Blue Line extension to Lynn

Brattle Loop said:
I had to do some research to understand what you're referencing (some basic info starting on Page 57 of this BPDA presentation), and, uh...what?

What that thing is, is a relative of the NSRL, previously discussed (in some form) in the NSRL thread, the Crazy Transit Pitches thread, or both (it certainly deserves to be in both). As I recall the discussion when similar ideas came up previously, the cost bloat was feared to be enormous, given the inevitable difficulty and expense involved in a water crossing. I don't know what you're referring to with the "NS folks" designation, but one of the issues such a tunnel would have compared to the NSRL proper is that it would sever the Green and Orange connections inherent to that route (and Back Bay is only a partial replacement given the lack of proper Green connection, and then only on the southside lines that stop there), and, worse, it would actively remove the Green and Orange connections from any and all Eastern Route trains routed into this tunnel.

It's a proposal best suited to collapse under its own weight. If you're going to built a transit tunnel under the harbor, it should be Green, with a connection between the Transitway and the Central Subway; end Silver's forced dependence on buses and the Ted Williams, let the LRVs serve Seaport transit and the airport, and have proper connections to the other lines and bootstrap the northeastern quadrant of the Urban Ring. That's still Crazy Transit Pitches territory (at least until Baker & Company are gone), but it's better than that idea.
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Hoo boy...and of course this is the final meeting where they're preparing recommendations. Something that ambitious in scope should have silver-green conversion as a pre-req.
 
KCasiglio said:
I'm sorry but I completely disagree. I think this proposed station is eyes/ears closed wishful thinking in the short term and a massive opportunity cost in the intermediate-long term. It's been discussed at length on this forum whether the connection between the proposed station and wonderland is a reasonable transfer, and in a vaccum I don't think the distance is a killer but the context makes this a dud in waiting. The only real draw of this station is the blue line connection, really the connection to the airport. What you're asking people, with luggage, to do is:

1) Get to the CR station, which for most is going to be by car
2) Take the CR to wonderland
3) Make an at best inconvenient transfer to the blue line
4) Transfer to a shuttle bus to get to their actual terminal

Would this really be better than running a northern SL1 equivalent from Chelsea that hits all the terminals? I certainly don't think so. As someone who lives on the red line and has made the RL-SL-Airport trip more than my fair share of times, that's already the most transit I'm willing to deal with /w luggage. If passionate about transit me wouldn't ever consider that 4 seat ride with a >quarter mile transfer, why would the general public? A northern SL1 in the short term and blue line -> Lynn as a more permanent solution seems much more common sense to me.

Now in the intermediate-long run this is also prohibiting building a regional station that could actually serve revere. The proposed location near wonderland is remarkable in finding the only plot of dead space in an otherwise wonderfully dense city. Could you get some TOD there? Sure probably but you're limited by the wetlands. But just a bit farther south you could have a station where 1a/16/60 meet, three state highways begging to be redesigned with center running BRT.
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The last time this was proposed in 1997 & 2004 the only feasible Alt. was an Automated People Mover spanning the walkway chasm between stops, and a prerequisite that the TOD being envisioned at the time for the dog park went to full fruition turning Wonderland into a ridership-generating destination unto itself. The Alts. that didn't do an APM crashed their ridership projections over the luggage hardship across the distance, the Alts. that tried to physically move the two lines closer together were rejected as ops+community incompatible, and it was forced to bet big on all that TOD being a home-run for local trip generation. The cost of the APM option was $70M in 2004...easily putting it on the cusp of 9 figures with inflation today. And the TOD at the dog park not only never happened, but City of Revere has long-term given up on ever trying to make it happen.

I don't see how you can possibly do this in a way that'll return on its investment. They already have data from 1997 pointing to a cratering in the airport ridership if you don't have the APM assist on the transfer, so it's going to be borderline useless done cheaper with just a sheltered walkway or dirt cheap with less than that. There's nothing whatsoever transit-oriented in the walkshed to make anyone come TO there, and virtually no hope of remounting the over-optimistic '00s plans for the dog park...so you also have to toss off all the rosy trip generation they were factoring back in the day. There's nothing here that'll pay the going rate for a functional solution, and the value engineered solutions simply won't draw.


There's a reason why this is a frequent study flirtation...it looks like a close fit on pure spec. But it has repeatedly cleaved hard away from build feasibility when the key inflection points in the details get quantified. Yeah...we can build an absolutely negligible-ridership Purple Line station for a VE'd-to-spit sum if we wanted to force-fit it. Why, and what need does it serve when the prior studies already outlined the triggers for any/all needs being served? Another study isn't going to tell us anything we don't already know multiple times over. Oh, if we want to make the airport trips useful we have to again spend a fortune on an APM...and that still might not be enough in spite of Regional Rail frequencies because nothing whatsoever transit-oriented is happening in these environs long-term. Do we really need to be wasting $4M to point out again that the thresholds for usefulness are way too high.
 
