Crazy Transit Pitches

If you're gonna build a Green Line through Bay Village you should ax the Copley Junction at least for revenue service. That causes a lot of back ups.

Also Green Line through Chelsea to East Boston seems a bit too much. Once you have DMU service adding Green Line seems like overkill even with the growth of the area. Also a branch off the Orange or Blue Line would be more effective, though if you want to extend the Blue to Lynn then the Orange Line would be best. Branching after Sullivan Sq wouldn't adversely effect headways in the most congested areas so you could get away with it, especially if you have DUM service to compliment the OL.
 
Copley Jctn should be axed for revenue service. But shouldn't be closed. Best to keep it as a backup.

That GL to Chelsea/Airport is part of the UR. The DMU wouldn't be stopping at nearly as many stops (maybe just Chelsea Station... if even there). Green Line hits the airport, Chelsea, Everett Casino, Assembly and Sullivan. Could be axed I guess, but it's the northern leg of the Urban Ring. I picked Green over Orange because of certain grade-crossings and river-crossings that LRT can handle more easily/cheaply than HRT.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Copley Jctn should be axed for revenue service. But shouldn't be closed. Best to keep it as a backup.

That GL to Chelsea/Airport is part of the UR. The DMU wouldn't be stopping at nearly as many stops (maybe just Chelsea Station... if even there). Green Line hits the airport, Chelsea, Everett Casino, Assembly and Sullivan. Could be axed I guess, but it's the northern leg of the Urban Ring. I picked Green over Orange because of certain grade-crossings and river-crossings that LRT can handle more easily/cheaply than HRT.
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I agree about Copley, always good for redundancy.

I guess I just don't see the Urban Ring pulling in that much traffic unless there is a serious redevelopment in Everett and western Chelsea (which I'm all for). It could be a catalyst for sure.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Here's what I would hope for as part of a 40 to 50 year plan for service:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zlB7eZcVeXLk.kShJAyyXSgQw / https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zlB7eZcVeXLk.k7Rypanc1kuc

And here's my fantasy map for a full-build:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zlB7eZcVeXLk.kjjh_AiOpmOo

Some changes to past maps I've posted, notably the path of the Red Line out of Arlington Center (conversations with -user- Arlington here informed that change), as well as an LRT concept between Route 117 and Route 3/3A. Also have BRT concepts and Commuter Rail concepts. Happy to explain any reasoning for those curious.
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For the sake of my curiosity, could you or someone give an estimate on the pricetag of the fantasy map
 
stefalarchitect said:
For the sake of my curiosity, could you or someone give an estimate on the pricetag of the fantasy map
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For all of it? 25-30B? More?

The tunneling is pricey and includes:
  • NSRL + 3 portals (or 4 if including Old Colony)
  • Bury Huntington
  • Transitway under D St
  • Bury B to BU Bridge or Packards Corner
  • Bury Green out of Tremont Tunnel via Marginal Rd/Curve St/Hudson to both BBY and Seaport
  • Green under North Harvard St by Harvard's Allston Campus + a Charles River crossing
  • Blue under Cambridge St to Charles/MGH
  • Riverbank Subway to Kenmore + Muddy River crossing
  • "D to E" connector at Brookline Village
  • Ruggles connector
  • Green under Commuter Rail at Porter
  • Red under Red in Dorchester
  • Red under Minuteman to Arlington Center
  • Deep bore under Mass Ave/Arlington Heights for Red to Rte 2

Electrification of CR lines for use of the NSRL, plus new fleets of EMUs are pricey.

Zapping grade-crossings in many locations for Blue/Green/Orange is pricey.

New yards/maintenance facilities are pricey

Any elevated portions (as I imagine Green crossing Fresh Pond Pkwy, airport transitway, etc.)

The basic infrastructure itself: tracks, electrical, stations, vehicles

The labor costs...

Big bills...
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
I agree about Copley, always good for redundancy.

I guess I just don't see the Urban Ring pulling in that much traffic unless there is a serious redevelopment in Everett and western Chelsea (which I'm all for). It could be a catalyst for sure.
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I see Chelsea as just aching for better transit. The evolution I imagine, is the SL-Chelsea project getting extended over time, pushed by demand to get to Assembly, redev at Sullivan, redev at Gateway, Wynn Casino, etc., plus a general UR push gets it converted to rail. LRT would be the easiest conversion with grade-crossings and the Chelsea River crossing.

The DMU/EMU line is more of an Salem Express. Not a lot of stops, though Chelsea could get one. The 'MU wouldn't serve Gateway/Casino, Assembly or Sullivan. Just express to North Station and whatever destinations through the Link. Would probably be a crap shoot for Chelsea riders taking it to SStation at 18 to 30 minute headways versus taking Green to Blue at 5-12 minute headways, depending on their destination downtown.

The ultimate fantasy map assumes a lot of other pressures and changes to get to that point (like Orange to Reading, or Green to Anderson), generally hinging on the NSRL generating a CR/Amtrak boom and choking out certain lines/stations.
 
Riverside said:
Where does this happen on your (wonderful) map?
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I actually don't think if I've depicted it well/at all on this particular map. But it's where the existing 1-track pinch on the Old Colony is south of JFK/UMass. Stack Red on Red and allow Old Colony to have two tracks, opens up a lot of scheduling opportunities for Old Colony lines. A whole new transit world for Brockton, if it ends up with 'MUs as a result.
 
