Brainstorming Infrastructure Improvements

[DMo_Infrustructure_Ideas]

I have been looking at maps coming up with different ideas for improvements I think can be made that would have drastically positive impacts on traffic and transit in the region.

I have been looking at maps coming up with different ideas for improvements I think can be made that would have drastically positive impacts on traffic and transit in the region.

Where I am focused at the moment is a combination of increased commuter rail service between specific links paired with traffic solutions in strategic locations.

Quincy Adams - this area already has some really well built out dedicated ramps connecting it to a major highway junction point - it has local red line service (which should be much faster once the tracks are repaired) - In this proposal they would have all Commuter Rail lines (Greenbush, Kingston, Middleborough/Lakeville) stop at Quincy Adams - The trains that run from Quincy Center to South station take 17-18 minutes so estimate that the commuter rail would take 20-22 minutes (red line is 27) - stagger these three service lines that run through this station so there is a train every 20ish minutes. At the Quincy Adams station there is a 8 acre parking garage that has over 2500 parking spaces - in this proposal they a much larger garage is built on land next to the existing garage - about 16-19 acres of existing parking lots and grass area - to up to 27 acres if the Home Depot and storage facility are demolished. Add an additional 10,000-17,500 spaces - the idea here is to make highly accessible affordable parking abundantly available - at a major junction in the existing highway infrastructure that is connected to multiple rapid existing public transit options. (Three if you include the major bus depot/facility I believe they are building across the street at this location). I want the garage to have direct access to the major highway arteries (which the Quincy Adams garage that exists now already does) but I want to sort of OVERBUILD the parking and dramatically increase the frequency of service to incentivize as many commuters as possible to choose this option. You do that by making it a really compelling option and currently during rush hour driving from South Station to Quincy Adams takes 13 minutes without traffic - but can take over an hour during rush hour. These stations would also ideally be zones 1 or 2 to make this a very impactful (accessible) option for people - have the parking be free . . . . perhaps (though I am not a big fan of this idea) couple this with a congestion tax like the one that has been proposed - to get as many cars off the road outside of the city as possible.

The next major station that I would Include in this plan would be at Reedville - An important thing I didn't mention before is I believe all of these sections of commuter rail that I am including in this plan are double lines from the city to the points I'm going to mention which allows trains to pass each other - possibly to establish express trains - and to keep higher frequency operations plausible. As I said I think connecting forms of transit and major junctions is so important. I'm sure many of you have looked at google maps of the Southwest Expressway project that got canceled. You have seen how the highway extension straight into the city was already under way and can clearly still be seen. I don't think its practical to propose bringing that project back to life but I want to take advantage of that preconceived stretch of highway - to link a major section of highway to a major commuter rail artery. I would continue that highway 95 from Providence straight up to a massive 15-22k care parking garage at the Reedville Commuter Rail. There is a 63 acre industrial area next to the station where the garage could be build and I love the idea of the highway going directly into the garage. How many cars does this take off of 95 and 93 - Reducing how much of the 'braintree split' traffic does this alleviate because of all the 95 traffic that would have had its own highway but is routed onto 93. This Reedville line connects to Back Bay and South Station through multiple lines - ranging from speeds of 22 minutes to 30 minutes depending on the line - I believe these to be double lines and so direct trains may be possible. Though this stop does not connect directly several of the lines connect with the orange line which would allow for a good transfer opportunity.

 

[DMo_Infrustructure_Ideas]

From the West I want to build a massive parking garage on the CSX Beacon Park Rail Yard in Allston. This location has 79 acres (up to 120 if some of Harvards parking lots can be included) with direct access to the Worcester/Framingham line and Rt. 90 - This station is unique among the ones I will suggest because its much closer to the city - I think this location should also be a major hub for other forms of rapid transit like busses or something slightly more modern ill discuss later. I think 90 doesn't get as backed up as the highways to the north and south of the City - specifically 93. I also want some form of quick service connecting this link to Babcock Street station on the green line and Central Station on the red line.

