Search results

Yes: Medford/Tufts have two very nice bathrooms open to the public, and maybe the GL Operator's contract requires that at least one be operable at all time. (Just like Alewife has bathrooms that are at least usable for crew and have come and gone for public accesss) So maybe they're having to...

Yes, that’s a freight track on the left (P&W to Worcester, and could be commuter service one day) I believe that the NEC only needs to be 3 track here (and PVD - BOS in general) and I believe that’s just one empty track slot on the right.

I generally don’t think of prefab concrete as brutalist since I think brutalist is usually poured into molds on site.

The crossover doesn’t matter much if it is under wires they have to de-energize as fed from Ball Sq. Magoun doesn’t have the.curb space for idling shuttles.

This would make sense because the New Haven RR would have laid down these miles. It may be that the miles are actually from the NHRR's Harlem River terminal (built at a time when the NY Central had a monopoly on service on the Island of Manhatan). Later, partnered with both the NY Central and...

I wonder whose water lines? Might be this big distribution line that crosses the tracks there at the station. It is big enough that you'd probably want to de-energize the OCS served from Ball Sq (roughly the stations they're closing)

No, but people from the West and North had previously found to driving to MHT "nearly as convenient" (or "worth the trip for the lower prices") when the Big Dig was still a mess. The golden era at MHT culminated when the Route 3 add-a-lane project completed in 2005, and before Runway 14/32...

I have been using the coefficient of performance (CoP) which does the (heat moved/energy used) math for me at various temps. 2.5 is typical at 17F and 4.5 is typical in whichever temp they use for “the forties” (for a new heat pump with a SEER in the 20+ range) SEER is similar to CoP except...

I believe that you’ll see Somerville parents devising GLX trips to places like Government Center (City Hall plaza) It makes a grand outing for all kinds of ages. My tweens and their cousins enjoyed a walk from Haymarket to Faniuel Hall to State Street to City Hall plaza just for the lights...

My sense is that biking in “Boston” is different precisely because of these other factors (bus, rail transit, density, bikeshare stations) that mean that in “the core” bikes are used for commutes and errands and mix both on the street and in people’s heads with/as usable transit. Whereas we...

This source says transmission-distribution losses are 8% to 15% so my estimate of 10% loss seems not way off. https://chintglobal.com/blog/how-much-power-loss-in-transmission-lines/ This suggests combined cycle gas turbine world record is 63% efficient, so my estimate of 50% seems reasonable...

TLDR; Johnson Contols, Carrier and others are testing units that operate effectively down to -23F (-30C) and hope to have them in the market by 2024. So fossil direct-burn has reached its limits, but electric tech shows it is still early on its mass adoption/ tech improvement curve

@jklo can you actually supply better numbers ? I don’t think it is useful to simply suggest better numbers exist. Ideally you’ll say both why I am wrong and by how much. i continue to be struck by 2 facts: 1) most gas (or oil) systems 80% efficient. Getting to 90% (by replacing a boiler) is...

I believe Mass has made the right choice to promote heat pumps (as a way of reducing natural gas usage) A quick doodle; Gas heat can never be more than 100% efficient. Burn 1 btu, get a Btu into your living space. Burn a KWh, get a KWh into your house. (Yes, you can measure gas in KWh). New...

I had forgotten, Poor MCI was (along with DFW) designed at exactly the wrong time: after the jetway and before passenger metal detectors and bag X-rays (1970 introduced; 1973 Universal screening)— such that instead it was designed to minimize steps from curb to jetway. You think DFW is cramped...

I snapped this picture of a train with around 50 passengers arriving at the Medford terminus at 6pm yesterday, which is crazy more riders than a either CR at W.Med or an 80 bus would have ever had. Some but not all had parked along Boston Ave. Interesting “Christmas Observed” mix of older...

^ Frankly the same has to be first said for electrification, NEC triple track/substations and an EMU fleet

OL+1to RozSq was the 5th most popular project, but they bustituted it to be in-scope for the City:

I would think the Tobin would look elegant with just its top and bottom chords lit (just like most suspension bridges where you get the bottom arch and the top parabolas*) * technically “catenaries”

From the Boston Herald: I recall liking the Go Boston 2030 plan (2017) https://www.boston.gov/news/go-boston-2030-vision-and-action-plan-released IIRC, it made the first big political statement that the City was willing to reallocate space from general travel (SOVs) to pedestrian, bike, and...