Crazy Transit Pitches

[The EGE]

The Summer Street Concourse goes as far east as halfway between Otis and Devonshire; this hatch is at the far end.

I vaguely recall years ago on here, F-Line or someone saying that BERY originally intended to run a trolley car line in that tunnel you describe that runs above the RL from Washington St to Dewey Square. Of course the SB Central Artery tunnel cuts it off, making use of it for a rapid transit line impossible.

This is one of those rumors that just won't go away. It was never intended for streetcars, nor is it anywhere near tall enough. The existence of the concourse is simply a result of the cut-and-cover construction method. At first the BTC wasn't sure whether to fill the portion under Winter in or have it be for pedestrians (see 1912 report), but the latter was chosen. Per the 1914 report, the portion under Summer was always intended as the station mezzanine.

The reason the concourse ends east of Otis is because of the tunneling method. The tunnel starts going deeper there to go under sewers and eventually Fort Point Channel, so it switched from cut-and-cover to mined tunnel with an arched roof.

I recall a construction photo of the Dewey Square tunnel which show the severed trolley tunnel.

You're probably thinking of the arched Red Line roof being shaved. Pictures here:

Reasonable Transit Pitches

Well, an overhead bridge needs a much higher clearance and would need to be built to double stack height. That's why I just opted for undergrade bridge instead. The ROW really is plenty wide, it used to be 4 mainline tracks, at least. Probably some spare room, too. Davis is not a problem, but...

archboston.com

 

[Charlie_mta]

The Summer Street Concourse goes as far east as halfway between Otis and Devonshire; this hatch is at the far end.


This is one of those rumors that just won't go away. It was never intended for streetcars, nor is it anywhere near tall enough. The existence of the concourse is simply a result of the cut-and-cover construction method. At first the BTC wasn't sure whether to fill the portion under Winter in or have it be for pedestrians (see 1912 report), but the latter was chosen. Per the 1914 report, the portion under Summer was always intended as the station mezzanine.

The reason the concourse ends east of Otis is because of the tunneling method. The tunnel starts going deeper there to go under sewers and eventually Fort Point Channel, so it switched from cut-and-cover to mined tunnel with an arched roof.


You're probably thinking of the arched Red Line roof being shaved. Pictures here:

Reasonable Transit Pitches

Well, an overhead bridge needs a much higher clearance and would need to be built to double stack height. That's why I just opted for undergrade bridge instead. The ROW really is plenty wide, it used to be 4 mainline tracks, at least. Probably some spare room, too. Davis is not a problem, but...

archboston.com

Sounds good, and thanks for the info. Sorry, F-Line, I didn't mean to misquote you.

 

[RandomWalk]

You're probably thinking of the arched Red Line roof being shaved. Pictures here:

Reasonable Transit Pitches

Well, an overhead bridge needs a much higher clearance and would need to be built to double stack height. That's why I just opted for undergrade bridge instead. The ROW really is plenty wide, it used to be 4 mainline tracks, at least. Probably some spare room, too. Davis is not a problem, but...

archboston.com

Bingo. This board never forgets anything. That makes the occasional petty arguments worth it.

 

[Riverside]

I guess I'm on a "Crazy Seaport Transit Pitches" theme here: I'm gonna return to an idea I've idly raised in the past, but raise it now as an honest-to-God serious proposal: realign the Red Line through the Seaport:

There are two alternatives, "easy" [relatively speaking] and "hard":

"Easy": add a single (deeper-level) station at A St under Congress (or even under Summer, if you can get a headhouse on Congress) before cutting under the Mass Pike and tunneling under Track 61 back to the existing Red Line subway (probably south of Broadway and so, yes, a new Broadway station would probably be needed). Part of what makes this "easier" is that Track 61 has been a railroad longer than parts of Southie have existed, so hopefully it would be a "cleaner" dig. The downside is that you still leave a fair amount of the Seaport untouched and only accessible via the Silver Line. (Jobs still are more weighted toward the western end of the Seaport for now, but presumably that will change.) This is 1.4 miles of subway, a bit less than a mile of which is under Track 61.

