4	0 (at surface stations)
Physically-separated ROW (7 pts)	3	7	7	3	7
Platform-level boarding (5 pts)	0	0	0	0	3
3+ door buses (4 pts)	4	4	4	4	4
Intersection treatments (eliminating left turns, signal priority) (4 pts)	0	3 (no signal priority at D St, but otherwise grade-separated)	0	0	0
Multiple routes use same infrastructure (4 pts)	2 (before new SL3)	3 (after SL3)	0	0	0
Peak frequency (4 pts)	3	3	1	1	2
Physically separated passing lanes at stops (4 pts)	0	0	0	0	0 (but not very applicable here)
Routes in top 10 demand corridors (4 pts)	2	2	1	1	4
Branding (3 pts)	3	3	3	3	3
Integrated fare collection with other modes (3 pts)	2	2	2	2	3
Limited and local stop services (3 pts)	0	0	0	0	0
Multiple docking bays and sub-stops (3 pts)	0	1 (South Station)	0	0	0
Off-peak frequency (3 pts)	1	3	1	1	2
Part of network (3 pts)	3	3	3	3	3
Performance-based contracting for operators (3 pts)	0	0	0	0	0
Safe, wide, weather-protected stations with artwork (3 pts)	1	2 (SLW not fully weather protected)	3	2	1 (many surface stops need improvement)
Stations occupy former road/median space (3 pts)	1	3	3	3	3
Stations set back from intersections (3 pts)	0	3 (again, the initial 0 is too harsh for Transitway)	2 (Bellingham Square outbound, and to a lesser extent Chelsea, don't meet requirement)	2	1
Bicycle lanes in corridor (2 pts)	0	0	1 (Chelsea Greenway)	1	1
Bicycle sharing systems at BRT stations (2 pts)	0	0	0	0	0
Enforcement of ROW (2 pts)	0	2	1	1	2
Pedestrian access and corridor environment (2 pts)	1	1	1	1	1
Operates late nights and weekends (2 pts)	1 (why??)	2	2	2	2
Control system (2 pts)	2	2	2	2	2
Passenger information (2 pts)	2	2	2	2	2
Peak-period pricing (2 pts)	0	0	0	0	0
Secure bicycle parking (2 pts)	1	1	0	1	1
Stations are in center and shared by both directions of service (2 pts)	0	0	0	0	0

 

[JeffDowntown]

The best BRT systems I have seen go one step further and break the level-boarding, fare controlled platform into two sections. The bus pulls into the first exit platform and allows passengers to exit; then pulls forward to the second boarding platform to allow new passengers to board. The split function dramatically shortens the in-station dwell time, particularly since bus boarding is awkward at best (limited aisle space compared to heavy rail, for example).

 

[Riverside]

I've been continuing to refine my ideas for southside circumferential service. Unlike the northside, where there is an uninterrupted ROW running 7 miles all the way from Chelsea to BU, there's no such luck on the southside. Something similar -- say, a 6 mile route going Harvard <> Longwood <> JFK/UMass -- would either require enormously massive tunneling, or would need to contend with so many traffic lights as to be impractical.

So, instead of trying to create a single service stretching across the southern half of the ring, I've been experimenting with breaking it up into shorter segments.

J: A Grand Junction service running to West Station; intended to provide a Porter-like transfer for Worcester Line commuters to reach Kendall without going downtown

K: A Grand Junction service running to BU and Brookline Village, with a new infill near Netherlands Road to provide additional access to Longwood

H: The third leg of the BU Bridge Aldgate Junction, running from Harvard through Allston following F-Line's proposed alignment, interlining with both Gold branches to the portal at Fenway, cutting across the northern boundary of the LMA, and wrapping things up with a transitway on Ruggles St; running as a single service on 5-6 min frequencies, it should be more tractable to implement priority signaling on the surface segments, and the short route is designed to keep reliability high

(I've shown the H & K using a Mass Pike alignment, but have indicated a Brookline Ave alignment as an alternative. Same thing with Blue-to-Kenmore/West Station.)

