Red Line Extension to Arlington Heights

[Charlie_mta]

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FEIS Volume I
FEIS Volume II (includes sections on Arlington Center and Arlington Heights stations)

Let's build it!

 

[RandomWalk]

Is the RLX getting to a length where an express track would be useful?

 

[WestMedford]

The 1975 plan was tunnel all the way. And yes, the yard (which I think was to be above-ground) was going to go on the Arlington Coal & Lumber property.

Most likely they'd keep to the 1975 tunneling plans verbatim. The only real change would be that Arlington Center and Arlington Heights stations wouldn't have the pornographic parking capacities of the very car-brained '75 plan. Both stops would probably have zero parking if done today.


EDIT: The '70s plans had the storage yard @ AH below-ground as longish tail tracks much like Alewife today. Arlington Coal & Lumber property would've been taken for the station itself so it fronted the bus station instead of putting it in Park Ave./Lowell St. triangle. See this post.

Okay a tunnel the whole way thanks. The grade change in the original study docs is very illuminating. They could build a portal at Mill St. since the tunnel is forced near the existing ground level to accommodate water/sewer pipes. But then after that the existing ground level rises 90 feet so it’s like might as well stay underground. Makes more sense now.

Another observation is the Heights station placement alongside the MBTA bus yard. If they had planned to take Coal & Lumber anyway, I’d expect the platform to be located adjacent to the west side of Park Ave vs. where it’s shown on the study. The study probably focused on MBTA/state/municipal rights of way which is why it’s placed there in the study docs.

Parking yeah Center has the existing Russell Common lot (paved paradise and put up a parking lot) so no need there, but the Heights might benefit from a residents-only lot or a small paid lot to soak up some SOV demand among the better bus connections.

Seems like a no-brainer and I hope the advocates can call attention to the sentiment shift in the community.

 

[Scalziand]

On the north side? I doubt it. There's not too many stops you could get away with skipping.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Is the RLX getting to a length where an express track would be useful?

What would you even skip? Certainly nothing after Davis, so that leaves what, 3-4 possible expressed stops? Alewife and Davis are both powerhouses for ridership, if we're building to Arlington then it would be silly to skip Arlington Center, and Arlington Heights would be the end of the line. So that just leaves the hypothetical East Arlington station, and I don't see how the operational complexity 'express' service would introduce would possibly be justified by the 60 seconds or so of time savings.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Is there a provision for a station at Lake St in these plans? It certainly looks like it.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Is there a provision for a station at Lake St in these plans? It certainly looks like it.

Looks like a coincidence of the sand layers in the soil that the grade ends up mostly flat, such that going a couple tenths of a degree flatter would allow enough level space for a platform. But they weren't considering it at all back then. Since the grade forces the entirety of the platform to be north of the surface crossing, to do it you would need to take at least 2 houses on Lake St. and 2 on Orvis Circle to excavate the width for a station when it's all that close to the surface.

 

[-anarresti-]

Take parking on Mass Ave and slap down some honkin’ big temp bike lanes and just build it!

 

[Delvin4519]

Alewife is an absolutely dysfunctional bus hub, and was never intended to host as many routes via the Route 2 frontage roads as it did after the Arlington Heights extension was canceled in the 70's. It's an operational quagmire because of the traffic problems around Alewife, and the frequencies suck because the equipment cycling sucks amid all those traffic problems. The northwest-region bus system is a lot healthier in schedule adherence, frequency, and coverage if Arlington Center and Arlington Heights each host substantial bus hubs at the Red Line stations and Alewife gets vacated of everything except the 83, the LEX Alewife express bus up Route 2 to the 128 office parks, and maybe some future backfill Medford and Watertown circumferential routes along the parkways. To go along with what everybody's said about Arlington's very rapid transit-worthy population density, there's great need for correcting the major bus circulation deficiencies in the northwest region and RLX to Heights directly accomplishes that.

I'd probably reroute the 67 to the Medford GLX & Davis because the Arlington Center RLX connection would exist. Restore the former 84 Arlmont Village-Alewife bus and delete the 78 bus altogether. Then make the 74 bus a FBR and take the 75 and reroute it to Arlington Center, to allow an Arlington-Belmont-MtAuburn crosstown that would replace the deleted 78/rerouted 67. Then abolish the 87 altogether by extending the 96 from Davis to Union Sq rather than Harvard, and extending the 89 from Davis to Arlington Center. Then extend frequent service in Medford some more by running the 94 Arlington Center to Wellington.

And also, I got bored and tried to estimate how much frequency time savings the 62/76 and the 350 would get if they vacated Alewife and terminated at Arlington Heights and Arlington Center instead.