"Hard": continue under Congress St to a second station at World Trade Center. Then turn southwest along D Street to eventually rejoin the existing subway. Southie gets a much more centrally located station at D & West Broadway. This one is "hard" because it's longer and doesn't have the allure of the Track 61 ROW. But it would provide quite a lot more benefit. This is about 2 miles of subway.

So, why do this?

First, I'd argue that the shape of the subway network "wants" the Red Line to go to the Seaport. The Dorchester Subway turned south just east of South Station because that's where downtown ended at the time. Now, the "downtown" extends further east, and it still makes sense for the Red Line to reach toward "downtown's" eastern boundary before turning south.

Second, the Red Line is ultimately going to offer higher capacity for growth than a BRT or LRT subway will. (Whether the Red Line has the necessary excess capacity to support that growth is a fair question, though.)

Third, the Red Realignment addresses the "transfer" problem that bedevils Seaport transit proposals (both official and crayon): today's Silver Line only connects to the Red Line, meaning that Green and Orange riders must do a very short 1 or 2 stop hop on the Red Line to commute to the Seaport. (And in our crayoning/Green Line Reconfiguration world, access to the Seaport from the northern Green and Orange Lines is still a headache.) With a Red Realignment, all of that goes away; the Seaport becomes as easy to access as Kendall or Harvard.

How does this compare to other projects?

Portal to portal, I believe NSRL is about 2.8 miles. Blue-Red is 0.4 miles. A Huntington Ave Subway extension to Brigham Circle is about 1 mile. An RLX to Arlington Center would be around 1.4 miles, while the further extension to Heights would be 2.8 miles.

So, the Red Realignment would be in the higher echelon of proposals, but not off by an order of magnitude. With a Red Realignment in place, I would see less of a need for a "Gold Line" Back Bay <> South Station connector. On the other hand, this would place increased burden on the Red Line, which might in turn necessitate improvements elsewhere in the system to free up capacity. It's definitely not a surefire winner, but the more I look at it, the more I think it's worth considering -- if we're gonna need to build more transit anyway, why not "go big"?

 

[themissinglink]

I guess I'm on a "Crazy Seaport Transit Pitches" theme here: I'm gonna return to an idea I've idly raised in the past, but raise it now as an honest-to-God serious proposal: realign the Red Line through the Seaport:

View attachment 57375

This would be amazing. It's disappointing that the Seaport realistically isn't going to get rail transit anytime soon.

 

[Aprehensive_Words]

"Easy": add a single (deeper-level) station at A St under Congress (or even under Summer, if you can get a headhouse on Congress) before cutting under the Mass Pike and tunneling under Track 61 back to the existing Red Line subway (probably south of Broadway and so, yes, a new Broadway station would probably be needed). Part of what makes this "easier" is that Track 61 has been a railroad longer than parts of Southie have existed, so hopefully it would be a "cleaner" dig. The downside is that you still leave a fair amount of the Seaport untouched and only accessible via the Silver Line. (Jobs still are more weighted toward the western end of the Seaport for now, but presumably that will change.) This is 1.4 miles of subway, a bit less than a mile of which is under Track 61.

Given Gillette's plans for its campus...

Gillette Redevelopment PDA | Bostonplans.org

Development Projects and Planned Development Areas (PDAs) that the Development Review division is coordinating.

www.bostonplans.org

...and the non-Gillette plans for the parcels between there and the existing Fort Point buildings, I'd argue the "easy" option is the only good one b/c it would let you bracket an area whose owner aspire to put up a cool +/-7 million square feet of new development (including ~2 million SF of new housing) in the next 20 years -- and fill in a gap in the current Red Line walkshed.

To boot, you could use the old Broadway station as the site of a transit museum

 

[Riverside]

Given Gillette's plans for its campus...

