MBTA Construction Projects

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Construction Is Underway On Back Bay Station Makeover - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Developers are promising to deliver “a first-class transit hub.”
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org
A plan to revamp the MBTA’s aging Back Bay station is finally entering its first phase of major construction after a decade’s worth of planning. This work was originally planned to begin in 2023. A kick-off presentation in July of that year from developer BXP (Boston Properties) promised that Back Bay would become “a first-class transit hub of ‘airport quality’” with these renovations.
The proposed renovations would result in a 52 percent increase in seating, a 69 percent increase in dedicated waiting space, and a 49 percent increase in bike parking space, among other station improvements.
Workers have already finished a seven-month enabling, or pre-construction, phase, where crews established work zones, built electrical infrastructure, and delivered steel. Phase one of the construction work is officially underway, set to last until June. This work will focus on the Clarendon Street exterior of the station, as well as the center and east side of the interior.
[...]
In this first phase of the work, the Clarendon Street entrance will be closed, but the elevator will remain in service, and scaffolding will be set up along the Orange Line platform.
A new bike cage at the Clarendon Street entrance will be available for public use by next week. Following the completion of the east side in June, work crews will begin renovating the west side of the station on the Dartmouth Street side, which is slated to last from this July until April 2027.
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Am I the only one who doesnt really see whats different? Theres a railing around the stairs instead of concrete and it looks brighter and less cluttered, but thats all I can see. All the renders look like basically the same station but brighter inside. What am I missing?
 
stick n move said:
Am I the only one who doesnt really see whats different? Theres a railing around the stairs instead of concrete and it looks brighter and less cluttered, but thats all I can see. All the renders look like basically the same station but brighter inside. What am I missing?
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A lot of the important work is infrastructure related (not very visible). Particularly major HVAC upgrades to keep diesel fumes out of the concourse level (serious health issue). Also electrical and lighting. Minor reassignment of space, such as moving the bike cage out of the concourse to the Clarendon Street loop.

I have no idea if they are addressing all the water infiltration at the platform level.
 
stick n move said:
Am I the only one who doesnt really see whats different? Theres a railing around the stairs instead of concrete and it looks brighter and less cluttered, but thats all I can see. All the renders look like basically the same station but brighter inside. What am I missing?
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I wouldn't focus too much on the visual similarities. In addition to what @JeffDowntown mentions, these fairly substantial upgrades caught my attention:
The proposed renovations would result in a 52 percent increase in seating, a 69 percent increase in dedicated waiting space, and a 49 percent increase in bike parking space, among other station improvements.
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F-Line to Dudley said:
It's way too late to un-ring the bell of the car centricity of Alewife.
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I really don't know how you're coming to that conclusion.

All the development popping up around Alewife in the past couple decades is, like, fine. Most has been built along Cambridgepark Drive, which is relatively pedestrian friendly. Good sidewalks, one lane of traffic each direction for cars, separated bike lanes. There's some (but not much) ground floor activation. They built a ton of parking, but that will be true of any TOD around here, unless it's outright banned. (Developers will insist on building parking garages on top of our downtown train stations, ffs.) Most of the other streets north and south of the tracks look similar. Lots of people clearly get to and from the Alewife area by public transit. The new development might be more car-centric than one might wish, but this isn't some car sewer.

And even if you think the area is too car-centric, I don't see how it's so bad that now it's "way too late to un-ring the bell of car centricity." One company wants to start developing its 46 acres around there, and they're generally planning the things you'd want for a non-car-centric neighborhood. They've got plans for a bike/pedestrian bridge over the train tracks; breaking up a giant block into a street grid; mix of residential/commercial/retail; a concentrated retail "main street" area; dedicated bike and pedestrian paths to get around and go under the parkway. Eyeballing it, that company's land is just a bit over half of the developable land around there. That's a ton of space, a whole neighborhood, still to be built. I don't think that vast area is doomed to car centricity because of the not-great-but-not-terrible TOD that's already been built.

I'm still not really advocating for a West Cambridge station. You're right, this could be a low priority for a whole bunch of reasons. But if you're basing your conclusion off a 2004 study that says 60 people would use a station there, or if you think the area is some doomed car sewer, you might have an outdated perception of the area.
 
This^.
Also, the existence of a Red Line station in the neighborhood, plus the perpetual gridlock at the Alewife Rte. 2/Rte. 16 intersection, will assure that care-centric usage is kept at bay.
 
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Ruggles Phase 2 in full swing. In combination with 840 Columbus this area is just one giant construction detour for the next couple years.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
It's way too late to un-ring the bell of the car centricity of Alewife. A quarter-century of car-brained planning around parking capacity and garages makes it what it is. If they cared about transit access to the Fawcett/Concord Ave. side of the neighborhood, they would've put more movement on building the footbridge to the existing rapid transit station. Or cared more than they do(n't) about troubleshooting the existing rapid transit station and its dysfunctional environs. They didn't...they've been fucking the chicken of trying to sack all that cost on private developers who are completely uninterested in either the footbridge or the station redev because...duh...they built their empires to insane parking ratios. Traffic is worse than it's ever been, and the coalition of City and developers just won't adjust no matter how loudly the ward complains about traffic. They're pounding the sunk cost as hard as they ever have. Their brains are totally broken.

