General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[bbfen]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=milk+...-nyj7aqLYR4v16m8GHTBA&cbp=12,301.74,,0,-30.93

Brilliant.

 

[jass]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Umm ... buildings in existing median? Do you realize how narrow it is?

Ron, by combining the express/local lanes, the center median will expand (because the divider between those roads will be removed). The T being underground means all that infrastructure also goes away.

More than enough space for a series of buildings, with roads on each side.

 

[jass]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Ron, by combining the express/local lanes, the center median will expand (because the divider between those roads will be removed). The T being underground means all that infrastructure also goes away.

More than enough space for a series of buildings, with roads on each side.

here you go ron, there is too MUCH space currently. The existing median is 100% dead space. Useless grass.

Black = new building. Note it is actually larger than those on the north side of the road.

Gray = road. Enough room for 2 lanes each way + parking (I didnt paint the parking because MS paint makes life difficult)

White = sidewalk + green space. Again, I wasnt about to draw in the trees.

 

[Lurker]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

You do realize that the entire stretch of Commonwealth Avenue is intended to be parkway even though that the 'park' part of it hasn't really ever gotten much further than a few Olmsted drawings? Having a lovely mall from B.C. to the Public Garden would do wonders for most of Brighton. Assuming access to the Green Line, via underground tunnels, was maintained of course.

 

[jass]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

You do realize that the entire stretch of Commonwealth Avenue is intended to be parkway even though that the 'park' part of it hasn't really ever gotten much further than a few Olmsted drawings? Having a lovely mall from B.C. to the Public Garden would do wonders for most of Brighton. Assuming access to the Green Line, via underground tunnels, was maintained of course.

I think making it a city would do better. Nobody uses stupid green medians like that. Look at memorial drive.

If you scroll around, youll note that in many places, the median is replaced with angled parking anyway. Its just a giant mass of asphalt.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Building on the median of Comm Ave is an idea up there with tearing down Penn Station.

 

[omaja]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Yeah there needs to be more, better-landscaped green space along that entire corridor, not less.

 

[jass]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Have you folks ever been to this section of comm ave....?

Im talking about replacing this

And this

with more of this

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

K so the T needs to find a better time to weed whack the T-median on Huntington. 1:40 AM doesn't cut it. Wtf.

 

[statler]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

It could also be replaced with more of this:

Neither idea would be objectionable to me

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

It could also be replaced with more of this:

Neither idea would be objectionable to me

It will never be as successful as this section of Comm Ave in the Back Bay, though. So it's really just "Ohhh, well... it LOOKS pretty..." since as it is, I generally don't find crowds strolling down the Comm Ave Mall.

 

[metasyntactic]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I don't think this has been posted here yet:

MBTA seeks naming rights ride
Takes step toward bidding on stations, transit lines, Web site

By Thomas Grillo
Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The MBTA wants Corporate America to come aboard.

“Our goal is to find as many opportunities that we can to raise revenue to close our budget gap without raising fares,” MBTA General Manager Richard Davey said of plans to sell naming rights to T properties.

Tomorrow is the deadline for consultants to respond to an MBTA request for proposals to sell naming rights for everything from the lines and stations of its subway, bus and commuter rail systems to its Web site and Charlie Cards. So far, 88 consultants have shown interest.

The MBTA is trying to close a budget gap for fiscal year 2013 that is expected to exceed $137 million. T officials are seeking a consultant to determine the feasibility of putting sponsors’ names on its assets and the revenue it could generate for the nation’s oldest subway system.

Davey said he hopes to raise about $250,000 through naming rights.

“That’s the kind of money that we could use to either help close our gap or to improve information on the subway or other creative customer information pieces we have,” he said.

Naming rights are the T’s latest attempt to raise money. It recently launched a Web site offering $22 T-shirts, flip flops for $25, mugs at $13 and a transit token bracelet for $150.

Darlene Lambos, executive director of Community Labor United, a Boston-based advocacy group, praised Davey for thinking outside the box.

