North Washington St Bridge

I concur. Take a close look, there are definitely fixed pipes / conduits that cross the span. The clearance is comparable to the sky ridge that crosses the locks so there's no use anyway...
 
Mixed feelings.

Better pedestrian connections and a shiny new bridge are a good thing for the city but we are losing another piece of gritty old Boston in the process.

Overall a win, I suppose.
 
Rosales does good work. I look forward to seeing what comes of this, but I agree with Statler- I love the feel and grittiness of that weathered old truss bridge, and I'll be sad to lose that.

Edit:
Just heard from someone who would know to expect arches. We shall see...
 
Space for green line tracks to Navy Yard via Canal St incline?
 
Shepard said:
Space for green line tracks to Navy Yard via Canal St incline?
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Shoulda rehabbed the old bridge to keep that capability. . .

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Matthew said:
Well, it seems that both the state and the city think that 150' is too small for a "complete street" so we're probably looking at upwards of that :/
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The new bridge will be on the existing foot print of the North Washington Street bridge. I am not concerned they got a great architect who will design a signature bridge (who knows he might design a newer truss bridge). I seriously dought any widening at all. There is too much around this bridge to widen the footprint. I see a road diet instead of a "road widening". I am happy the state went with this option of replacement instead of trying to restore the bridge. That bridge is way past repair. The initial plan called for nearly 75% of the steel to be replaced. Might as well just replace the last 25%.
 
Slightly off topic question but when did the Orange Line transition from a 4-car train to a 6-car train? I remember in the early 90s that the Orange Line was only 4 cars long on Sundays. Was that photo taken on Sunday, and if not, did station platforms need to be extended when they transitioned?
 
KentXie said:
Slightly off topic question but when did the Orange Line transition from a 4-car train to a 6-car train? I remember in the early 90s that the Orange Line was only 4 cars long on Sundays. Was that photo taken on Sunday, and if not, did station platforms need to be extended when they transitioned?
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The Orange Line platform are all original length. I don't know that they started off with six-car trains, though. It may have been future-proofing that allowed for six-car trains.


On topic: There's no need for the bridge to be widened. It can probably be just as wide and still fit three comfortably sized lanes in each direction. That said, I hope they keep it down to just two lanes in each direction, as it is now, but make them wide enough that two cars can actually drive side-by-side...
 
Well, most of the Orange Line has been totally replaced since 1908, other than the Washington Street tunnel... and some of those stations were completely redone anyway.
 
KentXie said:
Slightly off topic question but when did the Orange Line transition from a 4-car train to a 6-car train? I remember in the early 90s that the Orange Line was only 4 cars long on Sundays. Was that photo taken on Sunday, and if not, did station platforms need to be extended when they transitioned?
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1987 when the SW Corridor opened. Some of the old El stations were only 4-car length, so that was as long as trains would go. Haymarket-North stations were pre-built for 6-car trains when it opened in '75, and the old subway stations were lengthened prior to the SW Corridor opening. Same deal on Red...that was 4-car max until 1988 when Central-Ashmont got platforms lengthened (Braintree and Alewife extensions pre-built for 6).

Was only a few years ago they stopped breaking trains to 4 cars off-peak on the three HRT lines. Now that one-man ops is in place it doesn't make a staffing difference, and it's easier to never touch the trainsets in the yard if they don't have to.


2-car trains used to be the regular off-peak and weekend practice until about 1980.

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Hopefully the new North Washington St Bridge will be designed with sufficient strength to accommodate a future light rail line down the middle of it.
 
Why would they over design a bridge for something that won't happen? The state doesn't even have the money to build a new bridge as it is, why spend more?!
 
There's no where to go from the N Washington St Bridge that makes sense for a new line. The end of the Navy Yard/Chucktown High area is never going to need anything more than a few bus lines. It's a geographic dead end, with the only through running traffic going to Sullivan (already an HRT line) or BHCC (also already an HRT line). That's not to say that the 91/93 don't need to run better, but that's another issue entirely.
 
Personally I think Charlestown and the Navy Yard are terribly underserved by rail transit. The (completely ridiculously named) "Community College" stop is simply too far removed from much of the neighborhood.

A GL branch could come up the now-disused Canal Street portal and across the bridge. Can it be brought further via a drawbridge to Chelsea? Doubtful, but maybe (this is all Crazy Transit Pitch, anyway)
 
DMU from North Station to Chelsea's already in the works, so why would you build a redundant Green Line extension just to get an intermediary Navy Yard stop? Seems like a waste of money.
 
CC's main entrance is literally staring at where the ex-Thompson Square stop's main entrance was about 1300 ft. up Austin St. The only transit loss in the middle of the neighborhood when the El went away was that the 92 didn't pick up at the main entrance any longer. They arguably got hit harder when their pair of Green Line branches on the 92 and 93 out of North Station got bustituted.

City Sq. did lose easy access, but there was virtually nothing left of City Sq. in the mid-70's to serve, and the Navy Yard was a pit of despair at the time it closed. If redevelopment out there is not getting adequate transit service that's a frequencies problem on the 93 to attack first and foremost.

All signs point to a shitty local bus route problem fixable by making frequencies less shitty, reshaping routes, or adding a peak-hour short-turn route to the Navy Yard and Spaulding. The only way a trolley line ever gets out here is if they start running heritage trolleys along the Greenway out of Haymarket/GC, in which case plunking some tracks on the bridge for a "Freedom Trail Branch" is not a too-far-fetched. But there's no upside whatsoever to the Green Line for sending a dense local-stop route out there. It runs in direct conflict to every other GL expansion goal that's all about fusing the system with the Urban Ring or linking light rail to the biggest bus transfer terminals.
 
If the 111 stopped at city square that would add a huge amount of frequency (although the buses are so full it wouldn't that useful...)
 
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