Crazy Transit Pitches

Mid coffee crazy idea....Relocate North Station to the rail yards in Cambridge. Remove all the rail bridges over the Charles river into North Station. Make a tunnel under Grand Junction over to West station for commuter rail connection. Green line on top. Increase Orange and green line capacity from new north station into the city. And increase capacity of the new green line connection to the red line.

Hire only Chinese companies to do it all on one weekend in August for about $2 billion plus room and board.
 
tangent said:
Mid coffee crazy idea....Relocate North Station to the rail yards in Cambridge. Remove all the rail bridges over the Charles river into North Station.
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What would be gained by this?

And increase capacity of the new green line connection to the red line.
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Where's this coming from?
 
tangent said:
Mid coffee crazy idea....Relocate North Station to the rail yards in Cambridge. Remove all the rail bridges over the Charles river into North Station.
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The truncating of the commuter rail lines was proposed in the 1960's by the MBTA. That is why the Red Line extension to Braintree and the Orange Line to Melrose have only one commuter rail track next to them, which was originally meant for freight trains only. The commuter rail lines would have only come in as far as the ends of those two lines. North Station and the nearby rail bridges over the Charles would have been eliminated, and South Station reduced in size. This plan was killed by suburban NIMBYs who wanted a one-train commuter rail ride all the way to downtown Boston, and who also didn't want to ride subway trains with less desirable populations.
 
tangent said:
Mid coffee crazy idea....Relocate North Station to the rail yards in Cambridge. Remove all the rail bridges over the Charles river into North Station.
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There's a Charles Eliot proposal from like the 1890s to do this too. I think I have a map in a book at home, will try to scan tonight.
 
CSTH said:
There's a Charles Eliot proposal from like the 1890s to do this too. I think I have a map in a book at home, will try to scan tonight.
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That would be pretty neat if you shared it, thank you in advance :)
 
Charlie_mta said:
This plan was killed by suburban NIMBYs who wanted a one-train commuter rail ride all the way to downtown Boston, and who also didn't want to ride subway trains with less desirable populations.
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Let's not imply people opposing this would have been racist. Having people switch to subway would add 10-30 minutes (depending on whether the subway has an express service and how good it is) to a suburban commute. Also the commuter rail services that would have been cut off did not exist at that time.
 
whittle said:
Let's not imply people opposing this would have been racist. Having people switch to subway would add 10-30 minutes (depending on whether the subway has an express service and how good it is) to a suburban commute. Also the commuter rail services that would have been cut off did not exist at that time.
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Plus if all our commuter rail lines ended at the subway terminal stations, then we'd be effectively cut off from ever developing a regional rail system like is now being advocated.
 
CSTH said:
There's a Charles Eliot proposal from like the 1890s to do this too. I think I have a map in a book at home, will try to scan tonight.
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From Inventing the Charles River - highly recommended, total catnip

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That would have gone a long way to restoring the lost mile of the Charles but it was bad transit. Once the NS Link is built the need for North Station as a hub is greatly lessened. It's only real draw will be sports. I like Ari's proposal to build a combined North/Central station around Haymarket instead of an underground North Station. North Station was a product of circumstance, we don't need to repeat the same mistakes.
 
Not a pitch but a question: Whats the best way to build a one-seat ride between the airport and Encore Casino? The simplest I can think of would be extending SL3 all the way to the casino, but thats not very crazy.
 
The new casino ferry service could stop directly at the airport.
 
Very broad level question here: ideally, what are the best terminal locations for each current line? Not counting commuter rails, and no additional branching of existing lines (converting Mattapan into a proper red line branch is an option).

So, just to get the ball rolling, here’s some not-to-serious suggestions, basically all designed to reach out to the 128 beltway:

Blue Line
Salem to Auburndale/Riverside

Green Line
Woburn (Mishawum) to Riverside

Orange Line
Reading to Needham Heights

Red Line
Lexington to Braintree and Westwood (Rte 128)
 
DominusNovus said:
Very broad level question here: ideally, what are the best terminal locations for each current line? Not counting commuter rails, and no additional branching of existing lines (converting Mattapan into a proper red line branch is an option).

So, just to get the ball rolling, here’s some not-to-serious suggestions, basically all designed to reach out to the 128 beltway:

Blue Line
Salem to Auburndale/Riverside

Green Line
Woburn (Mishawum) to Riverside

Orange Line
Reading to Needham Heights

Red Line
Lexington to Braintree and Westwood (Rte 128)
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Most of these seem like really long lines to have no express service. Don't you think some of these distant communities aren't better served by CR/EMU with many fewer stops? I can't imagine riding the Red Line for 10+ miles as my morning commute... Maybe if you could 4-track the Red Line from Harvard north?

I would much rather see the rapid transit NETWORK in the urban core improved to expand the area of truly walkable city than to expand the hub-and-spoke model ever further into the 'burbs. Granted, your Blue Line concept does indeed improve the network, but not the others.
 
fattony said:
Most of these seem like really long lines to have no express service. Don't you think some of these distant communities aren't better served by CR/EMU with many fewer stops? I can't imagine riding the Red Line for 10+ miles as my morning commute... Maybe if you could 4-track the Red Line from Harvard north?

I would much rather see the rapid transit NETWORK in the urban core improved to expand the area of truly walkable city than to expand the hub-and-spoke model ever further into the 'burbs. Granted, your Blue Line concept does indeed improve the network, but not the others.
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I think the Orange Line to Needham makes sense, and there was/is a third express track in place and planned to go all the way to Reading. The Red to Lexington also makes sense (and should have happened/was planned to happen), and it would be pretty much the same commute/length as the end of the Braintree Extension which is quite heavily used.
 
I don't think Westwood makes any sense for the red line. Lexington does though.
 
I’m just posting those to give a starting point. My Red Line to Westwood presupposes upgrading the MHSL and thn hopping over to Fairmont. I figure Mattapan isn’t a particularly useful terminal if I’m truing to extend each line to 128.
 
DominusNovus said:
I’m just posting those to give a starting point. My Red Line to Westwood presupposes upgrading the MHSL and thn hopping over to Fairmont. I figure Mattapan isn’t a particularly useful terminal if I’m truing to extend each line to 128.
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I'd make the Orange line past Forest Hills into two branches. To the north you could make another branch towards the Newburyport Rockport line, through Everett and Cheslea.
 
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