“I commend the general manger for devising creative solutions that don’t involve fare hikes,” she said.

While every station is up for grabs, Davey said about a dozen of the most popular will get the most interest, including Park Street, Government Center, Downtown Crossing, Alewife, Harvard, Braintree, Back Bay, Copley, Kenmore, Fenway and Riverside.

The original station names will still be part of the new name, Davey said. “We don’t want to confuse our customers,” he said. “Or have people asking what happened to Alewife?”

Also, on today's Red Line...

Passengers evacuated after MTBA train breakdown

Associated Press

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Dozens of passengers are being evacuated from two six-car trains on the MBTA's Red Line in Cambridge after being stuck on the underground track for about two hours.

MBTA spokeswoman Lydia Rivera the lead train broke down Tuesday morning in the outbound tunnel between Porter Square and Harvard stations. Passengers were escorted to nearby Porter Square.

She did not immediately know how many passengers were involved. No injuries have been reported.

Rivera said the MBTA is busing between Harvard and Alewife stations while power is shut off to the third rail for the evacuation. She said MBTA workers were towing the disabled train out of service.

 

[ant8904]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

It will never be as successful as this section of Comm Ave in the Back Bay, though. So it's really just "Ohhh, well... it LOOKS pretty..." since as it is, I generally don't find crowds strolling down the Comm Ave Mall.

That picture looks about the average utilization of the Comm Ave Mall. I don't mind that is extended to Packard's Corner. Putting the entire line underground would be difficult with the highway and water-table.

Personally, I think the best idea would be the an underground Heavy rail tunnel from Kenmore to Watertown via 57 (or the former A-line) route would be ideal. The above can stay as is as a local line. Of course, when I mention the Heavy rail, I would also like to see the Blue line extend through Charles MGH and down to Kemore and split with taking the D-line route and A-line route.

 

[found5dollar]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

where was it on here that someone posted a map of the T with renamed stations, complete with "Riverside" becoming "Six Flags"?

 

[omaja]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Have you folks ever been to this section of comm
ave....?

...I live right off Comm Ave.

Im talking about replacing this

And this

with more of this

I just think given the relatively high density along the corridor, more green space would be better than replacing part of the right of way with buildings.

 

[Shepard]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Re: naming rights...

Davey expected it to bring in $250,000

But we also heard this year that changing maps and signage is a half million dollar project (before overruns). We know the trauma involved in changing NEMC to Tufts Medical.

So... Hmm.

 

[Mayor Menino's Crohn's]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Shocked that nobody posted THIS...

As the manufacturing and production of 20 new locomotives gets underway, the MBTA is asking the public to help choose a design scheme that reflects a new era in the delivery of
Commuter Rail service. Beginning Tuesday, visitors to www.mbta.com will be presented with three options from which to choose, seen at left. The on-line preference poll will be available for two weeks. The design options will also be on display at North and South Stations.

The MBTA is purchasing a new fleet of twenty diesel-electric passenger locomotives from Motive-Power Incorporated of Boise, Idaho. The $114 million investment represents the MBTA’s first major locomotive procurement in more than 20 years. Employing the industry’s newest technological advances, the locomotives are being designed and built to operate more efficiently, reducing fuel use and emissions while significantly improving performance and reliability. The new locomotives will be in service by 2013.

http://transportation.blog.state.ma.us/blog/2011/07/new-look-locomotives.html

I voted for "option 1." I also left the comment "2013? Why not 2014?"

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

...I live right off Comm Ave.




I just think given the relatively high density along the corridor, more green space would be better than replacing part of the right of way with buildings.