Gillette Redevelopment PDA | Bostonplans.org

Development Projects and Planned Development Areas (PDAs) that the Development Review division is coordinating.

www.bostonplans.org

...and the non-Gillette plans for the parcels between there and the existing Fort Point buildings, I'd argue the "easy" option is the only good one b/c it would let you bracket an area whose owner aspire to put up a cool +/-7 million square feet of new development (including ~2 million SF of new housing) in the next 20 years -- and fill in a gap in the current Red Line walkshed.

To boot, you could use the old Broadway station as the site of a transit museum

Great points. But wouldn't the "hard" option also address these needs?

But to your point, these development plans would definitely make the "easy" option all the more alluring.

The walkshed point is a good one, and does make me wonder about a pedestrian tunnel under the Channel from the Red Line platforms/lobby. At least some of the NSRL plans have called for a headhouse on the other side of the Channel anyway.

 

[Longfellow]

The proposal above is a breath of fresh air. It makes a lot of sense to me, and would heal some transit wounds in the region. I think people would probably oppose on equity terms... hard to give Seaport a 1-2mi tbm before you give it to someone else.

 

[Riverside]

The proposal above is a breath of fresh air. It makes a lot of sense to me, and would heal some transit wounds in the region. I think people would probably oppose on equity terms... hard to give Seaport a 1-2mi tbm before you give it to someone else.

Thanks, glad it looks compelling to you!

I actually think it might do better on equity grounds than some projects. People from all over the region work in the Seaport, so the benefits would be spread across multiple communities. Compare, for example, to an RLX to Arlington, which "only" benefits Arlington. (That's not actually true, of course; RLX to Arlington would, for example, enable bus frequency increases elsewhere because the 77 wouldn't need to be carrying quite so many people. But that's somewhat esoteric.)

With a Red Realignment in place, I would see less of a need for a "Gold Line" Back Bay <> South Station connector. On the other hand, this would place increased burden on the Red Line, which might in turn necessitate improvements elsewhere in the system to free up capacity.

I'm gonna amend myself on these points.

First, I think a Gold Line would remain valuable, since there still will be the eastern end of the Seaport that will be out of the Red Realignment's walkshed. Second, a South Station <> LMA link would be super valuable, as would as Back Bay <> LMA connection (all the more so with an NSRL -- imagine Haverhill -> NSRL -> Back Bay -> change for Gold -> Brigham Circle). Third, we shouldn't dream small: even with a Red Realignment, we should still build a third TWT bore for transit, and it should be the Seaport <> BOS <> BBY <> LMA Gold Line that uses it to connect to the airport.

As to Red capacity, I actually am less concerned about that than I originally was. In a world without the Gold Line, most potential Red Realignment riders would already be onboard Red Line trains (caveat below), since they'd need to go to South Station anyway to transfer to the Silver Line (or walk). Insofar as the Red Realignment prompts new development in the Seaport, yes that would place increased burden on the Red Line, but arguably that development is gonna happen anyway.

The caveat is that Regional Rail riders transferring at South Station might transfer to Realigned Red rather than Silver (Gold). But Silver (Gold) will still have better service to the farther eastern sections of the Seaport, so that might blunt some of the impact on Realigned Red.

Also, Red would get a small capacity/reliability boost due to reduced dwell times at South Station: Red Seaport riders won't need to transfer there, reducing the number of passengers that need to pass between train and platform. Travel times won't be improved (since you are still adding a new station stop and longer route to the Red Line), but the South Station signal block won't be occupied for as long, which gives you the capacity and reliability increase.

