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Why does the MBTA advertise the Track Improvement Program as "reducing travel times", when it is just "restoring normal speed travel times"? I feel like it is just restoring the travel times that ran near/essentially-full speed pre-FTA inspections in spring 2022 (sans Orange Line in downtown...

The April 25 2024 edition of the Track Improvement slides is already comically outdated. 1. The Lechmere slow zones were fixed ages ago 2. The Cleveland Circle fall 2024 diversion was cancelled since they did it in the winter shutdowns. 3. The Blue Line diversion at Wonderland is a single...

During the MBTA Board of directors meeting, some news: Increased frequency on the Fairmount Line, including on weekends. Restoration of express train to Worcester Extension of the Blue Lune shutdown until May 1st. Weekend service for the Lynn ferry during the summer...

Back Bay Station is one reason why I'm wary of a Blue Line extension along Storrow Drive, as such a HRT corridor would miss such a major transfer node. Back Bay station itself essentially developed into a major transfer hub/node after South Station became the terminal for intercity services, and...

My analysis wasn't really that much fleshed out. It's mostly just a rough thought exercise idea that really fascinates me for some reason, (since it's just really impractical and I wanted to take it to the most extreme, I have little intent to ever make this concept semi-plausible). Anyhow, if...

Looks very good! Looks more fleshed out than my idea. Some things I notice: Is this due to the nature of the map itself not having enough space, or some other factor? I wonder if there would be room to map the Fairmount line if the Southwest Corridor is mapped diagonally to the southwest...

It's probably more that the opening of the branch accelerated the trend of the decline of street running rail services. For the 1959 opening of the Riverside line, the T simply took the streetcars away from Harvard Square lines and reallocatted them to the Riverside line at the time. It seems...

There will be closures on the Orange Line in addition to the Red Line this May. https://www.mbta.com/news/2024-04-22/may-service-changes-mbta-continues-work-improve-reliability-across-the-system The Red Line closure was previously announced and so is not new. The Orange Line closures are new...

I wonder, under such an alternate history timeline where the Highland Branch were to be abandoned for several years (or a decade or so), would a hookup with the Green Line still have happened, or would reproposals decades later to reactivate the Highland Branch have kept it separated from the...

I've always found Lynn Central Sq., Waltham Center, and Quincy Center, to each be unique in how each of the three locations have existed outside the original BERy service area, yet are (or were always) strong anchors of demand within the larger/expanded map of the metro. Omissions of the three...

StreetsBlog MASS now has an article covering this tool (that I found on the urbanism social media) https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/04/19/close-city-maps-illustrate-inequalities-of-access-to-vital-services-across-the-boston-region Medford/Tufts being a food desert is kinda odd. Malden is a...

I got carried away and converted the aformentioned map to the MetroDreamin interface as well as Google MyMaps (edited the original post above to add the Google MyMaps version). (Yeah, I spent a few days of my time converting the map) Link to converted map...

Following up on this. I've took this description and incoperated most, but not all of this information, into a modified version of my original map, that incoperates some, but not all, historical aspects. As mentioned in my original post, South Station became the hub for southern and western...

The Inner belt is quite unique in having 3 different loops that all allow for route combinations that bypass Downtown Boston, as well as the radial routes going off into 3 primary forks and additional secondary forks all in quick succession within the same area as these loop tracks. (the...

Yes, that is the case. The Saugus Branch RR seemed to have a historical connection to Edgeworth and Wellington Stations on the B & M Haverhill mainline route. It is quite a bit overwritten like the old mainline Harvard Branch, but one can still make out traces of the old connection. There's...

Hugely impractical/unrealistic and would never happen in a million years ever (this is just for fun). NSRL, but for HRT lines within the inner core of Boston only. Full segregation of all inner core railway ROWs from "streetcar" tunnels. (BL and RL tunnels are exceptions due to the Riverside...

They're essentially all the corridors constantly being tinkered with in Reasonable and Crazy Transit Pitches, given they don't have a nearby rail ROW that can be used and fall back on. The only bus routes that could theoretically be absorbed outright by a railway ROW are the 87, 88, 80, 77, 32...

What are some (potential) (very) high ridership transit corridors that would have the most difficulty in getting a high speed, rapid, potentially grade separated dedicated transitway to support them? Some potential valuable transit connections listed here are part of BNRD, others are routes...

Regarding Riverside's concern about transit being constrained to historical ROWs from the 1850s leaving several hubs underserved into the present day and beyond. I went through the painstaking task of getting 10 minute walksheds for every single intersection of the street grid with all...

New York City was slammed by Hurricane Irene with a almost-direct hit in 2011 (near-hurrcane force at landfall), and followed by Sandy again in 2012 only a year later (the latter of which was a large-sized storm). NYC would later go on to be hit with flooding from Hurricane Ida in 2021 (the...