When the existing transit station by its own gravity well and to-be-improving service levels can't seem to unstick this mentality at all, I can't foresee a future where a surely over-expensive (because of the access challenges) CR station with worse service levels present and future is going to move the needle significantly. The car-centric recipe means that it'll be underutilized relative to its surrounding density because the mode preference has been reinforced to infinity by the build decisions. It's not that there isn't some significant ridership there...it's that there are 10-15 other infill candidates on the system to spend the resources on where there's actual transit-orientation momentum to tap. This place ain't it.
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I think the real question is, who would take this? The area is such a traffic nightmare — really one of the worst in the region. Also, where are the parking lots going to go? It seems the main source of riders are supposed to drive in, and most drivers come from route 2. Why would they want to fight an even greater distance in their car, or park and walk a really long way, just to get a seat to North Station when they could take the Red to a quarter mile away? If you live further up in Belmont, you’ll just take the same line from there. If you live closer in, you would just go to Alewife or Porter.

As someone else said here I’m sure there are a lot of liberal arts educated types trying to lobby this to make some sort of case to sweeten development packages around here. Lots of pretty graphics and utterly educated up-to-date urban design principle language. But it doesn’t change the fact that the only people who would take this are going to be people who live immediately in the vicinity, and that sounds like it’s betting a lot of money that a huge percentage of these residential buildings are going to have a need for this particular line.

It’s a shame the city didn’t plan ahead for a station here, because they could have actually planned for a skyway or right of way that went directly from alewife to this station. As is though, this will always be a totally separate project.
 
FK4 said:
It’s a shame the city didn’t plan ahead for a station here, because they could have actually planned for a skyway or right of way that went directly from alewife to this station. As is though, this will always be a totally separate project.
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There's still a corridor available for a skyway to connect the RL station to a commuter rail station (skyway location shown in red):

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Charlie_mta said:
There's still a corridor available for a skyway to connect the RL station to a commuter rail station (skyway location shown in red):

View attachment 70727
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  1. That's to the corner of the garage which is still a ~3 minute walk from the platforms.
  2. That corner of the garage is ~4-5 minutes from where you'd put the CR platform.
  3. But why? The RL and Fitchburg Line already have a transfer station. It's not like the BL at Wonderland where at least you're making a new connection, there's already a transfer available at Porter. Any CR infill at Alewife would need to justify itself entirely on ridership coming from outside Boston and even that's a tough sell with the quick transfer at Porter.
 
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TheRatmeister said:
But why? The RL and Fitchburg Line already have a transfer station. It's not like the BL at Wonderland where at least you're making a new connection, there's already a transfer available at Porter.
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Yeah this is what I can't get over. It just seems like such a low value-add to a system that has so many more low hanging fruits.
 
TheRatmeister said:
  1. That's to the corner of the garage which is still a ~3 minute walk from the platforms.
  2. That corner of the garage is ~4-5 minutes from where you'd put the CR platform.
  3. But why? The RL and Fitchburg Line already have a transfer station. It's not like the BL at Wonderland where at least you're making a new connection, there's already a transfer available at Porter.
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Don't forget the required switchback ramps for changing elevations at any sort of sustained foot-traffic level for dwell swells. That's going to add several hundred more feet to the walk. At least the Fawcett-to-Cambridgepark vaporware footbridge is more likely to be a straight-line elevation on one or both ends saving the extra steps. A skyway (or, far more likely, exit to the closely parallel Parkway sidewalk) is going to be stacked with a lot of required switchbacks to gain elevation in a compressed space.
 
This is definitely not low hanging fruit, but I always thought a Green Line extension from Union Square to the western part of the Alewife development district would be a good option. The green line would have the transfer stop at Porter and then have a couple requisite in-fill stops (Park/Dane St, Sherman St … you can debate what makes sense) for the community connections to make it a viable routing. This would also provide a connection to North Station. There would be no need to integrate with Alewife RL given the transfer option at Porter and the too-long distance between them. I just don’t see a CR in-fill at Alewife providing much benefit either due to the reasons explained in the prior posts.
 
Just a behind the scenes thing, the MBTA is procuring a CM@R project to build substantially more employee space across its yards, replacing a series of what appear to be quite decrepit "temporary" portable office structures - presumably part of the CIP's 18.6M in systemwide trailer replacement, I'm generally in favor of anything that supports and incentivises in-house maintenance.
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Burnham Road to Close at MBTA Railroad Bridge Beginning in Late March • Andover, MA

andoverma.gov andoverma.gov
This is an MBTA-led project involving the railroad bridge that carries the Haverhill Line over Burnham Road. According to project materials shared by the MBTA, the work will include bearing seat reconstruction, stone masonry repointing, and blast cleaning and painting of bridge steel. The purpose of the project is to preserve and maintain the bridge and extend its useful life. The MBTA has indicated that construction is expected to begin at the end of March 2026 and continue for approximately eight months. Abutters have received notice about the project directly from the MBTA.
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