M: A very short surface route, pinging back and forth between Longwood Medical Area and Boston University Medical Center via the current Green Line reservation on Huntington, the aforementioned Ruggles St transitway, and center lanes on Melnea Cass Blvd. This one looks good on paper, but I'm a little skeptical of how much it would actually accomplish (see discussion of Dorchester routes below)

W: building off a subway to Nubian via I-93, this route then snakes into the old streetcar station at Broadway before using Track 61 to reach the Seaport; this one I go back and forth on, but the reasons for it are, 1) to provide a fast connection between the Seaport and Nubian, and 2) to tacitly build a Phase 1 subway for an eventual Longwood <> Nubian <> Seaport subway -- with a route on Track 61 + the I-93 subway, you're more than halfway there; among the downsides though, as @Teban54 has pointed out recently, is that the Seaport job center is closer to Courthouse station than WTC. So, many commuters will need to do a W > Q/R transfer to go that one stop, which raises the question of what advantages the W has over a G > Q/R transfer at Tremont (Bay Village) station. I include it here for completeness, but like I said, I go back and forth

Dorchester routes: not mapped in this specific screenshot, but very much present, are the network of high-freq bus routes radiating out from Longwood into Dorchester. I've struggled with the best way to map these, but, one way or another, there are going to be transit vehicles running every 2 minutes between Nubian, the Orange Line, and Longwood. This will create challenges and will need solutions in their own right. But one way or another, the question of getting from Nubian to Longwood is one that will need to be solved for these routes, so I have not prioritized creating a standalone service for that -- I'd rather focus efforts on enabling proper a Dorchester <> Longwood OSR than simply forcing another transfer.

(And yes, I've been playing around with the BRT routes through the Seaport. Yes, the Silver Line is entirely surface-running, along Congress St bus lanes, plus a recombination of today's SL4/SL5 loops, yes this seems like a bad idea the more I think about it, and yes the labels are wrong -- it should be SL1 [South Station - Airport], SL2 [Boylston - Design Center], SL3 [South Station - Chelsea] -- and yes this emerges almost entirely from a perfectionist impulse to provide a two-seat ride between Kenmore and the Seaport.)

 

[king_vibe]

Weird to be hostile and wrong at the same time, you really think that the Silver Line isn't rapid transit? Can you spell out BRT and get back to us on that

There is no definition of BRT which also includes the “Silver Line.”

 

[Justbuildit]

South station to silver line way, all 3 stops, is a fine BRT system. Both people with that daily commute are very happy.

 

[Teban54]

I've been continuing to refine my ideas for southside circumferential service. Unlike the northside, where there is an uninterrupted ROW running 7 miles all the way from Chelsea to BU, there's no such luck on the southside. Something similar -- say, a 6 mile route going Harvard <> Longwood <> JFK/UMass -- would either require enormously massive tunneling, or would need to contend with so many traffic lights as to be impractical.

A few points I wanted to add to this (some of which were already discussed with @Riverside earlier).

Ruggles-Nubian
Many of us, including myself, have long thought that a subway that connects the Ruggles vicinity to the Nubian vicinity either has to be a bored tunnel, or needs to take a zigzag route (e.g. via Tremont and Malcolm X), or has to miss one of the two important nodes. But surprisingly, a cut-and-cover subway may be plausible:

The route requires temporarily tearing up the tracks at Madison Park, but otherwise seems to have no major issues on the surface, as it goes through Whittier St (with only a single point abutting buildings on both sides currently) and parking lots. The route stays away from backyards and seas of tall buildings. Distance wise, it's not significantly more roundabout than a straight-line TBM tunnel, if at all.

Of course, underground utilities can be tricky (so TBM may end up being cheaper), but at least there's potential.

The next question is: what do we want to use the tunnel for?

Dorchester routes: not mapped in this specific screenshot, but very much present, are the network of high-freq bus routes radiating out from Longwood into Dorchester. I've struggled with the best way to map these, but, one way or another, there are going to be transit vehicles running every 2 minutes between Nubian, the Orange Line, and Longwood. This will create challenges and will need solutions in their own right. But one way or another, the question of getting from Nubian to Longwood is one that will need to be solved for these routes, so I have not prioritized creating a standalone service for that -- I'd rather focus efforts on enabling proper a Dorchester <> Longwood OSR than simply forcing another transfer.

