MBTA "Transformation" (Green Line, Red Line, & Orange Line Transformation Projects)

Looks nice already. Wonder how the Babcock platform is doing. :giggle:
 
Hopefully the lighting being installed will be nice and bright. Adding street lighting is almost always a good thing.
 
Hm, any ideas why they decreased the Type 10 order from 165 to 102?
 
Separated tracks at the side of the street looks both more dangerous for bikers and more likely to get stuck in traffic or the inevitable illegal parking. I understand their priority is accessibility but it seems that they'll sacrifice a lot of safety and service quality to a larger detriment.

Also on a related tangent, but it's frustrating that the existing center track lines still don't get priority signaling.
 
My god, that E Line configuration looks deadly for cyclists. Might as well just put a bounty on them.
 
Im confused, they want to do this where theres already a central median (idiotic) or the section where the tracks are already on the street?
 
Im confused, they want to do this where theres already a central median (idiotic) or the section where the tracks are already on the street?

I read it as the street running sections after Brigham Circle, but, maybe my mind is just giving the MBTA more credit than they are due. I couldn't imagine a serious proposal todo this on Huntington where it is in its dedicated center ROW.
 
The presentation attached by @millerm277 states it is for the street-running portion between Brigham Circle and Heath.
 
So its basically just sidewalk extensions where the stops already are? Thats fine.
 
I haven't looked at the renderings carefully but hoo boy would it be nice if the 39 could get transit lanes as part of a revamp. While obviously I understand how we got to the current situation, it's objectively bonkers how we have a dedicated median for one class of transit vehicles and bupkis for the other class running alongside.
 
So its basically just sidewalk extensions where the stops already are? Thats fine.
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What I see in this rendering (E Line street running) is moving the tracks to the outside lane; narrow unprotected bike lane between the tracks and car center thru lanes. Looks like death to cyclists time.
 
I still can't believe that the E line was allowed to operate past Brigham on platform-less stops. Granted I've never seen an incident where a rider was struck by traffic but I have seen cases where cars hurdle through a stopped green line train with doors open and passengers just about to step off.
View attachment 14097
What I see in this rendering (E Line street running) is moving the tracks to the outside lane; narrow unprotected bike lane between the tracks and car center thru lanes. Looks like death to cyclists time.
Honestly, the bike lane should be in between the platform and sidewalk.
 
The bike lane should be on the back side of the platform, similar to the Vassar St setup.
 
Cyclists crash when their tires drop into grooves, such as rails in the street, or improperly-aligned storm grates.
 
San Francisco doesn't need to do this so convolutedly.

Bus and trolley transit centered. Right-door platforms bulb out next to that center-running track/road lane. All transit vehicles stay centered when stopping...no turn signals or turnouts. When a transit vehicle is stopping at a platform traffic bears RIGHT around the platform at expense of a few parking spaces, but at gain of major-league traffic calming because the thru cars are the ones forced to make the move. And it's executed on a street that's narrower curb-to-curb than Huntington past Brigham Circle, and equal to South Huntington. It works intuitively quite well on MUNI Market St.

There's no reason to wholesale-relocate the track at considerable construction $$$, induce all the bike safety demerits of this plan, leave the whole Green Line delay prey to one single double-parked vehicle and BTD's utter mob-rule unwillingness to ticket double-parkers in/around JP, and still have sloppy-as-@#$% bus ops with all the turnouts. For all of 2 stops, since Fenwood and Back of The Hill are both goners with any sane stop consolidation. This almost looks like a hilariously dated trojan horse to once again kill the streetcars in the way it serves up so many painful failure points. Side-loading was what they tried to do with the design of the Arborway restoration when they were trying so transparently to kill it...draw up something the bikers would howl at, that would fall victim effortlessly to the double-parker protection racket, and that was overexpensive for what nothing it would do to actually improve multimodal dwells...then concern-troll it dead.

I am way too eerily reminded of the Arborway plans with this. It's a very unsettling feeling. It doesn't/shouldn't need to feel that way.:confused:
 
Not sure, but the presentation is up already and notes:

"Options have increased to reflect the new base order quantity"

This is because the B and C will lag the D and E by several years on all the necessary platform mods for getting the full "Transformation"-level two-car 'stretched' trains. A lot of closeout work has to get scrambled before you can have complete schedules to BC and Cleveland Circle than can open all doors on a supertrain at all stops. It gets doubly dicey on the B when "Comm Ave. Phase III" reconstruction between Packards and Warren is still in design purgatory and they don't even know if the reservation is relocating yet, meaning up to 4 stops have no starting point for design yet. Because of that you'll only be able to run singlet Type 10's on those schedules during the initial deliveries, unlike the deuces (which have the seating and door capacity of Type 7/8/9 triplets) that will debut on the D and E from Day 1. B's and C's will probably be the domain of the Type 9 fleet and any 'best-of-the-rest' residual 7/8's during rush hour, and will slim down to either Type 9 deuces or singlet Type 10's on the off-peak until all platforms get extended.

So with all that lagging work to factor, they can save themselves a little bit of pain and suffering by defusing the moneybomb across a couple different 4-year CIP terms base vs. option. Unless the cars are total lemons the intent is still to drain all the options, but they can stuff that more advantageously on later fiscal years if the options are coordinated with the platform closeout work. The end result is all the same; the base v. options restructuring is just an advantageous accounting trick to ply for getting there.
 

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