 

[Longfellow]

The meme version of this would be to send one of the branches straight to the airport via Seaport in a new harbor tunnel and one branch to Alewife via SS

 

[BosMaineiac]

I guess I'm on a "Crazy Seaport Transit Pitches" theme here: I'm gonna return to an idea I've idly raised in the past, but raise it now as an honest-to-God serious proposal: realign the Red Line through the Seaport:

View attachment 57375

There are two alternatives, "easy" [relatively speaking] and "hard":

"Easy": add a single (deeper-level) station at A St under Congress (or even under Summer, if you can get a headhouse on Congress) before cutting under the Mass Pike and tunneling under Track 61 back to the existing Red Line subway (probably south of Broadway and so, yes, a new Broadway station would probably be needed). Part of what makes this "easier" is that Track 61 has been a railroad longer than parts of Southie have existed, so hopefully it would be a "cleaner" dig. The downside is that you still leave a fair amount of the Seaport untouched and only accessible via the Silver Line. (Jobs still are more weighted toward the western end of the Seaport for now, but presumably that will change.) This is 1.4 miles of subway, a bit less than a mile of which is under Track 61.

"Hard": continue under Congress St to a second station at World Trade Center. Then turn southwest along D Street to eventually rejoin the existing subway. Southie gets a much more centrally located station at D & West Broadway. This one is "hard" because it's longer and doesn't have the allure of the Track 61 ROW. But it would provide quite a lot more benefit. This is about 2 miles of subway.

So, why do this?

First, I'd argue that the shape of the subway network "wants" the Red Line to go to the Seaport. The Dorchester Subway turned south just east of South Station because that's where downtown ended at the time. Now, the "downtown" extends further east, and it still makes sense for the Red Line to reach toward "downtown's" eastern boundary before turning south.

Second, the Red Line is ultimately going to offer higher capacity for growth than a BRT or LRT subway will. (Whether the Red Line has the necessary excess capacity to support that growth is a fair question, though.)

Third, the Red Realignment addresses the "transfer" problem that bedevils Seaport transit proposals (both official and crayon): today's Silver Line only connects to the Red Line, meaning that Green and Orange riders must do a very short 1 or 2 stop hop on the Red Line to commute to the Seaport. (And in our crayoning/Green Line Reconfiguration world, access to the Seaport from the northern Green and Orange Lines is still a headache.) With a Red Realignment, all of that goes away; the Seaport becomes as easy to access as Kendall or Harvard.

How does this compare to other projects?

Portal to portal, I believe NSRL is about 2.8 miles. Blue-Red is 0.4 miles. A Huntington Ave Subway extension to Brigham Circle is about 1 mile. An RLX to Arlington Center would be around 1.4 miles, while the further extension to Heights would be 2.8 miles.

So, the Red Realignment would be in the higher echelon of proposals, but not off by an order of magnitude. With a Red Realignment in place, I would see less of a need for a "Gold Line" Back Bay <> South Station connector. On the other hand, this would place increased burden on the Red Line, which might in turn necessitate improvements elsewhere in the system to free up capacity. It's definitely not a surefire winner, but the more I look at it, the more I think it's worth considering -- if we're gonna need to build more transit anyway, why not "go big"?

Very intriguing idea! Looking at this more, I think this would work very well with a de-interlined (or redX as previously discussed on this forum) red line. Say you keep the Ashmont branch on the existing alignment to Alewife and send the Braintree branch up the yard leads at Columbia Jct towards track 61, with potential new stations near Andrew and Broadway. Then continue down the track 61 alignment to your station in fort point. After that, you can continue the previous RedX alignment up Pearl/Congress to north station.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Very intriguing idea! Looking at this more, I think this would work very well with a de-interlined (or redX as previously discussed on this forum) red line. Say you keep the Ashmont branch on the existing alignment to Alewife and send the Braintree branch up the yard leads at Columbia Jct towards track 61, with potential new stations near Andrew and Broadway. Then continue down the track 61 alignment to your station in fort point. After that, you can continue the previous RedX alignment up Pearl/Congress to north station.