Here's the current no of buses the MBTA seems to run the 62/76 and 350 buses, and the frequency changes and improvements

Route 62/76

Time	Current no# buses to Alewife	Current frequency to Alewife	Adjusted no# buses to A-Heights	Adjusted frequency to A-Heights
Weekday AM peak	6	15 trunk/30 branches	6	13 trunk/26 branches (extend morning service from 5:18AM to 5:00AM)
Weekday interpeak	3	30 trunk/60 branches	3	26 trunk/52 branches
Weekday PM peak	7	15 trunk/30 branches	7	12 trunk/24 branches
Weekday evening	2	40	2	29 (extend evening service from 7:47PM to 7:58PM for the 76 and from 9:59PM to 10:35PM for the 62)
Saturday midday	2	50	3 (+1 additional bus to undo the Fall 2025 Saturday service cut removal to Lincoln Lab)	25 trunk/50 branches (double Saturday frequency between A-Heights and Lexington Center. Extend service from 5:57AM-9:34PM to 5:20AM-10:35PM)
Sunday midday	2	50	2	36 (no span of service extension)

Route 350

Time	Current no# buses to Alewife	Current frequency to Alewife	Adjusted no# buses to A-Center	Adjusted frequency to A-Center
Weekday AM peak	6	25	6	17 (extend morning service from 5:51AM to 5:00AM)
Weekday interpeak	2	60 (40 from Fall 2021 - Spring 2023)	3 (+1 additional bus to revert/undo COVID era service cuts to the Fall 2021-Spring 2023 frequency)	36
Weekday PM peak	5	30	5	23
Weekday evening	2	60	2	52 (extend evening service from 10:32PM to 10:37PM) (maybe we could add a 3rd bus here for every 34 minute frequency)
Saturday midday	3	45-60	3	36 (extend morning service from 6:12AM to 5:20AM)
Sunday midday	2	60	2	53 (extend service from 7:06AM-6:56PM to 6:00AM-7:58PM)

So basically, the RLX would allow us to run buses between Lexington Center-Arlington Heights every 25-28 minutes weekdays through Saturdays from morning through the evening, with 12-14 minute rush hour frequencies. Evening and Saturday service get the biggest uplift from the 40-50 minute frequencies right now without RLX to every 25-29 with RLX, but weekday middays is only limited improvement from the 30 -> 26 minute weekday interpeak frequency even with RLX. Saturday service is doubled between Lexington Center and Arlington Heights (every 50 -> 25 minutes) to restore service to Lincoln Lab that was eliminated in Fall 2025, but no changes or service cuts are needed between Bedford VA and Lexington Center with RLX in place. For the 350 bus, we'd see biggest RLX improvements in weekday midday frequency (hourly frequency -> every 35-37 minutes), rush hour frequencies increase from every 25 to every 17 minutes in the morning, and from every 30 to every 23 minutes in the evening rush hour with RLX. Saturday service frequency increases from every 45-60 minutes to every 36 minutes. Sunday service frequency improvement from the RLX is limited to every 53 minutes rather than hourly. Span of service extensions with the 350 and 62/76 in both the morning and evening would also be needed with RLX.

 

[stick n move]

Wasnt even gonna post this cuz of all the transit projects not happening this one may be not happening the most, but apparently actual money is going to a study so figured Id at least get it on the record here.

Red Line extension to Concord gains steam as transit talks roll on​

“Massachusetts’ newly approved 2027 fiscal year budget includes $50,000 to study “the financial feasibility and department capability” of extending the MBTA’s Red Line from the train’s Alewife terminus to the Concord rotary.”

Red Line extension to Concord gains steam as transit talks roll on

A study would also examine creating a dedicated bus line from Alewife to the rotary.

concordbridge.org

 

[Delvin4519]

Wasnt even gonna post this cuz of all the transit projects not happening this one may be not happening the most, but apparently actual money is going to a study so figured Id at least get it on the record here.

Red Line extension to Concord gains steam as transit talks roll on​

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“Massachusetts’ newly approved 2027 fiscal year budget includes $50,000 to study “the financial feasibility and department capability” of extending the MBTA’s Red Line from the train’s Alewife terminus to the Concord rotary.”

Red Line extension to Concord gains steam as transit talks roll on

A study would also examine creating a dedicated bus line from Alewife to the rotary.

concordbridge.org

It was posted in the general MBTA thread earlier. The answer is basically "just run more trains through Waltham more often", and RLX doesn't need to run past Arlington Heights.

There's no usable ROW to run from Arlington Heights to drop back down to Route 2; and skipping Arlington is dubious value unless we're sending RLX through Waltham Center instead; but the current turnback tunnel/tail tracks are angled towards Arlington Heights instead and not Waltham (and the tail tracks are not even angled towards route 2 either). It's more like the mundane things of "run everything at frequency every 10 - 15 minutes" that do all the actual hard work but get none of the attention because it doesn't make for clickbait; meanwhile things like "we need subways too because subways are the fastest and skip all the traffic" get all the eyes.

