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I suspect the actual internal reasoning is more a desire to separate passenger flow from the second-floor office space, and to avoid dealing with opening different sets of doors on each side of the train, both of which are reasonable albeit not fatal flaws. I don't understand why this is such a...

A pitch from 1892: a suburban rail line from Newton Highlands to Dorchester. it was intended to give the New York and New England Railroad's Woonsocket Division a direct link to its main line (now the Fairmount Line), rather than relying on the Boston and Albany Railroad to reach Boston. (The...

The southern part of Fenway/Kenmore is just far enough from Fenway and Kenmore stations to be rather inconvenient - it's a full half-mile from Jersey and Peterborough to either station. In the time it takes to make that walk, the 55 gets you to Copley. The Brookline Avenue buses are irregular...

Providence station to Wareham station via Fall River and New Bedford is 42 miles as the crow files, versus 47 miles by the existing rail alignment via Taunton. The existing alignment has a lot of tangent track; 2 of the 3 worst curves are at stations (Attleboro and Middleborough) anyway. I don't...

Normal "crowded" capacity is about 100 person per LRV (200 per train); crush load is about twice that. At the lower number, 25 TPH (current rush hour service through Kenmore) gives 5000 pax/hr (13% of Fenway's capacity). But the Green Line is bidirectional - you're running 25 TPH towards the...

New siding under construction west of Fenway (photos from 9/16). I haven't seen any official documentation of this, but I assume it's to replace the siding at Fenway that's in the way of the path extension.

A sneak preview of the new portion of the bus terminal (seen through a crack in the construction fencing):

That's what its name was back in the era where both lines had service. I think "Southborough" is still good while it's the only station in the town, but it would definitely become "Cordaville" if the Fitchburg Secondary gets service.

That's uhhhh not where Norwich is. And there's no quick way to get to Norwich from I-95 anyway.

Exactly how certain are we that the Tobin replacement is even going to be a bridge? Tunnels aren't cheap, but neither are mile-long bridges.

Not an easter egg you can see any more, but it delighted me nonetheless: Roslindale station once had hexagonal windows! Also note the station buildings on both sides of the tracks - an unusual configuration that's usually only seen at major stations with significant bidirectional traffic. That...

In San Francisco, the F Market streetcar shares the center lanes of Market Street with several bus routes for 2 miles. The buses do tend to outpace the trains, but there's a stop every block that tends to reduce that disparity. There are some overlaps between buses and Muni Metro on dedicated...

Ironically, even the strawman he's using is wrong: There are a number of highly successful bikeways following freeways, with the I-205 Multiuse Trail a good example. Bikeways along many of the region's freeways would be a game-changer for mobility and make them much more useful to the...

The floor of low-floor vehicles, like the Type 8, Type 9, and Type 10, is 14 inches above top of rail. The current accessible platform heights are 8 inches so that they don't interfere with the folding doors on the Type 8s, but that requires a movable ramp. Once the Type 8s are gone, the plan is...

For 1-2 trains a day, crossing over (southbound) and reversing direction at Attleboro wouldn't be a big deal. It would add ~10 minutes to the trip, though that could include a station stop.

Looks like Suffolk Downs will be getting new stairs. I presume this is an interim measure rather than the full scope of planned renovations. It's listed under bids pending award: https://bc.mbta.com/business_center/bidding_solicitations/materials_management/invitation_for_bids/Default.asp

To be extremely pedantic, most of what remains was the Eastern Mass section of that line. BERy only owned as far north as the Medford/Stoneham line (just north of Brooks Road); the Eastern Mass owned the Stoneham portion including all three extant bridges. As far north as Sheepfold (just north...

Legally, not a big deal. The T has done property acquisition plenty of times before, such as with GLX. (Very often, the agency and owner are able to negotiate a price without eminent domain being invoked, but it's there if needed. In practice, it certainly won't make Phase II any easier or more...

The bus terminal design is essentially unchanged from the 2016 NPC, which was before fare gates were even in the conversation.

The section from Route 138 in Raynham to Winter Street in Taunton was a rather early casualty - out of service in 1932, abandoned in 1937, tracks lifted in 1940. After the Whittenton Branch was built in the 1880s, providing access to Taunton Central station from the Dighton and Somerset (D&S)...