Why don't they resurrect a trolley line on Summer Street? Damm public transit used to be so much better in Boston.
Get the Green Line connected through the Transitway and branches out of SL Way displacing SL2 to Design Ctr. and reanimating old SL3 (and pre-1953 GL branch) to City Point are not far-fetched in the slightest. Getting into the Transitway in the first place is 9/10ths the battle. But at least that's a battle we really don't have any choice but to wage.
If trolleys make it to SL Way, they'd just follow the diagonal connector between Haul Rd. and Summer that's supposed to be built for Conley Terminal trucks once property acquisition is squared on that parcel. That eliminates the traffic-snarling hard right the big rigs have to make onto Pumphouse Rd. for one that angles on a proper trajectory. In that case you'd probably lane-drop that ridiculously over-wide bridge, lay streetcar tracks in the former left lanes traffic separated left of the yellow line by rows of plastic
pop-up dividers, then go regular street-running when Summer narrows after the Conley Haul Rd. turnout. Either on the 7 bus / old Green Line route on an E. Broadway/E. 1st loop or consolidated to one of those streets only. City Point station and any running up Farragut Rd. would be on a side reservation on the park grass.
If following the 7 loop verbatim, that's only 1.5 miles of pure street-running upon touchdown in Southie at the end of the Summer St. traffic separation and 2 blocks of restricted truck-only traffic between SL Way and Summer. Very doable for a schedule that runs thru to North Station/GLX, and pretty cheap to construct out of SL Way. Only half-challenge is how you do ADA stops on the street-running intermediates. You could either do curbside turnouts like they considered for Arborway restoration (not sure that would work too well here) or
San Fran-style staggered slim-profile islands...which are very good for traffic flow with cars universally bearing right and trolleys/buses never getting blocked by a turnout, but somewhat more intensive snow removal jobs for keeping lanes + platforms from being squeezed by plow mounds. I'm just not sure the "PARKING IS WAR!" mentality in the neighborhood would allow any rows of spaces to get cannibalized for any transit improvements whatsoever.
