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  1. J

    The Casco | 201 Federal Street | Portland

    If you want to put all the complainers in their place, name it The Catherine.
  2. J

    MassDOT Rail: Springfield Hub (East-West, NNERI, Berkshires, CT-Valley-VT-Quebec)

    My understanding regarding the planned regulations for US-Canada trains is that a designated station (Vancouver & Montreal) handles all customs & immigration in both directions, then the trains run sealed to the border. If this system is not the case, then I sincerely hope they head this way...
  3. J

    USM | Portland

    What is it about the UM system that is holding back USM?
  4. J

    Portland - General Infrastructure

    A New York Times reporter found something relevant to this forum to discuss while she was on vacation: It sounds to me like a lot of the problems stem from the simple fact that Maine is extremely cheap if you have savings from a New York or Boston salary, which drives up the price of all the...
  5. J

    Allston-Brighton Infill and Small Developments

    In a development like this, is it possible for the ground floor units to be converted into commercial after completion? A small cafe in one of the rooms facing Cambridge street would probably be possible, especially if you combined adjacent apartments.
  6. J

    General Portland Discussion

    I'm hoping that, based on this substantial investment, L L Bean understands the issue you describe. After all, their own press release states in the first paragraph that their Freeport campus is the second-most-popular tourist spot in Maine. Anyway, looking forward to whatever campus plan they...
  7. J

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    Maybe i've posted this here before, but perhaps this map may be of some use to folks here? It is called "Greater New Jersey Railroads" but actually depicts all the lines around Boston, including everything south of Portland ME (the author is still finishing all the Maine routes) EDIT: been...
  8. J

    The Ultility Poles and Wires of Portland, ME

    I was in the Philippines recently, and that's what a big percentage of their power lines look like. Walk around Manila and you'll be dodging wires all day!
  9. J

    100 Chestnut Street | Inner Belt | Somerville

    The 3D render looks like an evil lair from a Nintendo 64-era adventure game. If the black has some texture to it that doesn't appear in the render, I think that would look a lot better, though still of the "mad scientist base" type. The site says it has 1.1 parking spaces per 1,000sqft -- is...
  10. J

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    are MBTA staff forbidden from openly participating in forums like this or Reddit? wouldn't surprise me. Also, a fairly common complaint from private-sector urban studies scholars is that the public sector organizations are both 1) so bloated and inefficient AND 2) so uncompetitive in pay that...
  11. J

    Hobson's Landing | Aloft Hotel | 383 Commercial Street | Portland

    Random question: anyone here know who the "Hobson" in "Hobson's Landing" is?
  12. J

    Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

    Any possibility of using the space under the elevated for shops or playgrounds? Or will it just be relegated to a parking lot?
  13. J

    Infill and Small Developments | Portland

    Is this replacing the parking lot at 130~134 near the corner of Morning & Turner? The 3D model looks like it's using the same exterior panels as most of the (non-brick) buildings in the neighborhood, so it mostly just looks like a triple-decker with an extra floor, to me at least...
  14. J

    Crazy Transit Pitches

    If you're tunneling, why stop at Savin Hill? Turn that TBM up to 11! Plow four tracks all the way to the Dorchester/Adams intersection, then 2 tracks to Ashmont, and another 2 to Braintree via Neponset -> Hancock -> the parkways. Overkill in the extreme, perhaps, but what else could you do...
  15. J

    I-90 Interchange Improvement Project & West Station | Allston

    You joke, but that's exactly what they're doing in Pennsylvania...
  16. J

    Crazy Transit Pitches

    In addition, the best way would be for the bike racks to always be in the same spot on every train set, so that you could clearly mark on each platform where cyclists would need to wait to board to make hanging up/locking up the bikes as fast and easy as possible. The principle, by the way, is...
  17. J

    Kendall/MIT Infill and Small Developments

    If you look at other SANAA designs, you'll notice they don't work with brick very often. That's not particularly surprising, since brick is a terrible building material in an earthquake-prone place like Japan, so I suspect they're using it here as a commentary/placing re: the neighboring...
  18. J

    30 Leo | 30 Birmingham Parkway | Brighton

    It's a real shame that the current building is cute, and the replacement is so bland and ugly (at the same time!). But a parking crater is a parking crater, and there doesn't really seem to be a clear way to integrate the current structure into something new/denser. Aside from its aesthetics...
  19. J

    Future Transit Technologies

    I'd like to describe a form of travel I can manage here which I've never managed in the US. When I've gone on business trips I'll sometimes hang around wherever I've visited, sometimes visit a park or museum before catching the shinkansen back home. I'm able to do this because all shinkansen...
  20. J

    Future Transit Technologies

    Just a quick note: the chuo shinkansen is being built, in part, because the currently-existing Tokaido shinkansen is running at capacity and there's still a market left to capture. Tokyo-Osaka tickets are incredibly expensive and part of that is because the demand is high enough that prices have...

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