So there are strong arguments for a bus tunnel from Nubian to LMA (or just short of there), that branches out to surface portals east of Nubian (e.g. via the T23/T28 corridor and the T15 corridor), preferably with a turnback loop at Nubian for T47 and T66. This gets you the best of both worlds for Dorchester residents working in Longwood: a one-seat ride, and avoiding surface traffic as much as possible, especially considering the impacts of a 2-min-freq bus corridor.

The main argument against it, if any, is that the huge expenses of tunneling (even with C&C) need to be justified, and I'm not sure if using it for buses instead of rapid transit is the best way to frame it. Obviously, a double-deck, quad-"track" Ruggles-Nubian tunnel for both buses and LRT/HRT is the best, but in the event that it's too expensive and we have to pick one, I feel* that a tunnel aiming for regional connections (that still allows a quick transfer for Nubian bus riders) may have better value than a "modernized local streetcar network with a Central Subway-equivalent". Also, while a tunnel to Ruggles/LMA is obviously the best for buses, it can be argued that dedicated bus lanes on Malcolm X and/or Melnea Cass may be good enough, especially when you can't continue the tunnel into LMA proper without huge expenses. Politically, giving wealthy Cambridge/Somerville rapid transit for Urban Ring while leaving historically underserved Dorchester with a bus network also sounds problematic.

* Not set in stone - see below:

Is splitting up the "Urban Ring" a problem?
I plan to do a more systematic analysis with travel time data for the entire ring, but for now, my conjecture is: Breaking it up at Nubian isn't a huge problem in a GL Reconfiguration world, but breaking it up at Ruggles/LMA may be.

Any demand on a circumferential route from LMA and Ruggles (incl. Regional Rail) towards the east will probably only go as far as BMC, or at most Southie. Not South Station or Seaport - that's for Huntington subway. So a Nubian-Seaport service (your W) can be worthwhile, but that route doesn't need to go beyond Nubian. (Ruggles-BMC can also be handled via surface routes given the relatively smaller size of BMC; so does Southie-LMA given the road network.)

However, Nubian has demand for points northwest of LMA, such as BU/Kenmore, Kendall and Harvard. This part depends a lot more on the exact configuration of these services, such as whether a cross-LMA tunnel is built and whether the Charles River crossing uses BU Bridge or possibly a new tunnel. But [in the event that a through-running circumferential service from Cambridge somehow ends up getting to Ruggles], it seems like a waste to not let it go further to Nubian -- and an exclusive Ruggles-Nubian subway disrupts that.

If [] is not satisfied, then I have much less issues with separate Cambridge-LMA and Nubian-LMA services, with a surface bus or LRT route for Nubian-Ruggles-Kendall via Harvard Bridge.


(Continued below...)

 

[Teban54]

Nubian-Seaport

W: building off a subway to Nubian via I-93, this route then snakes into the old streetcar station at Broadway before using Track 61 to reach the Seaport; this one I go back and forth on, but the reasons for it are, 1) to provide a fast connection between the Seaport and Nubian, and 2) to tacitly build a Phase 1 subway for an eventual Longwood <> Nubian <> Seaport subway -- with a route on Track 61 + the I-93 subway, you're more than halfway there; among the downsides though, as @Teban54 has pointed out recently, is that the Seaport job center is closer to Courthouse station than WTC. So, many commuters will need to do a W > Q/R transfer to go that one stop, which raises the question of what advantages the W has over a G > Q/R transfer at Tremont (Bay Village) station. I include it here for completeness, but like I said, I go back and forth

Assuming you're already building a Nubian-downtown subway, a Nubian-Seaport connection generally chooses one of the following:

1. via South Station (sharing tunnels with the Nubian-downtown subway)
2. via Broadway (partially sharing tunnels)
3. via Andrew and South Boston

In this comment, I'll largely ignore 3 for reasons that I'm happy to explain separately. Between 1 and 2, South Station is the bigger fish. While Broadway does allow better connections to Southie buses*, it misses out on Regional Rail, parts of the Financial District (as an additional Nubian-FiDi connection), and Courthouse.
* This can be mitigated with a station at E Berkeley St for transfers to the T9 and 11 buses (and possible future South Boston streetcar).