Next as we continue around the major arteries into Boston I will look at the station at Anderson/Woburn that I think is already a great example of how this plan should operate. The 93 highway has a direct on and off ramp connecting it to a massive parking garage. 95 is also very close by - I prefer (and this is applicable above as well) to design the parking garage to have direct access to all major arteries in a junction and that is not the case here - 95 has to merge onto 93 to then get to the garage - Ideally I want to avoid this to reduce potential traffic and have really solid flow in and out of these facilities. Limited merges / dedicated lanes / on and off ramps / no gates / ample spaces. The only major adjustment I would make here is I would increase the capacity of the garage from 1,200 to around 25,000 (just under 15% of drivers).

Increased parking capacity at these facilities (Quincy Adams 2500 - 35000), (Reedville 353 - 22000 spaces - the average annual daily travelers on 95 north is 111k) can a 22 minute trip convince 20% of those drivers to make the commuter rail a part of their daily commute. This is also only Zone 2 so its on the much more affordable end of commuting ranges. Another note - I don't know how credible but I read that while they are still working on the structural renovations to the grand junction bridge it is planned that trains from the west of the city can be routed to north station over this bridge. This bridge is just past the CSX Beacon Park Rail yard facility ~ Also for reference Boston Landing which is just a bit past this CSX location gets to Back Bay in 12 minutes and South Station 18 minutes. The section of 90 where this garage would go has an annual average daily travelers of 126k cars - if we can capture 20% of these drivers that would be 15,000. I also want to prove out the capacity needs at Quincy Adams - I believe this route will capture drivers from rt 3 ~ 195,648 drivers and 95/rt 24 connecting to 93 - 123,179 r28 also has 22k rt 9 has 50k through newton US20 is 22k rt 2 53k 93 north of the city is 169k rt 1 is 78k 1a is 28k and 3a is 25k ~ This might not be perfectly accurate if some of these numbers are being overcounted but Quincy Adams lets turn that into 35000 spaces just over 11% of the daily drivers commuting to one of the worst stretches of traffic in the country. Based on these numbers above (and roughly corroborated by some other data I saw on the total number of daily commuters into Boston being 750k). I would also strategically place slightly smaller scale facilities - at Alewife where Rt 2 ends there is a commuter rail line with no station - the garage here already has 2,733 spaces - as Rt.2 has 53k drivers I would increase the capacity here to 10k capturing 20% of drivers and getting them to commute in - wonderfully this station would give commuters access to a commuter line to north station and a red line to south station and other parts of the city. 1a has a lot of drivers but there isn't an existing train line. If they replace the Tobin maybe they could add something here.

Lets put that all together - QA 35k Reedville 22k CSX 15k Anderson/Woburn 25k Alewife 10k lets add Perhaps something along rt.9 7.5k - overall approximately 114,500 new spaces - A good occupancy rate for a parking garage is between 85–90% (per google) so lets say call it 100k cars off the road (87% of capacity) - a 13% reduction in the number of cars on the roads closer into Boston. A harvard paper (google) said that a reduction in the number of cars on the road of 5-10% can have a 20% reduction in traffic or more but I want to do more. As I said I'm not a fan of congestion taxes but thematically it would fit with this above initiative - getting closer to to capacity. I would also hope to drastically inprove general commuter rail usage by running trains every half hour instead of every hour the way it was prior to the pandemic. I don't think every hour during rush hour meets the needs of people.

That is my current idea - but some additional items I will throw out there at a high level:

In conjunction with all of this I want to create a rapid transit link that goes from north station along the passages occupied by either the green or orange line - down and connected in a loop - to State, Downtown Crossing, Park Street, and Government Center - there are existing tunnels under tremont street and government center - mostly I would hope to figure out where there is usable space that already exists but the most important aspect of this build is I want it to facilitate a north south connection - I much prefer a north south link for trains but in place of a full scale central station development I want this sort of pedestrian friendly rapid speed link loop that connects north station to every MBTA line and then to south station via the current silver line route - connects south station likewise to all the other mbta lines and then to north station. I want people to be able to get from South station to north station in less than 10 minutes - the actual vision I have for the mode of transportation on this section are like the new ride vehicles on some rides in Disney - where it is an autonomous trackless ride vehicle that can carry 12 people - This link would have a walking area (perhaps a indoor bike lane but it would depend on space) and then these vehicles will go between 10mph and 15mph.

