Crazy Transit Pitches

[asap_mozart]

I had an idea: Segmented Red Line Routes. I think this would reduce the travel times on the braintree branch

A Ashmont-Alewife (Unchanged)
B Braintree - South Station (or Charles/MGH? somehow room would be made on the Longfellow Bridge renovation for a pocket track)
C Alewife - South Station

 

[c_combat]

How would they turn around?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I had an idea: Segmented Red Line Routes. I think this would reduce the travel times on the braintree branch

A Ashmont-Alewife (Unchanged)
B Braintree - South Station (or Charles/MGH? somehow room would be made on the Longfellow Bridge renovation for a pocket track)
C Alewife - South Station

Theoretically you could do B because the Cabot Yard non-revenue tracks get you as far as Southie Bypass Rd. before things get a little awkward dancing around spaghetti yard tracks and crossing Ft. Point Channel if you just want a simple surface stub on the Dot Ave. side of expanded SS next to the last pair of commuter rail platforms. Proximity to Broadway also makes a surface stop there hard to pass up, meaning you'd have to hug the right side of the yard while crossing all that spaghetti. Doable, but you'd need some flyover/duck-under construction to meander through the yard and a parallel Ft. Point bridge next to the commuter rail one. Otherwise does not require very much steel and concrete to set up and wouldn't foul commuter rail ops at all other than reducing the SS expansion by 2 platform berths. I'm not sure the demand is quite there, though, because missing the Orange and Green transfers at DTX and Park takes out a huge chunk of the northbound ridership from JFK and you wouldn't get any free transfers to Silver or the thru Red Line with a surface stub.


Subway station on this flank isn't something that can enter the picture unless you build the North-South Link and run rapid transit through half of it. The only space left underground for platforms is where the Link would go...very, very deep underground so you wouldn't want to build interim-anything down there unless you were scooping out the entire SS Under station cavern in that spot in one shot to permanently reserve the space. And that definitely isn't worth the cost of a Red stub with maze of connecting concourses for sole sake of the free transfer.


C will never happen. There's absolutely no turnback space to be had anywhere in the downtown tunnel. Especially at SS where the RL station is sandwiched all around by the Silver Line, Big Dig, and building foundations. Widening it for a 3rd turnback track is structurally impossible.

 

[novitiate]

I had an idea: Segmented Red Line Routes. I think this would reduce the travel times on the braintree branch

A Ashmont-Alewife (Unchanged)
B Braintree - South Station (or Charles/MGH? somehow room would be made on the Longfellow Bridge renovation for a pocket track)
C Alewife - South Station

Plenty of people travel from the Braintree branch to Cambridge, though- I would think this would be a significant reduction in convenience for them, at little operational gain, even in F-Line's scenario where we build duplicate stations.

 

[bobthebuilder]

I very much like that idea for the blue line, but it seems a like the turn coming from government center through Charles/MGH and down towards the back bay is a little tight. It makes sense on your map, but when you look at the actual geography, at least to me, it seems to tight. I could very well be wrong? What about starting from government center and heading straight down beacon st? I could see a walkway between the park st stop and a blue line stop and the state house growing park st as the transit hub.

I know for reasons previously mentioned, the routing of the rapid transit through to riverside isn't all that feasible, but what about going the other way with it, and converting this proposed blue line to LRT?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I very much like that idea for the blue line, but it seems a like the turn coming from government center through Charles/MGH and down towards the back bay is a little tight. It makes sense on your map, but when you look at the actual geography, at least to me, it seems to tight. I could very well be wrong? What about starting from government center and heading straight down beacon st? I could see a walkway between the park st stop and a blue line stop and the state house growing park st as the transit hub.

I know for reasons previously mentioned, the routing of the rapid transit through to riverside isn't all that feasible, but what about going the other way with it, and converting this proposed blue line to LRT?

It all depends on how they can build the Urban Ring. The reason for retaining leeway to keep Riverside LRT is that the billion-dollar cross-Brookline tunnel looks so infeasible the only plausible alternative for the Ring may be a subway extension to BU Bridge for the hook-in and reconfiguration of Kenmore Loop to boomerang the UR back out on the D to Brookline Village. In addition to the heinous expense the tunnel path outlined in the (unfortunately only available on Web Archive) UR plans followed more or less the same route as the last I-695 proposal for a tunnel, which while preserving the surface destroyed so much of the pretty neighborhoods around Armory during construction that it was beaten back as violently as the rest of the Inner Belt. I very much doubt a subway tunnel on the same footprint is going to fare any better for the same reason.