A better way of doing Red X instead of deinterlining is alternating pairs. You'd have 3-minute headways on each leg of the X, but use all of Columbia Jct.'s potential so that any one north-to-south routing achieves 6-minute one-seat headways. So say a Phase I build of the X pushes a subway to North Station (the rest of the north routing can be choose-your-adventure). The rotation of frequencies would then go: Alewife-Ashmont/Mattapan, North Station/etc.-Braintree, Alewife-Braintree, North Station/etc.-Ashmont/Mattapan. Preserves current service levels, which definitely have enough Cambridge affinity for both Dorchester and Quincy/Braintree, while offering up equal access to the new northeast leg of the X. Columbia Jct. as presently constructed definitely has the capacity to filet the pair matches simultaneously that way.

 

[BosMaineiac]

A better way of doing Red X instead of deinterlining is alternating pairs. You'd have 3-minute headways on each leg of the X, but use all of Columbia Jct.'s potential so that any one north-to-south routing achieves 6-minute one-seat headways. So say a Phase I build of the X pushes a subway to North Station (the rest of the north routing can be choose-your-adventure). The rotation of frequencies would then go: Alewife-Ashmont/Mattapan, North Station/etc.-Braintree, Alewife-Braintree, North Station/etc.-Ashmont/Mattapan. Preserves current service levels, which definitely have enough Cambridge affinity for both Dorchester and Quincy/Braintree, while offering up equal access to the new northeast leg of the X. Columbia Jct. as presently constructed definitely has the capacity to filet the pair matches simultaneously that way.

Definitely a great argument for preserving Columbia jct as-is. What happens when the regional rail tracks need to be doubled with a new platform at JKF, though? Is there enough room for all of that without taking additional land?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Definitely a great argument for preserving Columbia jct as-is. What happens when the regional rail tracks need to be doubled with a new platform at JKF, though? Is there enough room for all of that without taking additional land?

Yes. Take the innermost busway berth at the station for the extra track (reshape the other two), refashion the current CR platform into an island, diet/eliminate Old Colony Ave. coinciding with a Columbia Rotary redesign, and drop the extra track on the Old Colony Ave. side of the overpass. Some of the Columbia Jct. flyover excess can also be compacted north of there to Dorchester Ave. without any loss of functionality (see diagrams here).

 

[Riverside]

Every so often, we discuss additional transit expansion to Chelsea in this thread. Mostly just for posterity, I wanted to call out one of the alternative alignments originally considered for SL3:

Source: Silver Line Gateway Alternatives Analysis, Public Meeting, June 19 2013, page 12 of the PDF

One notable feature of this alignment is that it actually goes where people live in Chelsea:

This alternative didn't stand out from a projected ridership perspective, and I'd guess that was because most of it was mixed-traffic-running (although their travel time estimates don't point to a huge difference between the on-street and busway alts, so that suggests there may be something else at play).

In any case, however, I think this effectively highlights the drawback of Eastern Route/Grand Junction transit alignments: those ROWs literally separate the residential areas from the industrial zones to the east, undercutting the potential walkshed of new services.

 

[jbray]

Every so often, we discuss additional transit expansion to Chelsea in this thread. Mostly just for posterity, I wanted to call out one of the alternative alignments originally considered for SL3:

One notable feature of this alignment is that it actually goes where people live in Chelsea:

View attachment 57819

In any case, however, I think this effectively highlights the drawback of Eastern Route/Grand Junction transit alignments: those ROWs literally separate the residential areas from the industrial zones to the east, undercutting the potential walkshed of new services.

The reality is that any Chelsea service should be on Broadway pretty much all the way to 60. It should not be on Route 1, Everett should get its own Transit up Broadway/99, but Chelsea is built around Broadway and that's where the subway should be. The only exception I see is that it might take Washington Street to that square there at the Cary Ave junction and then come back to Broadway by Webster. It doesn't need to connect directly to Quigley if there's a shuttle to the station given that it would probably be more costly to tunnel into the hill. Definitely a nice to have (preferred even) but not if it gets the whole line thrown out.

 

[FK4]

Would it ever be possible to run a GLX to Belmont Center and preserve the commuter rail as well? I’m guessing the ROW just isn’t wide enough, right?

