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  1. Brattle Loop

    Better MBTA Station Names

    Roberts is ostensibly the name of the nearby neighborhood, but apart from real estate websites I don't think it's used much. (That was my regular commuting stop for a while, and, uh, I never knew - or cared - what it was referencing.) Eh, I like it as it is. It's simple and straightforward...
  2. Brattle Loop

    Better MBTA Station Names

    The #3 Red Line (01800 series) cars had a weird handful of those. I recall hearing "MIT Cambridge Center" (or something like that) at Kendall, a grafted-on "Mass Eye air Ear Infirmary" at Charles/MGH, and "Bayside Exposition Center" at JFK/UMass. I agree that it could be useful to have the...
  3. Brattle Loop

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    Yeah, from the looks of things the problems, either with the infrastructure, the paperwork, or both, necessitated first the global speed restrictions while they figured out which sections needed what level of restrictions, and now we're dealing with those ongoing restrictions: only the global...
  4. Brattle Loop

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    No, the last of the whole-line speed restrictions (Green's) implemented earlier this month are ending. The numerous slow zones...are still with us 😞
  5. Brattle Loop

    MBTA Commuter Rail (Operations, Keolis, & Short Term)

    It's not the cars. I'm pretty sure the flats are 79-mph max and the bilevels are 90-max. Fitchburg had a ton of track work in the not so distant past, which might have something to do with it.
  6. Brattle Loop

    New Red and Orange Line Cars

    Did I miss where it was announced this had anything to do with the new cars?
  7. Brattle Loop

    The Official MBTA System Map

    Throw in some green to indicate a couple of the bigger parks, maybe add icons for a few of the major landmarks, and you've got the makings of a pretty decent geographic map that would work at least reasonably well as a schematic map. Obviously there's a limit to how far you can take this...
  8. Brattle Loop

    Regional Rail (RUR) & North-South Rail Link (NSRL)

    No. You'd need at least seven of them to electrify all the RI->BOS morning-weekday runs alone. More to the point, why on Earth would they bother? Unless they're going to get serious about electrification, dual modes make less than zero sense as anything but a (stupid) stunt. Does the Sharon...
  9. Brattle Loop

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    I can't entirely say I agree. It's more like Covid blew off the vinyl siding, revealing that the wall underneath had been devoured by termites. Even if Covid hadn't derailed the gas tax hike, there's no guarantee that the money would have a.) gone mainly to the MBTA or b.) been spent...
  10. Brattle Loop

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    "Starve the beast", but applied to a city. Certain industries cannot effectively be operated remotely, many derive considerable benefits from being located in specific places, and many more are very unlikely to go fully remote or redistribute outside the city without unending, ongoing...
  11. Brattle Loop

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    And replace it with...what? Turn the ROWs into highways? Oh yeah, it can definitely get worse. If there was actual money to be made in public transit, someone would be doing it. I suppose it's might be theoretically possible to run a private system in Boston...except it would be far more...
  12. Brattle Loop

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    Pretty sure that's from the slide deck from the presentation of the T's EMU RFI to the board a couple years ago. I don't know if it's Stadler's work or not, but it's something. (I particularly like how literally zero effort was taken to make the T logos match the perspective, they're just...
  13. Brattle Loop

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    Reads like it was written by someone who has no idea how any of the details work. To be fair, while the specific dates are wildly unrealistic in and of themselves, that error is something that is easily fixed by legislative fiat (feels like the kind of thing that'd get modified after its first...
  14. Brattle Loop

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    I'm curious if it's the ADA proper or the state-level regulations on top of it. It sounds like the problem with rebuilding the stairs is that if they touch them, that would trigger the need to make it and that entrance in particular fully accessible, which they clearly haven't geared up for yet...
  15. Brattle Loop

    Silver Line at 21: Do people like it now?

    I mean, yeah, if nothing changes politically, nothing's going to change with regards to the Silver Line. Political decisions are inherently subject to change. Should the political winds shift, whether due to advocacy, shifting coalitions, or just the vagaries of what specific power-brokers...
  16. Brattle Loop

    Silver Line at 21: Do people like it now?

    Ultimately it's not up to them. The T doesn't make those decisions, the state does. If the politicians should come around to thinking that the Silver Line is woefully insufficient (admittedly, politicians' collective ability to recognize reality is something of a crapshoot), then it doesn't much...
  17. Brattle Loop

    MBTA Commuter Rail (Operations, Keolis, & Short Term)

    That's Amtrak's track geometry car Corridor Clipper. Usually runs on the T's lines a couple of times a year.
  18. Brattle Loop

    Crazy Transit Pitches

    Boylston's geometry makes that prospect difficult. The merge from track 3 to track 4 (eastbound fence and wall tracks) is midway along the outbound platform. You'd either have to somehow share space on Track 4 between the LRVs and the buses, or cross the buses over from 4 to 3 (which isn't...
  19. Brattle Loop

    Silver Line at 21: Do people like it now?

    It's a two-things-can-be-true-at-once kind of service. It's objectively better in a number of ways than the T's standard bus service, while at the same time (particularly on the Washington Street end) being inferior to both other forms of rapid transit (which the T pretends it is) and to what...
  20. Brattle Loop

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    Wouldn't it make more sense to have a dedicated thread for the MBTA's successes? We wouldn't need more than one thread for that. (Honestly not sure if this deserves a /s or not... 🙃)

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