So with that in mind the LRT option has to get held open until at least a final EIS makes the UR decision (in whatever century that happens). Doesn't stop you at all from getting TO Kenmore, and Blue would be a massive load reliever to downtown allowing the GL branches and UR capacity to flourish. So if you're considering phasing it doesn't really matter if the final decision on Riverside has to wait. You'll be plenty occupied getting to Kenmore.


Needham Branch is going to be a problem because it has grade crossings. Similar to Orange-Reading in invasiveness and need to create either a Malden Ctr.-like El through the Needham stops or an Oak Grove-like trench. And unlike Orange they aren't particularly bad crossings, so LRT has no issues if they all remain between Upper Falls and Needham Jct. That has to weigh into the decision too in that it's a ton of extra expense for not a lot of above-and-beyond performance benefit HRT vs. LRT. And branching Blue that far out of town also creates some complications for how far north you can push. It may require running multiple service patterns looping at ends of downtown (say, Airport eastbound and Kenmore westbound), which will reduce the probable headways to Riverside/Needham and Lynn/Salem (although keeping critical downtown at max service). Another thing to consider when end-to-end as a single line it can still achieve full blast at long distance.


But...again...you don't have to make that decision for a long long time so it's a safe deferral until the Urban Ring's final makeup gets clearer.

 

[Downburst]

Just a random thought, and I'm guessing it'd be unlikely due to a lack of space, but what about sending the Blue to Brookline Village and creating a Green Line transfer station with a D/E Connector?

Uh, something like this:

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Just a random thought, and I'm guessing it'd be unlikely due to a lack of space, but what about sending the Blue to Brookline Village and creating a Green Line transfer station with a D/E Connector?

Uh, something like this:

Doesn't solve the problem of where you're going to hook in the Urban Ring off the Grand Junction. If that cross-Brookline tunnel can't be built the Kenmore-BV segment of the D is the only possible way to link the north and future south halves of it as a rail line. So this wouldn't work at all if you cut it.

It's also a steep net loss for Fenway and Longwood to lose their all-direction access and one-seat to Route 128. Doesn't work for people at the hospitals who park-and-ride it in from Riverside if they have to get routed to the less-convenient E stop. And severely complicates Red Sox games for folks who do the same, which is going to carpocalypse the neighborhood to hell.

Plus BV's not a great place to terminate. Kenmore's a major major bus terminal. As a terminal node that's the place to stop until there is certainty about what would be available to go much further out. The Green tie-ins around BV are all about thru-routing: "boomerang" from the Urban Ring, D-to-E, etc. Nothing outright ends there because there just aren't enough quantity of bus routes fanning out in as many directions as Kenmore.

 

[c_combat]

This is what I thought could be done. I don't think it's too steep a turn really considering how big the turn-around at Bowdoin is already.


... I know, Beacon St. is gonna be pissed...

 

[Downburst]

Makes sense. Thanks, F-Line!

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

This is what I thought could be done. I don't think it's too steep a turn really considering how big the turn-around at Bowdoin is already.


... I know, Beacon St. is gonna be pissed...

Kenmore trajectory is pretty much on-point, except you may have to do a little bit of zig-zag at Charlesgate.

I don't think Brookline is doable. Tunneling up a steep hill to Coolidge Corner is a royal pain, even at relatively shallow cut-and-cover. The load-bearing difference on the walls is different on an incline, and this incline is a mile long. The per-foot costs are yuckier than level cut-and-cover, and the demand really doesn't merit HRT on the C.

If the D isn't available and you absolutely have to go somewhere west (I don't think so, but. . .), then burrowing under the Worcester Line is path of least resistance. That's not exactly pretty tunneling either with the tough groundwater mitigation in the Charles Basin, but it aims at a higher-demand corridor for your construction troubles than the C does.


