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I believe the federal funds referenced in the Streetsblog article are from the "Reconnecting Communities" grant program. Spending them on the throat would probably be in violation of grant requirements, even if did include an Agganis Way ped/bike bridge. The work proposed seems to be almost...

I couldn't agree more. In urban areas, it is almost uniformly cheaper to bury utilities. However, I will note that it is typically most cost-effective to do this work when the entire street is being repaved, instead of block-by-block. While the developer is throwing in some sidewalk...

For the Route 57 Transit Priority Corridor, BTD is looking to fully repaint parts of Washington Street and Cambridge Street in Brighton. The project documents have not been updated, but they have stated that Washington Street is in too poor of condition to paint and will be fully repaved. New...

For anyone interested, the Allston-Brighton Community Plan (ABCP) Open House is tonight from 6-8 at the Brighton Elks Lodge. This plan should inform future zoning (and likely the upcoming S+S initiatives in AB). More information about the Open House and ABCP is linked.

Thank you for pulling that information from the slides. It definitely helps inform this conversation. I think there is a reasonable chance to see Butler, Milton, and Central Ave consolidated into a single station. They are all within about 1600 feet of Milton, and the Neponset Trail provides a...

In this case, the main benefit of station consolidation/removal is cost savings. The T does not view leaving any station as non-ADA compliant as an option. As I said in a previous post, the expected cost of replacing the Valley Road station is almost $21 million, but was only serving 10 daily...

After reaching out to the MBTA, I have some vague but mildly encouraging information on the Mattapan Line Transformation. Full quotes are below, with emphasis mine: On the Transformation project in general: "We are currently in the process of redefining aspects of the project scope with our...

But a nice commuter shuttle solves basically all of these problems. It can be a timed transfer, similar quality to the Logan Express (which has no problem attracting suburbanites), and West Station is being designed to make bus/shuttle transfers as seamless as possible. As mentioned in a...

I certainly agree. However, we should be clear that the choice of BEMUs for the Fairmount Line has nothing to do with what is best for the Fairmount Line and everything to do with testing BEMUs before committing to them system-wide. While I certainly don't like it, this doesn't seem like a case...

I can't speak to Western Ave & N Harvard, but I know Cambridge St isn't getting touched as part of these improvements, although some minor changes should be made as part of the Route 57 Transit Priority Corridor project. One of the larger intersections that is getting treatment is North Beacon &...

Part of the T's logic for BEMUs is the assumption that costs will go down and performance will increase as battery technology improves. They didn't state this in the podcast but it shows up in other Rail Vision-related materials they've produced. This seems to be a reasonable assumption, but it...

Realistically, Grand Junction will need to be down for some amount of time, and building a temporary replacement connection will almost certainly cost more than it's worth, in both time and money. The emphasis should be placed on turning the amount of time GJ is down from years (which would...

I do think a major reason why we're hearing less about NSRL is that electrification is being viewed more and more as a prerequisite for it. And given the lack of clear electrification plans, it makes more sense to push those first. Both of these projects should be embraced, but it definitely...

The initial IAG and public presentations occurred earlier this week. Fire safety concerns were echoed by about a dozen people, mostly abutters. Basically everyone else was highly supportive of the project and all the improvements that could come on the site. City Council is planning a hearing...

I'm not sure anyone is claiming a 12% service reduction is acceptable. We just don't agree that all service needs to be restored before BNRD starts. Phase 1 of BNRD seems like a very cost-effective way to provide frequent service and likely result in very positive ridership impacts. It would not...

I will agree that the lack of communication by the MBTA here is a cause for concern, but it is not inherently problematic that they start BNRD without restoring all pre-COVID service. The ultimate goal should be to provide all of the service specified by BNRD; the question is how to get there...

This is a great description about the various levels of service that can be provided along GJ, but there's a few points I'd like to respectfully disagree with. First, there is a very really possibility that LRT will block the adoption of a sealed corridor (moving from phase 2 to 3), not just...

To add on here, a moderate amount of this route already has bus priority projects in the works (River St and parts of Western Ave), while the rest of it (besides Everett St) is in MBTA's Bus Priority Vision (map below). If the bus infrastructure upgrades are happening regardless, a traffic-free...

As someone who is not a fan of the outsize influence educational institutions have here, this feels like a major exaggeration of the circumstances. Firstly, we do not know how MIT would react to grade separation proposals along GJ because no formal studies have been performed. As far as we know...

The costs of the proposal here and NSRL are nowhere close to each other. The report shows a maximum cost of $323 million over all alternatives and even if this is viewed as optimistic, running regional rail-style trains along this corridor every 15 minutes for $500 million is very doable. On the...