From looking at Google Maps it looks like it'd be a quarter mile. That's what a 5 minute walk? I almost wonder if people are packing lighter because of the TSA so perhaps it's not as onerous as it might have been 25 years ago.

But yeah... I would take this as a sign that development is stirring there.
 
I can't figure out how a cross-harbor commuter rail tunnel would even connect to South Station. The presentation shows a 4-track station under Fort Point Channel, but then where does it go? That said, a plan for a cross-harbor tunnel to connect to the Eastern Railroad is the reason South Station was originally sited where it is.
 
That cross-harbor tunnel is an absolute non-starter - all the expense of the NSRL for much less benefit.

There was a 1911 cross-harbor proposal during the brief era that the New Haven controlled the B&M. (There were also plans to quad-track and grade separate the Eastern Route to the Beverly split, of which the Lynn grade separation was the only portion completed.)
 
The EGE said:
That cross-harbor tunnel is an absolute non-starter - all the expense of the NSRL for much less benefit.

There was a 1911 cross-harbor proposal during the brief era that the New Haven controlled the B&M. (There were also plans to quad-track and grade separate the Eastern Route to the Beverly split, of which the Lynn grade separation was the only portion completed.)
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Thanks!! I've been looking for that on the 'net.
 
shmessy said:
Ugh - it needs to be said:

www.bostonglobe.com

The MBTA let the Lynn commuter rail station fall apart. The T should now expedite its reopening. - The Boston Globe

Deferred maintenance on the commuter rail station contributed to its closing. Taking until 2030 to replace it would be a travesty.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
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Good and necessary editorial. Bottom line is: if this were highway infrastructure, it would be fixed in months. If it were I-95 in Philly, they'd fix it in a weekend. 2030 is MBTA-speak for "never, we just hope you'll give up and stop complaining at some point", which has never been okay with other "temporary" suspensions and closures but is particularly absurd in this case.

This is simply not an agency that has a problem solving mentality. That has to change.

The Governor needs to tell them that either it's open in 18 months or there's hell to pay, and then she needs to start laying into Eng over actually restoring service and frequencies that have been "temporarily" cut over the past two years never to return.
 
They just passed the “millionaires tax” which was supposed to have some funding go toward fixing transit, but then immediately passed a capital gains tax cut. Not the smartest thing to do when there is such a dire need of investment and funding. Hopefully they can come up with another way to raise more funds soon, because its needed.

I have an idea. The stupid vape and menthol ban that baker hastily passed after the tainted black market weed vapes were causing lung issues was a stupid idea. Nobody quit because of the ban and it was tainted black market stuff causing the problems. All it did was moved hundreds of millions of tax dollars from massachusetts and instead gave it to new hampshire and rhode island.

My proposal is to just pass a law allowing the state to again sell flavored vape cartridges, but this time put a high tax on it and use 100% of the funding towards transit. Its tax money that were currently not getting so we should be able to choose where it would go. Its dumb to force consenting adults who didnt stop smoking to have to drive to new hampshire to spend their tax money, keep it in the state. We could literally write the new bill to put 100% of funding into transit and it would be a MASSIVE recurring infusion of cash. By the end of this year we will be down over 350 million dollars in tax revenue since the ban, that would be a huge infusion for the mbta. I doubt it would happen because they wouldnt want to admit it was a hasty, stupid decision, but it would probably be the absolute easiest no brainer way to get a massive amount of funding quick.


Heres an article about the tax money being lost, 114 million in tax revenue lost just in the first year alone, all for nobody to quit anything…

“A year after the ban went into effect in June 2020, regional tobacco usage had not changed; sales just moved across the border, primarily to low-tax New Hampshire. Seemingly, the only effects were substantially lower earnings for Massachusetts store owners and employees, and $114 million less in tax revenue in the first 12 months after the ban.”

https://mainepolicy.org/massachusetts-tobacco-black-market-flourishes-under-flavor-ban/#:~:text=Seemingly, the only effects were,12 months after the ban.
 
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The Globe editorial mentioned that they have to demolish the adjacent, five-story parking garage, 35 years young, because it too has deteriorated beyond the point of repair. The Globe hints the garage may not be rebuilt, given its low utilization.
 
Perfect TOD opportunity. Infinite zoning, require 300 underground parking spaces and build it to the sky. Lynn should be a super high demand urban center with multiple rapid options to both the beaches and Boston.
 