Really...Kenmore works just spiffy as a terminus. You're not going to find more transfers anywhere else. And going long to downtown Salem still gets you a 17.5 mile line with as many as many as 23 or 24 stops on it. That'd be only 3 miles shorter and 6 or 7 stops fewer than doing Orange all the way from West Roxbury to Reading.

 

[c_combat]

I don't think Brookline is doable. Tunneling up a steep hill to Coolidge Corner is a royal pain, even at relatively shallow cut-and-cover. The load-bearing difference on the walls is different on an incline, and this incline is a mile long. The per-foot costs are yuckier than level cut-and-cover, and the demand really doesn't merit HRT on the C.

Are you talking about the a Blue HRT on the current D ROW?

 

[bobthebuilder]

This is what I thought could be done. I don't think it's too steep a turn really considering how big the turn-around at Bowdoin is already.


... I know, Beacon St. is gonna be pissed...

Solid point combat, looks feasible, at least from a trajectory stand point, and probably serves more people by your routing than straight down beacon st from gov't center.

But never going to happen, because like you said, Beacon St. will never go for it.

 

[Shepard]

^ I think the most realistic approach is a tunnel-box along a narrowed Storrow, then bore down into Kenmore starting around Mass Ave under Charlesgate. That creates very minimal disruption to the Back Bay neighborhood.

 

[c_combat]

Solid point combat, looks feasible, at least from a trajectory stand point, and probably serves more people by your routing than straight down beacon st from gov't center.

But never going to happen, because like you said, Beacon St. will never go for it.

Yea, they are too close to Downtown to be inconvenienced for the greater good of the city unfortunately.

 

[c_combat]

^ I think the most realistic approach is a tunnel-box along a narrowed Storrow, then bore down into Kenmore starting around Mass Ave under Charlesgate. That creates very minimal disruption to the Back Bay neighborhood.

I like that idea. Since it would be right on the Esplanade itself, perhaps a single station would be good for that route. Back Bay workers, especially on a nice day, would consider the walking the extra blocks to an Esplanade Station to avoid the over crowded GL I bet. In the summer months this station would be very appealing to tourists and residents alike.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Are you talking about the a Blue HRT on the current D ROW?

Blue HRT up Beacon. That is way too difficult, and too low-ridership for the difficulty.

The D is doable, unless Kenmore-Brookline Village is needed as the Plan B Urban Ring routing. Then it all has to stay LRT, and finding some way to jump to BV to somehow take over the rest of the D as Blue is virtually impossible routing-wise, doesn't fetch the ridership, and disrupts the one-seat to Riverside that Fenway/Longwood commutes rely on. You also can't tunnel Blue under D to somehow get them both out there because of the Muddy River.


I would honestly punt a westward expansion past Kenmore to some later phase when we know what the verdict is going to be on the Urban Ring. If the UR has a path through to its south half, then the D is free for the taking.

 

[c_combat]

^ Perhaps an esplanade/storrow route would be more feasible after Charles/MGH, but like you said, a terminus at Kenmore would be sufficient enough, today and for a while.

For a long term plan (next 50+ years) I think maybe the outer burbs may possibly need something more in line with the capacity of heavy rail. I think keeping the ROW as is for the BL would be easy enough after its configuration thru Kenmore. Adjustments to station platform lengths and height should accommodate HRT on the D ROW. amirite?

 

[c_combat]

What would you say is an average width for a construction zone for a cut n' cover construction operation? A two-track tunnel could be around what at the minimum? 45'?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

^ Perhaps an esplanade/storrow route would be more feasible after Charles/MGH, but like you said, a terminus at Kenmore would be sufficient enough, today and for a while.

For a long term plan (next 50+ years) I think maybe the outer burbs may possibly need something more in line with the capacity of heavy rail. I think keeping the ROW as is for the BL would be easy enough after its configuration thru Kenmore. Adjustments to station platform lengths and height should accommodate HRT on the D ROW. amirite?

Yes. You'd have to build footbridges at each station to eliminate the track crossings and lengthen platforms to 6 cars in addition to raising, but otherwise clearances are fine above ground. You may even want to ditch the 3rd rail and switch back to overhead here, because Blue can run unmodified on Green Line overhead and all D infrastructure could remain in place with appropriate power boost.

The only thing you can't do is a Needham Branch with grade crossings. And that's an expensive problem.