I decided to visualize what would have been possible if some of the money spent on the Big Dig was put into transit. This isn't really a realistic idea as it is highly unlikely that if the Big Dig hadn't been done in its current form the same amount of money would have gone to transit, but it is still an interesting idea. Disclaimer: this is all based on very rough estimates but it was incredible to see how much could have been built.

Map:http://goo.gl/NliwtX

Calculations:http://goo.gl/6sBJ8F
 
citylover94 said:
I decided to visualize what would have been possible if some of the money spent on the Big Dig was put into transit
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You wouldn't have gotten all $14b into transit: Eliminating the Fitzgerald elevated was going to be costly no matter how you did it. Even torn down and replaced by a surface boulevard, you were going to have expensive transitions at both ends:

I-93
- tear down Fitzgerald elevated ($1b?)
- new Mystic (Zakim) Bridge with boulevard-to-I-93/MA-99/MA-28 transition ($1b)
- new South Station boulevard-to-Southeast Exway transition ($1b)
- new Pike-to-93 transition ($1b)
- Other surface improvements @ South Bay and MA 99 Washington Ave Bridge Rutherford Ave (would still be crowded) ($1b)
And you've probably had to accelerate:
- 128 widening ($1b)
- new 95/93 junction in Canton ($1b)
- new 128/95/93 junction in Woburn ($1b)

So that's $8b just to create a surface boulevard and to divert "interstate cargo" around 128

I-90
- extend to airport via TWT to keep airport traffic off surface boulevard
(or provide better Airport train facilities, perhaps "under the Control Tower")

Without the Tip/Liberty/Ted, you were going to spend "East Side Access" size budgets on enormous rail caverns instead of enormous highway caverns:
NSRL ($4b built solo with Fitz teardown)
Central Station ($2b)
Airport Rail Link ($2b)
Red-Blue connector ($.5b)


So that's about $14b of trains in the core and highway bypass before any linear transit extensions. Am I off by billions? Surely (total above is $16.5).

But there isn't a huge pot of cash for BL to Lynn or GL to Medford and outer stuff. And you're probably going to have to buy a $1b worth of electric trains and rolling stock to make the core stuff work.
 
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^ Axe Central Station. No point to it. Spend that $2B elsewhere.
 
That $14 billion was what was left after subtracting a very rough estimate of the costs of the project many of which you listed in your post Arlington. The full cost of the big dig is estimated at $24.3 billion so the costs I estimated for the roadway construction that still would have occurred was $10 billion so I think that was relatively accurate leaving 14 billion for the various GLX, various BLX, North–South Rail Link,and the Mass Ave Subway. As I see it 128 needed work anyways and those projects are all happening and aren't included in the costs of the Big Dig so that seems like a moot point to me. Here is a new link for the map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zzYj2tQDoJNk.kf4mDIBnbC-0
 
I'd also be wary of any cost estimates on a Mass Ave subway. Mitigation overruns would probably be enormous.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
I'd also be wary of any cost estimates on a Mass Ave subway. Mitigation overruns would probably be enormous.
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I was most unsure of my estimate for that an upper end cost per mile scenario I could envision is 2 billion. Which is equal to the second avenue subway in NYC. At that cost the mass ave subway would cost about $8.8 billion dollars. In which case I would skip building it in favor of building everything else.
 
citylover94 said:
As I see it 128 needed work anyways and those projects are all happening and aren't included in the costs of the Big Dig so that seems like a moot point to me.
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All this work (road or transit) is needed sometime in the next 100 years. All of them have to be done on an "anyways" time scale.

The reality of budgeting is that every year we have a certain amount of spending capacity and the question is mostly one of which ones get built first and which get postponed. Because we built the CA/T, we could postpone the 128 work.

I think the "list price" of the Big Dig is still in the $14b range ($12b more than promised), but that the $24b number looks suspiciously like the annuity price (how much it'll take to pay off $14b in bonds at 3% interest for 20 years)

But some highway spending had to be allowed for *somewhere* to address the failure of the Fitzgerald. The point is that because "through" traffic now moves freely in the CA/T in the non-rush periods, it wasn't/isn't forced onto 128 for all these years. When you delete the 1990 to 2005 CA/T work, you wouldn't get to postpone the "anyways" 128 widening to 2008 - 2017 and postpone the 93/95 Woburn & Canton redos to c. 2020. They'd have had to be slotted into the budget for...exactly the time period when you say you'd like to have been spending on this transit.

If you'd cancelled the CA/T you'd not have been as free to postpone that 128 work as we have.

I'm not a roads first guy. Choosing sides in the war on cars, I'm against them. But even if we decide to slowly strangle them, we can't afford to strangle them that fast.
 
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Can someone provide a price estimate if a mile of a tunnel of this design were to be constructed in Boston? I'm doing a little bit of transit design for Boston and I'm starting to look over the costs.
Maastricht-SS-11.png
 
stefalarchitect said:
Can someone provide a price estimate if a mile of a tunnel of this design were to be constructed in Boston? I'm doing a little bit of transit design for Boston and I'm starting to look over the costs.
Maastricht-SS-11.png
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Depends where. But generally you're talking Big Dig levels of cost as a floor.
 
stefalarchitect said:
Can someone provide a price estimate if a mile of a tunnel of this design were to be constructed in Boston? I'm doing a little bit of transit design for Boston and I'm starting to look over the costs.
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Unfortunately, the only place place where such tunnels can be justified is in Bostons' core which is a bad place for earth tunnels (it is all mucky/fill) and so is going to be another slurry wall nightmare. Should any estimate of cost assume slurry wall (rather than cut-and-cover or sunken tube (submarine)?)
 
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