Search results

For the most part, I think not. One of the (weaker) arguments against the millionaires tax ballot initiative last fall was that the funds it would raise that were ostensibly earmarked for education and transportation could be put to other purposes by the General Court. There may be some state...

Agreed, though I think there is some added value in being able to point to the smaller-ticket improvements, both in demonstrating their value and that they're capable of being implemented. Things from smaller to larger, like Boston's expansion of bus lanes, Cambridge's expansion of bike lanes...

I mean...that doesn't solve many if any of the problems I mentioned. I don't see how it's functionally possible to only charge MA drivers, who are the only people the state has income tax info on (theoretically, because there's plenty of people who can drive who don't necessarily have to file...

Huh. Either the thought of a possible Washington Street connection was there at some level that early, or the project was even more monumentally stupid than I thought. There is no universe in which tunneling down Essex is unambiguously a good idea given how narrow it is, even if we assume for...

Wasn't there a thread around here somewhere documenting the literal years it took for them to replace the maps at Park Street prominently showing Government Center as closed for renovation long after it had reopened? They have a habit of doing stuff like this. It is a good question - albeit...

F-Line has a thorough accounting of its demise...somewhere around here. (I'm not in the mood to engage with the search function at the moment, but I'll link to it if I come across it.) As I recall from that, Phase III died because of the cost considerations. The tunneling under Essex (as BRT...

Okay, let's re-phrase my critique. You're correct that a collective belief that the toll money would actually be used to make transportation systems better is a necessary condition of and for implementing a scheme like this. What it isn't (and why that's not really a rebuttal as such) is a...

Uh...I didn't know that, but I think the answer's yes...now that I've looked it up. Though that was BRT, and you're correct that parts of the existing Tremont subway (especially between Park and GC in the stretch between the Suffolk building and the Parker House), are nearly as narrow as Essex...

But that doesn't change the fact that what you call incentives aren't necessarily fungible behaviors for all involved. Changing residential location isn't necessarily a simple matter. Some locations are too expensive for many, some of them have lousy services, some of them have lousy schools...

That section of Tremont is quite a bit wider than Boylston/Essex where Silver Line Phase III was supposed to go. That was at least theoretically possible, albeit expensive and painful tunneling (with a lot of the expense coming from underpinning the ancient GL/OL stations that thing would have...

How odd. On my first trip on the branch, which was the 21st, they stopped at every station and opened the doors, inbound and outbound. I don't recall if there were passengers boarding/alighting at all of them, so I can't say for sure that they weren't technically in the "Stop Request" policy...

I mean, you might have a point if the proposal is "tax the suburbanites". (I'll be clear, I don't actually know what the impacts of such a policy would look like, though if I take a data-free guess, I'd wager it might not be quite so awesome.) If it's "put usage taxes on all the inside-128...

Map says South St. I'm talking about the old stone arch bridge near the Arboretum, because the original post I was responding to was talking about quad-track width to Roslindale Square (and in my opinion the stone bridge is triple-track at most). Re-reading my post, I think I should have been...

The Needham ROW is (at least) triple-track width as far as Roslindale station (from the Google map it doesn't look like there's really starting to be any meaningful width constraint until near the Walworth underpass behind Fallon Field). The only structure anywhere near the station on the north...

Huh, and right after Baker leaves office, too... :rolleyes: :ROFLMAO:

It's definitely been bumpy, but not to the level of either of those Green Line lemons, the Boeings in particular. That said, Green had the befit of an existing fleet (PCCs for the Boeings, Type 7s for the Bredas) capable of at least filling the gaps when things went badly wrong (particularly...

So, uh, apparently something else went wrong with the new cars.... https://www.wcvb.com/article/electrical-problem-forces-mbta-to-pull-several-orange-line-cars-out-of-service/42370557 As usual, the T apparently didn't bother to mention they'd pulled a bunch of the new trains until people...

Yeah, looking at my post I wasn't entirely clear that the BLX stuff was just a hypothetical example to illustrate the point that the cost side of the cost-benefit analysis would have to take into consideration what other projects might suffer if you spent your finite transportation dollars on...

Absolutely a critical element. Recall that this is a corridor where the promised "equal or better" elevated replacement was a silver bus that, in addition to being worse in its mode, was shotgun-married to a completely different transit project, with the end result of being permanently broken in...

Even assuming for the sake of argument that a policy change along these lines is a good idea, the time to attempt it was two years ago, not now, because right now there's zero chance of it happening. Not when you have an incoming GOP majority in the House that's still reflexively anti-tax...