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I absolutely do not believe a tower would piss off half of Davis. I'll keep saying, this project reminds me a lot of the one that actually went up in Cambridge Central Square. That's a 20 story tower among mostly four story buildings. It turned out great. I live nearby. I intentionally drop...

This project has been canceled https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/08/31/metro/davis-square-tower/

Out of curiosity... There were a bunch of estimates for how busy the GLX would be. It's been a couple of years now. Has anyone compared predictions to actual ridership numbers? Almost all of the planning/predictions were made pre-covid, so I'm sure they're off. But it'd be interesting to see.

That's not really correct. They still recommend using TBM for the tunnel, but much more shallow. They do recommend cut-and-cover for the stations, which would be possible by running the TBM closer to the surface. That would be a heck of a lot cheaper than the current plan of mining deep stations.

The Effective Transit Alliance in NYC has a report out about how to make the Second Ave Subway extension cheaper and better. This is just about the extension cutting across 125th street. There is a lot of advice, but a lot of it is tied to making the tunnel a lot shallower. They say modern TBM...

First off, awesome map! As for the pairings, yeah, I really don't know what's best. If you incorporate this into your work, pick what makes sense to you. But here's my reasoning and what I think are the important factors (and I'm doing this from memory, so I might have something wrong here)...

K, based on this discussion, I slapped together this transit map just for the S-Bahn-like network. It's super rough, but shows how I was thinking it would actually operate and how to best show that. The four thick color lines work effectively like subways. In that region, trains come every...

That's fair, and maybe that's how it ends up working due to infrastructure limitations. But if at all possible, it'd be much easier for riders if there were just a few clear, consistent routes, at least inside 128-ish. And that's true that most people are going to/from downtown, but there are...

Something here doesn't make sense. Why is the MBTA paying to fix up that line? It's owned by CSX. The MBTA barely uses it. All the benefits mentioned seemed to be for freight traffic. So the MBTA is fixing up CSX's line for the benefit of CSX? I'm sure there's some explanation here. Anyone know...

I see. I forgot the Munich branches were so infrequent. This mostly makes sense. But if Regional Rail trains are running every 5-8 minutes inside 128, to me, those are subways. So I don't know why they get a "comparable weight" to the other subways. They should probably just be the same...

<chanting> Do it! Do it! Do it! It looks good. I will say, what I had in mind was more specifically that the new lines be basically indistinguishable from other subway lines. I think that means lines for the new routes should be shown the full width of existing subways, and each with their own...

I've got a request. I'd love to see a fantasy map that shows the network with the NSRL and S-Bahn-like service running through it. Specifically that would mean running Regional Rail trains at subway-like frequencies inside 128. Then it would make sense to show those lines as equals to the rest...

I think this already exists. Did you just mean something like ramp metering? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramp_meter https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop14020/sec1.htm This is just a traffic light on on-ramps that limit how many cars can get onto the highway. They can be a simple...

Do you mean this study from Newton? The one @Stlin posted upthread? https://www.newtonma.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/30859/637271911561600000 Some of that study looks... not especially trustworthy. It says the new branch to Needham Heights would get 15,000 riders per day, 6,000 of which...

That all makes sense. Which was the last study? Without knowing what exactly is is needed, I figured the logical place for a yard would be around Needham Junction. MBTA still owns the wide ROW heading southwest from there, and there's even still abandoned rail for about a half mile. That's...

Hey @Riverside , I saw someone posting about this tool, and it reminded about this recent conversation. https://cartoview.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-railway-curvature-timetabling-tool.html It's a python script for QGIS that measures track geometry for a line, calculates max possible speeds along...

What are the downsides to just running the Orange Line all way to Needham, and skipping any new Green Line branches? It should be quite a bit faster than the Green Line. It definitely wouldn't affect the Central Subway or require any short-turns. It's mostly grade separated already. Just...

With the discussion of new landfill, I finally remembered to get from the library Gaining Ground by Nancy Seashoals. I'm just browsing through, but I highly recommend it to anyone interested in landfill in Boston. It is an extremely detailed history of Boston's expansion, practically parcel by...

You gave this some thought, but I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish. What was your thought process? What are the benefits? I agree with @TheRatmeister here, but I'll elaborate a bit: You say you still want a subway between North and South Stations. To be clear, that is...