Recent content by ritchiew

A middle of the night thought, but this could be an opportunity to put a couple new streets in and chop up that megablock. Cambridge is doing that with the Volpe redevelopment, which is a similar size. Here's what the area between Merrimac, Chardon, Cambridge, and Staniford Streets looked like...

I notice this sometimes on basically any train, and not just Boston. Just a coincidence, but I've heard this problem a bunch, maybe 4-5 times, in the past couple of weeks. All on Red or Green trains. I'd actually be curious how those systems work, and if they work better on the new CRRC trains...

I think this is probably the best study looking at whether rich people move to avoid taxes. https://www.asanet.org/wp-content/uploads/attach/journals/jun16asrfeature.pdf Stanford researchers worked with the US Treasury department to track everyone who filed federal taxes with more than $1M...

I love that picture. It's taken from the roof of the Braemore, which is still there. I've thought it would be great (actually, sad) to get up there and recreate that picture now. Also, there are other photos from that roof, I think taken the same day, showing other vantages. A bunch can be...

I was just lurking, but enjoying this conversation. It seems to have petered out. What chapter are people theoretically up to now? My suggestion is this is a pretty slow timeline for reading the book. (And at least some of the discussion feels like guessing what arguments they might later...

This has already come up a bit, but I think if you want to figure out how people get to/from Longwood, you really also need to look at the buses. In the other thread, @JeffDowntown pointed out the substantial shuttle system. There are also all the MBTA buses. There are seven that go down...

Thanks so much for all that info! Please, seriously, try and shoehorn your datacenter knowledge into every thread in this forum. If people say it's off topic, I'll defend you. That's wild that this is the only carrier hotel in New England. Out of curiosity, do you know where else in the region...

Thanks for that link. That adds the further logic that "China does it," which, you're right, not especially compelling. That blog post does fill in a couple of numbers I was looking for, if anyone else is interested. I think this is all correct: For the HSR the report plans, there would be 10...

One kind of odd thing is their recommendation to plan to run 400m long trains, which requires extending platforms at most stations that would get HSR. The entirety of their reasoning is this: The plan already calls for sending much more frequent trains, which itself doubles or quadruples...

Yes and no, depends on the city. Lots of cities, especially midwest and rustbelt, lost tons of housing. A bunch of examples here, and probably the go-to example is Detroit. This just shows the downtown, but the destruction runs through pretty much the whole city. It's kind of hard to believe...

I've seen this article popping up more places, and I've been meaning to drop a line about how bad it is.... It's called "Why America Should Sprawl," but it spends surprisingly little effort even trying to make that case. Really, it's hard to find a coherent argument in there. It seems to...

I don't think this kind of reasoning works well for this proposed Inner Ring for a couple of reasons. That logic assumes a kind of idealized network that works less well in the real world, especially for Boston. It assumes that there's a good density of radial lines so people actually have the...

@Teban54 , it's funny, I was just thinking about a Kendall/Back Bay subway before you posted this. I was think of almost the exact route you drew here. You captured a bunch of my thinking, but I'll throw in a few more ideas here. (This is really more "God Mode Planning" than "Sh**tposting," but...

I think @Teban54 is right that this is a problem with Metro North controlling the track. Here's an interesting post on some of the problems on the line: bad timetabling practices, bad maintenance practices, massive time padding. The new signaling system might be good, but they don't help Acelas...

That's awesome! One thing that stands out to me is the Green Line branch out of North Station towards Charlestown and Chelsea. Has anyone (official or otherwise) sketched out how that would work? The junction at North Station seems hard because this is all under the Garden, the Hub on...