 

[DMo_Infrustructure_Ideas]

Taking this concept a bit further - and making the city a place where getting around without a car is a breeze a major component of the desire to drastically reduce the number of vehicles entering the city each day is I want to take several major downtown roads and turn them into dedicated pedestrian / bike / and trolly lanes - no cars allowed and dedicated right of way. In some other places - these trollies would have their own dedicated right of way - but also run along an existing road. I want to run a trolly from the above CSX commuter rail station into cambridge perhaps accross the grand junction and along the existing rail through the heart of Cambridge - connecting mbta lines and stations wherever possible perhaps going as far as assembly row. Another such line running through the heart of Cambridge perhaps connecting several commuter rails, the red and green line up through tufts. In the north end I would run a trolly along commercial street. Routes through the seaport - along Seaport Blviard and Summer Street - over into South Boston and down 1st street next to Farragut Rd and between Between Columbia Rd and William J Day Blvd around the perimeter of South Boston and then down to JFK and UMass Boston. I would like routes through the heart of South Boston as well as well as the south end - there are existing silver line tunnes in some of these areas and old rail lines. Also for the CSX I want Beacon street turned into a dedicated pedestrian bike and trolly line all the way into the heart of the city. I don't exactly have a practical timetable worked out but what I would hope for is that anyone basically within the 95 belt can get into the city in 30 minutes or less - if they drive from beyond the 95 loop its 30 minutes + their drive . . . . in the various areas of the city slightly outside of the primary downtown area I want everyone to be able to get to a form of public transportation within a 10 minute walk - and that transportation to be able to get them anywhere in the city in under 20 minutes with no more than 2 exchanges.

P.S. For the parking garages mentioned above - that take up 20-100+ acres - for my plans to make sense they have to be several stories . . . . however If it is feasible I would love to top each of the garages with massive 20-100 acre natural parks and public spaces. Perhaps this makes sense in some places more than others but its a thought. These massive hubs could also be part of mixed use development if other builders want to get involved and effectively subsidize the construction cost to tax payers.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Lowering the cost of parking by pornographically increasing the supply of spaces only serves to ENCOURAGE more suburban car sprawl, and encourage more cars to enter the city from the outside. It accomplishes the exact opposite of what you're expecting to happen. It's the "give someone a hammer, and everything becomes a nail" treatment applied to car use.

I'd much rather put the cost of all that senseless parking expansion into a better and more frequent suburban bus network meeting Regional Rail frequencies. That actually encourages car-free living outside of the city, which then translates into fewer cars coming into the city.

 

[Stlin]

The scale of garage you're talking about would literally be world record breaking. The record is 20k spaces at the West Edmonton Mall in Canada. The traffic management challenges of even trying to get that many cars into and out of what you're proposing would be legion; for context, 20000 vehicles is roughly average daily traffic on the central segment of the I90/95 interchange. Frankly, the fact the T is demolishing some garages for lack of usage isn't supportive of your plan.

That said, I do think in a regional rail universe we do need to think about parking or other last mile connectivity on the CR - all the studies so far on regional rail ridership qualify themselves as "parking unconstrained". Its been previously discussed on this forum how the Lincoln/Concord/Acton town managed lots aren't helpful for park & ride because they're managed in favor of residents of those towns, and how overcrowding at places like Littleton can discourage ridership. Massive garages might not make sense, but selective structured parking expansions on the CR system generally can.

 

[malabari]

Personally, I would think that better and also cheaper parking on the 495 belt would provide more bang for the buck, esp lowering parking cost for people who are anyways buying a CR ticket. Most of these towns have unlimited free parking for other purposes, so the parking fees feels more onerous.