So I started looking into a Nubian-South Station-Seaport Transitway connection... TL;DR: Not very encouraging in terms of engineering and political feasibility, though I do have a proposal that may work.

First, suppose the Nubian-downtown subway runs under Herald St, I-93 and Albany St or Melnea Cass (discussion for a Nubian subway starting here, Albany St/I-93 proposal starting here). In theory, to add a Seaport lag, we want to build something like this, which I'll call the "Albany Wye" (even though it's not actually a wye):

But the problems are pretty obvious: The black line is in an area with Northeast Corridor and the Pike at the surface, a spaghetti of highway ramps above, and future NSRL portal below (which starts between Shawmut and Washington). Even if you're willing to TBM, you must dig even deeper than the NSRL tunnel, not to mention it eliminates potential benefits of a C&C Nubian subway (where would the launching pit even be?).

The only way I could make this remotely work is by running the rail ROW alongside Albany St at the same level, while either putting Albany St (south of Herald) on a road diet, or modifying the southbound on-ramp to start later and/or be steeper. Terrible drawing here, not to scale:

The point where Albany St starts rising is shown here. The idea is to let the rail ROW "slide out" from under I-93 to Albany north of that point, and move the on-ramp to start to its south. So it may be engineeringly feasible... But whether it's politically feasible to reduce road space for Albany and the on-ramp at this block is another question.

In case that's not feasible, another option for a crossing above the Pike is a viaduct over Harrison Ave:

The section of Harrison Ave immediately south of Herald St is not as constrained as Albany St is (due to the I-93 traffic), and is wide enough to support a short viaduct. But you run into arguably more troubles:

• The rail bridge needs to go higher than the Albany alternative to avoid a grade crossing, so vertical clearance at both ends are tight. To the north, you need to go below the I-93 tunnel; to the south, you need to be underground before E Berkeley St where road width starts to get really tight. Even if the grades are fine, I'm worried they'll still be too steep like Science Park-North Station.
• Political feasibility of a Harrison Ave El (even a short one) and portal, obviously.
• And most importantly, how do you even get on Harrison in the first place?
  • Having the entire Nubian-downtown subway use Harrison may not be easy (even though I once argued it gives a better route than either Washington or I-93), because the street south of E Berkeley is narrow with many abutting buildings, and a C&C subway will have a hard time turning onto Herald (tight turn with tall buildings) or crossing the Pike (due to NSRL tunnels).
  • Or you can have the downtown-bound subway continue on I-93 and Herald, while the Seaport-bound wye turn onto Harrison, as shown below. This still requires maneuvering the Harrison/E Berkeley junction, which is tight with buildings in all four corners. A minimal 82' radius may be just enough to fit, but still not great.

A major appeal of a Nubian subway, in addition to or in place of a surface streetcar branch, is its ability to combine both a radial Nubian-downtown route and a circumferential Nubian-Seaport route into a single tunnel, while still leaving possibilities of C&C open. But unless my first proposal actually works (which I really hope), the "last-mile" problem to South Station may compromise at least one of these two benefits.

Of course, the South Station routing undeniably has other benefits as mentioned above, and the other two routings have their own engineering challenges.

 

[TheRatmeister]

1. via South Station (sharing tunnels with the Nubian-downtown subway)
2. via Broadway (partially sharing tunnels)
3. via Andrew and South Boston

In this comment, I'll largely ignore 3 for reasons that I'm happy to explain separately. Between 1 and 2, South Station is the bigger fish. While Broadway does allow better connections to Southie buses*, it misses out on Regional Rail, parts of the Financial District (as an additional Nubian-FiDi connection), and Courthouse.