Equilibria said:
Then commit to fixing the staffing issues, not just talking about them. Pay more. Improve benefits. If that requires more money, hammer the Legislature until you get it. Do something.
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Absolutely, this is the key move the Governor can make. We can't throw money at infrastructure if we don't have enough money allocated to planning and operations. It might not be sexy for a politician to talk about public sector employment, but the reality is that we can do no more at the MBTA without fixing this one critical insufficiency.
 
stick n move said:
They just passed the “millionaires tax” which was supposed to have some funding go toward fixing transit, but then immediately passed a capital gains tax cut. Not the smartest thing to do when there is such a dire need of investment and funding. Hopefully they can come up with another way to raise more funds soon, because its needed.

I have an idea. The stupid vape and menthol ban that baker hastily passed after the tainted black market weed vapes were causing lung issues was a stupid idea. Nobody quit because of the ban and it was tainted black market stuff causing the problems. All it did was moved hundreds of millions of tax dollars from massachusetts and instead gave it to new hampshire and rhode island.

My proposal is to just pass a law allowing the state to again sell flavored vape cartridges, but this time put a high tax on it and use 100% of the funding towards transit. Its tax money that were currently not getting so we should be able to choose where it would go. Its dumb to force consenting adults who didnt stop smoking to have to drive to new hampshire to spend their tax money, keep it in the state. We could literally write the new bill to put 100% of funding into transit and it would be a MASSIVE recurring infusion of cash. By the end of this year we will be down over 350 million dollars in tax revenue since the ban, that would be a huge infusion for the mbta. I doubt it would happen because they wouldnt want to admit it was a hasty, stupid decision, but it would probably be the absolute easiest no brainer way to get a massive amount of funding quick.


Heres an article about the tax money being lost, 114 million in tax revenue lost just in the first year alone, all for nobody to quit anything…

“A year after the ban went into effect in June 2020, regional tobacco usage had not changed; sales just moved across the border, primarily to low-tax New Hampshire. Seemingly, the only effects were substantially lower earnings for Massachusetts store owners and employees, and $114 million less in tax revenue in the first 12 months after the ban.”

https://mainepolicy.org/massachusetts-tobacco-black-market-flourishes-under-flavor-ban/#:~:text=Seemingly, the only effects were,12 months after the ban.
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If working in state-level transportation planning has taught me anything, it's this: money does not solve all problems. Although I cannot speak to the specifics around Lynn Station or other projects, what I've come to understand is that all the aspirational capital investments citizens and leadership advocate for are doomed to come to fruition if project proponents make no progress on advancing design of these projects. And even when proponents do work their tails off to advance design of these projects, there are a million barriers that can stand in the way of making a project deliverable. Money is only part of the challenge; however, the trend I've seen is that the Commonwealth has more funding (state and federal aid) available to program priorities than we have deliverable projects.

What we need are more engineers, planners, town managers, environmental reviewers, ROW negotiators, transit operators, and maintenance personnel to deliver on our transportation vision and goals... AND the right balance of career trajectory and competitive salary/benefits for them to stay in their roles. We need project champions that can keep the project design team's eye on the prize, and an efficient public process that doesn't hamper design milestones from getting reached. Case in point, here's a fact that the Globe Editorial Board conveniently failed to mention: City of Lynn did not have a Planner from 1993 to 2020. Seriously. Professionals that are capable of navigating the planning, design, and project management processes come out on top when it comes to realizing transportation projects. Absent project proponents, we are absent a deliverable slate of projects.

If we have the funding identified to pay for a project in year X (say 2023) but the project's only at 75% design and not expected to acquire needed ROW/environmental permitting for another 18 months, then the State cannot spend the funds in 2023 that we were planning to... which means those funds are available for another ready/deliverable project in 2023. The same is true for procurement of bus vehicles: there are so many RTA's around the Commonwealth that have bus and van orders from 2020, 2021, and 2022 that are still unfulfilled still because of backlogs manufacturing the vehicles, which has caused available project funds to carryover from one year to the next, and unfortunately even lapse in some circumstances.

If bodies like Livable Streets Alliance, MassBike, Transit Matters, apparently the Boston Globe Editorial Board, and other advocates want to expedite transportation project delivery, then my professional advice would be to direct efforts at improving project readiness first. Maybe persuade state leaders or private employers to offer 100% college tuition reimbursement to students in STEM fields that accept work in-state for a 5+ year contract. Consider participating in the project selection and prioritization process with your regional Metropolitan Planning Organization. Staff at regional planning agencies across MA are so receptive and reactive to public input in their project selection, it drives me f*cking crazy sometimes how little effort (if any) aforementioned advocates make in participating in the process. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we listen.
 
stellarfun said:
The Globe editorial mentioned that they have to demolish the adjacent, five-story parking garage, 35 years young, because it too has deteriorated beyond the point of repair. The Globe hints the garage may not be rebuilt, given its low utilization.
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Or maybe we could light a fire under BLX to Lynn and then by the time they rebuild the garage (2030) there will be demand.
 
dshoost88 said:
If working in state-level transportation planning has taught me anything, it's this: money does not solve all problems. Although I cannot speak to the specifics around Lynn Station or other projects, what I've come to understand is that all the aspirational capital investments citizens and leadership advocate for are doomed to come to fruition if project proponents make no progress on advancing design of these projects. And even when proponents do work their tails off to advance design of these projects, there are a million barriers that can stand in the way of making a project deliverable. Money is only part of the challenge; however, the trend I've seen is that the Commonwealth has more funding (state and federal aid) available to program priorities than we have deliverable projects.