 

[stick n move]

Yea I’m of the opinion that the ultimate goal of the system should be to only have park and rides at spots where the commuter rail lines intersect with i95 and 495. Other than that we should demolish and move the other park and ride stations back to their former downtown locations and build as much TOD as possible around them.

Going in the other direction and building more park and rides and expanding all of the ones we already have is just doubling and tripling down on known failed planning ideas of the past.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

This is required viewing for anyone who thinks more Pn'R capacity should be the rule for Regional Rail buildouts. Uses the cautionary tale of GO Transit in Greater Toronto and the car-centric development practices that go on around their suburban stations.

Finally, there's this:

Parking utilization on the MBTA is totally scattershot, with little rhyme or reason across the system to which lots do well vs. which lots do poorly. For as many well-utilized lots there are, there are just as many that are treading water or whiffing badly. Including a disparity at the lots that intersect 128 and 495. If we can't deep dive into the metrics to refine some guiding principles as to where and how to build...or NOT build...parking capacity effectively, it doesn't make a lot of sense to lean into a paradigm of MORE suburban parking because the whiff rate is just going to be too intrinsically high. A map like ^this^ shows that for decades we've basically just been heaving darts wildly at the board rather than following any kind of time-tested best practices at siting and sizing our parking capacity.

 

[NHMaples]

This is required viewing for anyone who thinks more Pn'R capacity should be the rule for Regional Rail buildouts. Uses the cautionary tale of GO Transit in Greater Toronto and the car-centric development practices that go on around their suburban stations.

Finally, there's this:
View attachment 56447
Parking utilization on the MBTA is totally scattershot, with little rhyme or reason across the system to which lots do well vs. which lots do poorly. For as many well-utilized lots there are, there are just as many that are treading water or whiffing badly. Including a disparity at the lots that intersect 128 and 495. If we can't deep dive into the metrics to refine some guiding principles as to where and how to build...or NOT build...parking capacity effectively, it doesn't make a lot of sense to lean into a paradigm of MORE suburban parking because the whiff rate is just going to be too intrinsically high. A map like ^this^ shows that for decades we've basically just been heaving darts wildly at the board rather than following any kind of time-tested best practices at siting and sizing our parking capacity.

The attached video makes it seem that investment in park and ride facilities creates car dependency. A commuter parking lot is only one element of entire suburban communities that are car dependent. Consider this: if we automated personal vehicles such that they dropped us off at the commuter station and then returned to our suburban home to park in a personal driveway, the parking spaces at the commuter train could be eliminated while the communities themselves remained structured around travel by personal vehicle. It is not the parking lot that creates dependency. It is the fact that there is no way to travel from one's suburban home to the many places one might wish to go without a personal vehicle. In rural communities car dependency is an even more prominent fact of life. Prior to being car dependent these towns were, for the most part, horse dependent.

 

[TheRatmeister]

The attached video makes it seem that investment in park and ride facilities creates car dependency. A commuter parking lot is only one element of entire suburban communities that are car dependent. Consider this: if we automated personal vehicles such that they dropped us off at the commuter station and then returned to our suburban home to park in a personal driveway, the parking spaces at the commuter train could be eliminated while the communities themselves remained structured around travel by personal vehicle. It is not the parking lot that creates dependency. It is the fact that there is no way to travel from one's suburban home to the many places one might wish to go without a personal vehicle. In rural communities car dependency is an even more prominent fact of life. Prior to being car dependent these towns were, for the most part, horse dependent.

The problem is that for this to be true, Park and Rides need to be accessible by other means of transport. And, largely by definition, they're not. If you have a large parking lot or garage you need a lot of road capacity and a highway connection for that rush hour traffic, and even ignoring that parking takes up loads of space just by itself. If you spread all the parking spots at Quincy Adams over a lot rather than stacking them in a garage, like the economics will basically always push you towards in suburban areas, you end up with a parking lot the size of the Public Garden. These don't combine to make a place people want to live, work, recreate, etc, and so they live further away and do all of those things in places that don't suck. And now they have to own a car to use public transport, and when everyone already needs a car then what's a little bit more sprawl?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

The attached video makes it seem that investment in park and ride facilities creates car dependency.