Assuming the GL Reconfig also exists to allow for services running from SLW to Nubian along Washington St, I'm really not sure an additional connection is needed between those two specific points since regional rail connections would be almost as good with an infill station at Widett Circle. I don't think Courthouse is an issue either. I think it's reasonably safe to say that the easiest route between Nubian and Seaport would be under Melnea Cass, across Widett Circle on a viaduct, and then either replacing, running alongside, or running under the South Boston Bypass. Assuming we want to cross the harbor to connect with the airport, we'll need a deep level tunnel anyways, so descending to a deeper station under Courthouse and then under the harbor is not unreasonable. The main drawback here is that the connection to the RL at Broadway wouldn't be super great. Not the worst thing in the world, likely similar in length to the Winter St Concourse, but certainly not ideal.

In terms of the C&C Nubian-Ruggles route, what kind of curve radius are we looking at under Madison Park? I would definitely utilities remain a major concern though, especially since this is one of the older parts of Boston.

 

[Charlie_mta]

In terms of the C&C Nubian-Ruggles route, what kind of curve radius are we looking at under Madison Park?

Lots of room there to increase the radius with a slight reverse curve under the park (see yellow line):

 

[TheRatmeister]

Lots of room there to increase the radius with a slight reverse curve under the park (see yellow line):

View attachment 44738

I'd still be curious to know the radius on the other curve, but you're right that one isn't really a problem when the land is a field.

 

[Charlie_mta]

I'd still be curious to know the radius on the other curve....

It shouldn't be too sharp if you cut into the parking lot at the NW corner of Harrison Av and Dudley St.

 

[TheRatmeister]

It shouldn't be too sharp if you cut into the parking lot at the NW corner of Harrison Av and Dudley St.

You're right I just like numbers.

 

[Teban54]

Assuming the GL Reconfig also exists to allow for services running from SLW to Nubian along Washington St,

There seems to be a few disconnects in your comment that may have resulted from a lack of clarity of what "GL Reconfiguration" means. That will become much clearer in a month once I make a map dedicated to it (if things go well), but the key ideas have been included in Riverside's map above: a Huntington-Seaport subway and reusing the Pleasant St incline for Huntington and Nubian services.

So those proposals do not allow a one-seat ride from Seaport to Nubian, as they're also incompatible with the old SL Phase 3 (which is problematic in itself and requires destroying the Pleasant St incline). A 2-seat ride via a Bay Village transfer should be possible, though.

I'm really not sure an additional connection is needed between those two specific points since regional rail connections would be almost as good with an infill station at Widett Circle.

Regional rail doesn't get close to Nubian, and I don't think Widett Circle serves as a viable substitute at all (not to mention interference with NSRL portals). Points south of Nubian into the catchment areas of bus routes, possibly.

You did raise a good point about why, or whether, a Nubian-Seaport connection is needed in the first place. Indeed, it serves a very specific end-to-end market (e.g. for Seaport employees and shoppers), with possible added benefit from Nubian-South Station or Southie-Nubian-(LMA?) that are nice but not crucial. It's probably one of the weakest quadrants of a circumferential route, primarily due to geographical reasons.

Aside from the crayonist perfection to have a "ring" in every quadrant, the reason why I myself started looking into it is: (1) once you build the full GL Reconfiguration (green and magenta lines in my post), the geographical distance between them is minimal, so you'd expect little additional cost (or so it seems); and (2) it also helps boost frequency on both the Nubian subway and the Seaport Transitway, both of which are limited by reverse branching at Bay Village.

I don't think Courthouse is an issue either. I think it's reasonably safe to say that the easiest route between Nubian and Seaport would be under Melnea Cass, across Widett Circle on a viaduct, and then either replacing, running alongside, or running under the South Boston Bypass.

You're right that it's the easiest route for this specific purpose in a vacuum. The main benefit of my proposal is that it's basically reusing an Albany/I-93 subway which is itself a radial route to Nubian, instead of creating two routes. The Nubian subway is a good project alone with benefits discussed in the links above. I was mostly thinking of Nubian-Seaport as the icing on the cake.

Assuming we want to cross the harbor to connect with the airport, we'll need a deep level tunnel anyways, so descending to a deeper station under Courthouse and then under the harbor is not unreasonable. The main drawback here is that the connection to the RL at Broadway wouldn't be super great. Not the worst thing in the world, likely similar in length to the Winter St Concourse, but certainly not ideal.

