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Even if replicating the 5+% grades on the Science Park incline weren't possible, or if (partially) eating a floor or two of Building 46 wasn’t shockingly plausible, Grand Junction GLX starts at $2-3 Billion and escalates from there. If built, this critical piece of rail will serve the beating...

Agree with those above that root causes need to be addressed, and mitigation used in the interim. But as parked cars that obstruct sidewalks/bike lanes should be removed, or parked cars that obstruct vehicular lanes (at least overnight) are removed, the reason isn’t that societally we hate cars...

Nailed it

These are disappointing ridership numbers, esp on the weekend, no? Unless I’m (hopefully) missing something, the fiscal argument for increased frequency is that the added flexibility of extra trips would increase overall ridership more than the increase in service, even if the added trains...

Wow, a good faith discussion over zoning?!? Gotta go play the lottery after this… I totally get your point and this is an aspect where l think, counterintuitively, the MBTA Communities bill being more forceful would be more equitable towards the towns that have previously upzoned. Rather than...

When were you there if I may ask? Lowell definitely has a much different ‘vibe’ when Umass is in session, especially downtown.

Agree with your overall point, but from the material Ive seen, it does appear that a lot of effort is being spent on providing high quality paths over both bridges. Good bike infra isn’t an alternative for the long distance traffic using the bridges obviously, but it also ain’t nothing. Sure...

110%, but it is now at least happening even if its at a rate well below where it should. 10 years ago l would have been laughed out of the room if l predicted DOT would wholesale remove an urban freeway without a building a functional replacement at least nearby. Progress is still way too slow...

Outright deletion, at least on the scale l think you are referring to, is rare for multiple (and IMO legitimate) reasons, but at least in MA, it is not uncommon for projects to explicitly remove capacity. By far the biggest and best example is the Rt 79 project down in Fall River where DOT is...

Full agree on the pressing need/ organizational inertia for expansion. Personally, lm leaning towards thinking (hoping?) this report is over estimated shelf art. But if its not, in a world of finite resources, how is it responsible to spend a billion to extend the BL to Charles if the redline is...

Drop in the bucket comparatively, agreed. However, spending a billion on network expansion when there is a $24.5B albatross of a repair backlog hanging overhead would be a pretty clear cut misallocation of finite resources. Its like the old idiom of the guy living in a shack buying a giant...

Taking the $24.5B figure at face value, this is beyond insane. Apart from the obvious (and hilarious) comparison to the Big Dig at $24.3B, the cost of just repairing the T could buy Boston an entire Orange line’s worth of new subway at Second Ave costs, London’s Crossrail network, or (incase...

Who needs nighttime Worcester line service anyways?

Full agree; my question isn’t to say “which one of these two alternatives is good” (both are bad), but more like Robert Moses has a bulldozer to your head and you have to pick one, which is going to have the least detrimental impact? Or in other words, would the majority trade gashing the outer...

*veering even more off topic, mods feel free to move* Wondering what the consensus would be for this hypothetical: trade the current limited access highway system for everything shown (including proposed) on this map (crazy overbuilt outside of 128 but zero limited access highways inside 128)...

1) Why is the city encouraging trucking on Summer St when the Haul Rd exists? My one pet peeve with South Station is the dearth of 18 wheelers out front 😂. 2) 200% odds delivery/uber drivers ‘misunderstand’ the truck lane and anyone with a vaguely commercial purpose uses it to park.

Recovering traffic engineer

I mentioned the wheel profile in the sense of tolerance to gauge deviations. Per the headline of most recent Globe article on this: “Green Line extension track, which T says ‘has always been narrow’” AKA the gauge has been ‘too narrow’ for a year with 0 issues running at line speed. So either...

That’s a good point that opens up a whole bunch of new questions; although l wonder if the wheel profile between the modes could be a partial factor? Although my recollection is that the LRV profile was more forgiving than mainline. Wondering if this (and the slowzone problem writ large) could...

MBTA adds more than a mile of slow zones to the GLX over the last two weeks. whelp