 

[TheRatmeister]

Would it ever be possible to run a GLX to Belmont Center and preserve the commuter rail as well? I’m guessing the ROW just isn’t wide enough, right?

If you're fine single-tracking the Fitchburg Line for a little less than a mile, the ROW is wide enough. Given it's right next to Porter Station I wouldn't foresee it being particularly problematic, although it's not really relevant because of the next sentence. Getting through Porter is the bigger problem. If you're fine terminating at Porter, you could probably build the GL station above the CR platform, between Somerville Ave and Lesley. If you want to run through Porter, you need to dig out the GL station either under the CR or under Somerville Ave.

For a lower-density area like Belmont it's hard to justify the cost over just running an extra short-turn CR service.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Would it ever be possible to run a GLX to Belmont Center and preserve the commuter rail as well? I’m guessing the ROW just isn’t wide enough, right?

The Fitchburg was historically quad-track out to the West Cambridge freight yard (reason why they were able to do GLX-Union pretty easily), and tri-track from West Cambridge to the split with the Central Mass after Beaver St. in Waltham because the Central Mass used to have its own running track along the Fitchburg ROW (residue from when it was a competing RR). Through Belmont Center station it's quad-width because the Central Mass leased a blank spot for an expansion track that never came. So you'd have no issues getting to Belmont Center, though I would assume GLX would outright be eating the station instead of side-by-sideing a superstation (a little too much width).

Past Belmont Ctr. (if the eventual goal is a GLX-Waltham) the ROW narrows down to tri-track along Pleasant St., though embankment reshaping can easily add the 4th berth. Waverley station is a 1955 grade crossing elimination so it was only ever provisioned as double-track; would need some substantial retaining wall and bridge work to quad-up, but is feasible because the station really isn't abutted by anything within the square except its own parking lot. Past there it's back to tri-width with embankments that can be traded for retaining walls. And then you'd have to swap the Fitchburg mainline to the Central Mass out to 128 to free up the Waltham Center-Brandeis tracks for GLX because that definitely was only double-track and has some dense abutters. It'd be less of a megaproject than GLX-Medford was widening a historically 2-track ROW, but probably isn't anyone's idea of a top priority because :15 Urban Rail service to 128 is probably worth a generation's worth of growth absorption.

 

[FK4]

The Fitchburg was historically quad-track out to the West Cambridge freight yard (reason why they were able to do GLX-Union pretty easily), and tri-track from West Cambridge to the split with the Central Mass after Beaver St. in Waltham because the Central Mass used to have its own running track along the Fitchburg ROW (residue from when it was a competing RR). Through Belmont Center station it's quad-width because the Central Mass leased a blank spot for an expansion track that never came. So you'd have no issues getting to Belmont Center, though I would assume GLX would outright be eating the station instead of side-by-sideing a superstation (a little too much width).

Past Belmont Ctr. (if the eventual goal is a GLX-Waltham) the ROW narrows down to tri-track along Pleasant St., though embankment reshaping can easily add the 4th berth. Waverley station is a 1955 grade crossing elimination so it was only ever provisioned as double-track; would need some substantial retaining wall and bridge work to quad-up, but is feasible because the station really isn't abutted by anything within the square except its own parking lot. Past there it's back to tri-width with embankments that can be traded for retaining walls. And then you'd have to swap the Fitchburg mainline to the Central Mass out to 128 to free up the Waltham Center-Brandeis tracks for GLX because that definitely was only double-track and has some dense abutters. It'd be less of a megaproject than GLX-Medford was widening a historically 2-track ROW, but probably isn't anyone's idea of a top priority because :15 Urban Rail service to 128 is probably worth a generation's worth of growth absorption.

In fantasy mode where you actually did run GLX to 128, tho, would this offer a reasonable commuter time to get downtown? I’m guessing that light rail can accelerate faster but maybe not run as fast in between stations vs commuter rail? What about compared to when the Fitchburg line gets electrification?