That's exactly what this project is going to do. Well, Goal #1 is making the lane, parking, and transit layout a whole lot less insane. But Goal #2 is to actually fill in the asphalt wasteland with some greenery so it looks like Beacon St. in Brookline. I don't think anyone's advocating that the Comm Ave. Mall go up to BC or anything like that, but something that doesn't look so much like a divided highway plowing through a beer-soaked frathouse would make Allston a much better general-purpose destination. You're gonna get wider sidewalks out of it too with the building fronts a lot more accessible than today where it's confusing to even get onto the local lanes and they're always blocked by double-parked cabs and pizza delivery cars. Plus a wider Harvard Ave. station platform means it's not going to be so packed on a Friday evening that people are gonna be hanging on the guardrails like they do today on that very narrow platform.

It's a stretch of roadway that really needs to breathe a lot more.



As for extending the Mall, bury the B to BU Bridge and relandscape out to there. That's about the extent to which the parkland would really make a difference, since the Esplanade ends and stops paralleling right there at BU Bridge. There will have to be some sort of tunnel going through the area crossing under the Pike if the Urban Ring is built off the Grand Junction Branch. Much better to make it rail from Day 1 rather than the T's superfluous BRT intermediate step, to tie it into the Green Line rather than building the unbuildable billion-dollar bus tunnel through Brookline, and to cut underneath an existing trolley reservation instead of screwing up the road and sorted out all the undocumented utilities spaghetti underneath. When they built the Kenmore station extension of the subway in 1932 it was the intent that there would be add-on extensions to the subway up Comm Ave. Kenmore was even built with a deep track pit on the B side because that further extension was supposed to happen in some future where the Green Line was converted to heavy-rail cars. This is just dusting off plans that already exist in the State Transportation Library dating back to the T's (far more visionary) forefathers at BERy.

Water table really isn't an issue west of Kenmore because that's a thin stretch of Charles Basin soft fill abutting the hillside in Brookline...you've transitioned out of the "city on stilts" once you're at roughly the angle cut by the D line and Pike out of Kenmore and the major subsurface management challenges. Pike isn't a tunnel crossing issue either because the highway's footprint was a kajillion more RR tracks back when Beacon Park was 1-1/2 times the size it is now, and the BERy subway extension plans involved burrowing under those too. Tunnel would have to wiggle a couple feet off the road alignment at BU Academy to do flyover ramps to the Grand Junction junction, then cross at an angle across the Pike and re-join under Comm Ave. by the park/parking lot next to BU SFA. But the Pike also inclines-up onto the viaduct immediately after crossing under Comm Ave. so there's a few feet extra's fill cushion underneath that wasn't there when it was just RR tracks.

Nevermind this being pretty much necessary for the Urban Ring in lieu of the billion-dollar Brookline tunnel, but putting this section of B into subway and going back on the surface at St. Paul St. pretty much saves the traffic management on the problem. Put subway stops at BU East and BU Bridge...Blandford and BU West gone, all grade crossings and traffic lights gone, all students pre-pay in the station lobby instead of holding up the train. That's like 5 minutes slashed off the B schedule right there plus all the Urban Ringiness that comes with the build. And an extension of the Mall out to the heart of BU.

 

[cden4]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I would be cautious with proposing a Comm Ave Mall type improvement in the Brighton section. It works so well in Back Bay because the street is very wide, wide enough that as pedestrian the traffic feels far enough away. The Comm Ave Mall "feel" was attempted on Brighton Ave when it was redone in the late 90s, but since the medians are not that wide, and there is no walking path, it looks nice, but takes away valuable space that could have been used for wider sidewalks and bike lanes.

For Comm Ave through Brighton, I'd like to see the carriage lanes eliminated, the T median widened slightly in order to create adequate station platforms and room to add trees alongside the tracks. But more importantly, I'd widen the sidewalks and add cycle tracks along the entire corridor.

 

[omaja]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The Brighton Ave right-of-way (~95 feet or so) is less than half as wide as the Comm Ave mall (200 feet) or Comm Ave through Brighton (185-200 feet) rights-of-way. There's a lot more wiggle room along Comm Ave than one might first think.

I agree, though, about what improvements should be made (eliminating the excess lane capacity, widening platforms, adding trees, etc.). Perhaps installing a third rail to run true rush hour express trains would be feasible as well.