I'll just say that I'm skeptical about a deep bored transit tunnel to Logan materializing in our lives. The fact that that third Ted Williams bore didn't happen likely means the ship has sailed for 1-2 generations, and unlike stuff like NSRL, BLX to Lynn and rapid transit to Nubian, people aren't even talking about it anymore. The absolute lack of willingness to improve SL1, such as no followups on the state police ramp, no T-under-D and no transit priority (in the Ted or at the D St signal) further exacerbate the point.

Not to mention the distance from Logan to Seaport is actually quite far. Even with the willingness, there are other TBM tunnels at similar length that will net you far better utility, such as NSRL or the LMA section of the ring (you can basically do a cross-Longwood subway and a river crossing with that budget).

I'd even say I'm skeptical of significant deep bored transit tunnels in greater Boston beyond NSRL happening at all (especially if C&C with utility relocations can be under control), but that's for another day.

In the event that a transit bore to Logan does happen, though, I'd still prefer it to extend from the existing Seaport Transitway tunnel roughly parallel to the Ted. The main reason is that it allows OSRs from Logan Terminals (!) to South Station (crucial), Back Bay (huge) and LMA (also huge) in a GL Reconfiguration world.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Regional rail doesn't get close to Nubian, and I don't think Widett Circle serves as a viable substitute at all (not to mention interference with NSRL portals). Points south of Nubian into the catchment areas of bus routes, possibly.

I'm referring to the debate of Broadway vs South Station here. I understood your point arguing for South Station over Broadway to be that the line would connect with all regional rail routes (Assuming NSRL). My counterpoint is that with a RR infill station at Widett Circle, a line from Ruggles to Broadway would also connect with almost all, or with an extension to Kenmore/Lansdowne all of, the lines as well, essentially negating the advantages of a link to South Station for this purpose.

The main benefit of my proposal is that it's basically reusing an Albany/I-93 subway which is itself a radial route to Nubian, instead of creating two routes. The Nubian subway is a good project alone with benefits discussed in the links above. I was mostly thinking of Nubian-Seaport as the icing on the cake.

With the exception of some of SoWa, the Broadway-Nubian route serves basically the same areas. The only people who would see a difference would be those who are starting/ending a journey at South Station already, but for those people a light rail line along Washington St would serve them. I don't think a line along Albany/93 is a substitute for a line along the Washington St corridor, nor is a line to Broadway and Seaport. Given this, it seems silly to build two essentially parallel routes, except one has a much worse walkshed due to its location along 93, that would have to share traffic between them, as opposed to a pair of lines serving somewhat different groups of people.

I'll just say that I'm skeptical about a deep bored transit tunnel to Logan materializing in our lives. The fact that that third Ted Williams bore didn't happen likely means the ship has sailed for 1-2 generations, and unlike stuff like NSRL, BLX to Lynn and rapid transit to Nubian, people aren't even talking about it anymore. The absolute lack of willingness to improve SL1, such as no followups on the state police ramp, no T-under-D and no transit priority (in the Ted or at the D St signal) further exacerbate the point.

I think ultimately it's dependent on Massport, the people-mover proposal, and Logan's future (Or not) as a hub airport for airlines like Delta. I think it's fairly clear that Logan is growing a fair bit at the moment, and I think it's clear to everyone that new ground transportation options will be necessary in the future to facilitate this growth. Given the airports somewhat messy layout and the location of the blue line station, a new tunnel and direct subway connection should at the very least be considered as an alternative. But given the number of conditions (and costs)...

You did raise a good point about why, or whether, a Nubian-Seaport connection is needed in the first place. Indeed, it serves a very specific end-to-end market (e.g. for Seaport employees and shoppers), with possible added benefit from Nubian-South Station or Southie-Nubian-(LMA?) that are nice but not crucial. It's probably one of the weakest quadrants of a circumferential route, primarily due to geographical reasons.

Maybe the Seaport connection should be bundled into this further future cross-harbor tunnel, and the line should just terminate at Broadway in the meantime. Even a line just from Broadway to Longwood would no doubt be incredibly useful to a lot of people.