What we need are more engineers, planners, town managers, environmental reviewers, ROW negotiators, transit operators, and maintenance personnel to deliver on our transportation vision and goals... AND the right balance of career trajectory and competitive salary/benefits for them to stay in their roles. We need project champions that can keep the project design team's eye on the prize, and an efficient public process that doesn't hamper design milestones from getting reached. Case in point, here's a fact that the Globe Editorial Board conveniently failed to mention: City of Lynn did not have a Planner from 1993 to 2020. Seriously. Professionals that are capable of navigating the planning, design, and project management processes come out on top when it comes to realizing transportation projects. Absent project proponents, we are absent a deliverable slate of projects.

If we have the funding identified to pay for a project in year X (say 2023) but the project's only at 75% design and not expected to acquire needed ROW/environmental permitting for another 18 months, then the State cannot spend the funds in 2023 that we were planning to... which means those funds are available for another ready/deliverable project in 2023. The same is true for procurement of bus vehicles: there are so many RTA's around the Commonwealth that have bus and van orders from 2020, 2021, and 2022 that are still unfulfilled still because of backlogs manufacturing the vehicles, which has caused available project funds to carryover from one year to the next, and unfortunately even lapse in some circumstances.

If bodies like Livable Streets Alliance, MassBike, Transit Matters, apparently the Boston Globe Editorial Board, and other advocates want to expedite transportation project delivery, then my professional advice would be to direct efforts at improving project readiness first. Maybe persuade state leaders or private employers to offer 100% college tuition reimbursement to students in STEM fields that accept work in-state for a 5+ year contract. Consider participating in the project selection and prioritization process with your regional Metropolitan Planning Organization. Staff at regional planning agencies across MA are so receptive and reactive to public input in their project selection, it drives me f*cking crazy sometimes how little effort (if any) aforementioned advocates make in participating in the process. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we listen.
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It doesnt solve everything but when an agency is billions in debt is causes huge problems all the way up and down the chain. Its been written about again and again how the mbta was saddled with billions in debt from the big dig project and this has lead to cascading problems with deferred maintenance, having to go with the cheapest bidder on projects leading to procurement issues like with the crrc red and orange trains, not being able to fund needed extensions, staffing issues and on and on.

“The Big Dig is the root of the MBTA's financial troubles, according to experts. Forced to foot the bill for billions of dollars in projects, the T diverted money from maintenance to pay for them.

Charles Chieppo of the Pioneer Institute says, "the money left maintenance and went to build these new projects and they amassed this huge debt that essentially left them bankrupt, and not having the money to do the most basic safety things."

I wasnt suggesting that more money would magically solve all of the T’s problems over night, but when theyre billions in debt and unable to fund even the most basic functions of the organization finding a way to fund the T long term is a very high priority. The money is like the foundation of the house, if you dont have the foundation all of the other shit you wanna do really makes no sense and will all come crashing down. Money makes it so there is a strong starting foundation for which a strong organization can build on top of. It doesnt matter if you fix the communication issues etc. if the trains cant even run in the first place. Get the funding issue fixed and the T will have the room to develop a better culture on top of that.

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/i-team-big-dig-root-mbta-financial-troubles/
 
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bigeman312 said:
It would be a huge downgrade in my career in pay
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TBF, Most HR are not going to be interested in "overqualified" people. It's not just a T thing.

Equilibria said:
Then commit to fixing the staffing issues, not just talking about them. Pay more. Improve benefits. If that requires more money, hammer the Legislature until you get it. Do something.
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That sounds like effort.

Maybe they are hoping that the situation will just fix itself at some point.
 
jklo said:
TBF, Most HR are not going to be interested in "overqualified" people. It's not just a T thing.
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Most HR would not go through multiple rounds with someone who they weren’t interested due to being overqualified, but if they did, they’d inform them they didn’t get the job or at the very least, actually fill the open position. It’s really not a defensible practice. Just figured I’d give you all a little insight into how things (don’t) work on the staffing side at the MBTA.


jklo said:
That sounds like effort.

Maybe they are hoping that the situation will just fix itself at some point.
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Exactly.
 
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