 

[themissinglink]

Arlington puts bid for Red Line service before Mass. Legislature

While town officials would like to see the MBTA line extended, a 1980 Massachusetts law currently prohibits it.

www.nbcboston.com

Reps. Sean Garballey and David Rogers and Sen. Cindy Friedman — who all represent Arlington — filed legislation (HD 6313) this month repealing a section of a 1980 law barring the MBTA from planning or building any Red Line extension further into Arlington "unless specifically authorized to do so by law."
The bill is a home rule petition approved by Arlington Town Meeting in May, Garballey said, and something he's "strongly" in favor of as a way to offer traffic relief for residents.
"It's a goal to provide more services to our constituents. You know, the town of Arlington, is made up of around 45,000 people. We are a massive population right outside Boston and there is no train service that goes through the town of Arlington. There's been a lot of conversations within our community for decades about why that is," Garballey said.
According to town records, Arlington's Town Meeting voted 145-54 in May, with 11 members abstaining, authorizing the Select Board to file a home rule petition to repeal the 1980 law.
[...]
A 2024 law stemming from legislation filed by Garballey, Rogers and Friedman repealed a 1976 law prohibiting the MBTA from building a mass transportation facility — including a parking garage or rapid transit station – within 75 yards of Arlington Catholic High School.
The bill repealing the 1980 law has yet to be assigned to a committee and the Legislature concluded scheduled formal sessions in July. Still, Garballey says he's hopeful it will get passed before the end of the year.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Arlington puts bid for Red Line service before Mass. Legislature

While town officials would like to see the MBTA line extended, a 1980 Massachusetts law currently prohibits it.

www.nbcboston.com

I'm happy to see a revival of interest by Arlington in an RLX into their community. But I think an EIS and a detailed design for RLX to Arlington Heights were completed in the late 1970s, and I'm guessing the funding to build it could have been obtained from the Feds at that time, if not for the vehement opposition from Arlington.

 

[CheapLeak]

I'm happy to see a revival of interest by Arlington in an RLX into their community. But I think an EIS and a detailed design for RLX to Arlington Heights were completed in the late 1970s, and I'm guessing the funding to build it could have been obtained from the Feds at that time, if not for the vehement opposition from Arlington.

Unless forced to, would the MBTA even bother completing new studies and designs now? I feel expansion is basically the bottom of their priority list currently, save for SLX (what’s even happening with that?). Maybe after one or two 5-year spending plans have passed they’ll consider it, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Unless forced to, would the MBTA even bother completing new studies and designs now? I feel expansion is basically the bottom of their priority list currently, save for SLX (what’s even happening with that?). Maybe after one or two 5-year spending plans have passed they’ll consider it, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Probably not. Despite all the progress made on state of good repair it's very clear that the general organizational attitude is still very conservative.

 

[JumboBuc]

Unless forced to, would the MBTA even bother completing new studies and designs now? I feel expansion is basically the bottom of their priority list currently, save for SLX (what’s even happening with that?). Maybe after one or two 5-year spending plans have passed they’ll consider it, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Probably not. Despite all the progress made on state of good repair it's very clear that the general organizational attitude is still very conservative.

It's all 100% about the money. Where would the many billions of dollars for this extension come from???

 

[TheRatmeister]

It's all 100% about the money. Where would the many billions of dollars for this extension come from???

No it's not. The T has allocated the resources for Focus50 and could choose to include items about pipe-dream capital projects in order to virtue signal and at least having something proposed if feddy bucks or state money suddenly became available.

But no, the prevailing mindset in the team making a long-term vision that is not supposed to be taking finances into account seems to be that the money will never come so what's the point. Call it conservatism or doomerism, the effect is the same. If you don't even have a shred of hope for a better future then it will never, ever arrive.

 

[stick n move]

It's all 100% about the money. Where would the many billions of dollars for this extension come from???

If you look around the country seattle is building a full metro from scratch, LA is building the 2nd biggest metro in the entire US, atlanta is voting monday on building a new light rail line on the beltway. All of them have 1 thing in common, theyre able to levy a new sales tax within a specific city or county in order to raise the money to pay for it. This is currently illegal in massachusetts and no city or town can levy their own sales tax separate from the state to pay for transportation projects. We need to pass legislation in order to be able to change this. Here is a bill that is currently moving through the legislature that would allow this to happen. Thats where the money would have to come from. LA is building out new metro lines all over LA county by passing ballot measures raising half cent sales taxes which are raising billions of dollars.

Bill H.3050

malegislature.gov