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Go look up the Inner Belt and Southwest Corridor proposals for an example of what can happen when a state transportation agency has the power to stomp all over local communities (though they were thwarted in this case).

If you're pushing for a rail-with-trail along the Fitchburg, keep going to South Acton to hook up with the ARRT. Dare to dream big. :) Might even be doable; looks like there's 20ish feet of ROW on either side of the tracks.

I don't get how this can be so much cheaper. You still have to get rid of the spoil and install lining.

This sounds like the voice of experience.

I would be astonished if they don't do that, on every train. Particularly the long-distance trains, where a seat might turn over several times in one trip.

What's worse is trying to turn left from Alewife Brook Parkway onto Broadway, in either direction, where there is inexplicably no exclusive phase. If you don't floor it the second the light turns green you're just going to sit there for the entire cycle.

The former Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital is in the way of connecting those two tracks. I dug up this post from F-line explaining the history. It's not stated, but I'm pretty sure Tracks 11 and 12 can only work if a third drawbridge is built (which is planned, along with replacing the other two).

Doubtful. The Medford branch is supposed to open at the end of the summer, and the Community Path probably won't open for some time after that, as they'll continue to need it to access the ROW.

Yeah, I don't how a project as major as electrification could possibly be justified for an event that only lasts a month.

Yeah, if "rebuild the McGrath Highway bridge" becomes part of the equation, a whole lot of things suddenly become easier.

The problem with the North Washington St alignment is that's the freight connection for the Lowell Line.

Yes, and I can't see a way to do that without building a honking big flyover of the entire Brickbottom Junction complex, and the bike path overpass might be in the way. If nothing else, people coming in from Everett and Chelsea can transfer to the Orange Line at Sullivan. In an ideal universe...

Since this came up again, and Google Maps has some nice up-to-date imagery of the route, I looked at the Urban Ring route through Brickbottom and Sullivan. It's over here in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread where it belongs.

Google Maps now has up-to-date imagery of Brickbottom Junction, so I took a stab at figuring out how the Urban Ring could be built through there, and out to the Mystic River. Here's the result, zoom in to see the details. Some notes: We can't route the Urban Ring northbound up the Union Square...

And ours.

Yup. It's the standard problem with siting the terminus of a transit line, everyone's afraid people are going to drive in from the suburbs and park all over their neighborhood. With the College Ave location, that's Tufts's problem for the most part. Same reason they hated the West Medford terminus.

Yeah, a lot of people in Somerville are up in arms about these changes. The 80 duplicates the GLX route, of course, but cutting out the entire Broadway corridor between Teele Square and Winter Hill? That's one of the three major east-west routes through Somerville and a lot of people live there.

That's part of the Somerville High School project. Was supposed to be a parking deck with a turf playing field on top, but I think the garage got VE'ed out. It also got significantly delayed due to asbestos contamination.

I've been seeing the signals lit up north of Ball Square as well.

Yeah, Friends of the Community Path, STEP and the other advocacy groups put a ton of pressure on the state to make the path wider, but they were all "we'd have to completely redesign it, it would cost a lot of money, tough noogies". That inbound downgrade is going to be fun and excitement on...