That's exactly what it says. Build gigantic wastelands of parking lots surrounded by stroads that must be stroads in order to adequately feed them, and you make it both utterly unpalatable to walk or bike to the station and sharply inhibit the kind of TOD density that can counteract the sprawl. It does....park-and-rides create more car dependency. That's urban science. You have to be very precise and very targeted in where you put them in order to not make the problem worse, and need to figure out a way in most siting cases to get good bus routes into the Pn'R stations so they aren't so self-isolating.

The T has a very bad track record with poorly chosen self-isolating Pn'R's. And the GO Transit example provides the cautionary tale for it running completely amok to the defeat of the system's de-congesting goals.

 

[NHMaples]

So I gather the argument then is to avoid locating commuter rail stops where they facilitate parking and riding, and to situate stops in town centers where people are more likely to be able to get along without a personal vehicle. Forgive my naivete here, but how then do people who live in highly dispersed residences get to the train if not by vehicle? Will they not be forced then to take the highway all the way into the city and search for parking in the urban area? What is their alternative if they live in remote areas rather than town centers? It seems if there is no parking by the train stop, they will not be in a position to use the train.

 

[nortor]

Personally I don’t believe there should be no park and rides, but they should be very strategically located (ie on 95 and 495) and the T should invest in service extensions and improvements rather than parking garages. In much of the suburbs, improved feeder bus service to electrified regional rail could serve a lot of people without the need for cars. Park and rides simply aren’t very efficient at driving ridership compared to good bus and rail service to denser areas. It’s perfectly valid to prioritize these areas over park and ride commuters. Helsinki provides a good example of suburban feeder buses.

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Even in some of Toronto’s suburbs, buses are frequent and so ridership is high.

 

[DMo_Infrustructure_Ideas]

Lowering the cost of parking by pornographically increasing the supply of spaces only serves to ENCOURAGE more suburban car sprawl, and encourage more cars to enter the city from the outside. It accomplishes the exact opposite of what you're expecting to happen. It's the "give someone a hammer, and everything becomes a nail" treatment applied to car use.

I'd much rather put the cost of all that senseless parking expansion into a better and more frequent suburban bus network meeting Regional Rail frequencies. That actually encourages car-free living outside of the city, which then translates into fewer cars coming into the city.

I know I said a bunch of stuff . . . . I've been obsessively looking at google maps thinking about this stuff and just found this page so it is a mini brain dump . . . . .

I really like the idea of pedestrian only spaces in downtown areas / dedicated bike / scooter / etc. spaces and some form of pedestrian friendly autonomous high frequency medium capacity public transit that goes all over the city on dedicated lanes.... but I have seen numbers ranging from 70%-90% of commuters being motorists. The idea behind my overall idea is to make a sort of highly accessible buffer around the city and then make the transit within that bubble incredible.

 

[DMo_Infrustructure_Ideas]

So I gather the argument then is to avoid locating commuter rail stops where they facilitate parking and riding, and to situate stops in town centers where people are more likely to be able to get along without a personal vehicle. Forgive my naivete here, but how then do people who live in highly dispersed residences get to the train if not by vehicle? Will they not be forced then to take the highway all the way into the city and search for parking in the urban area? What is their alternative if they live in remote areas rather than town centers? It seems if there is no parking by the train stop, they will not be in a position to use the train.

Exactly the idea of transit is obviously to put these stations in locations where they have high demand - the whole idea isn't just parking sprawl its to try and reduce the number of cars that make the journey all the way into the city. It would also locate these garages in locations that attempt to get these drivers off major arteries before large merges / junctions / and pinch points.

 

[malabari]

IMHO, on the line I am most familiar with, the Fitchburg line, Parking should be increased at Littleton - as the station is already in the middle of nowhere, non-drivers arent going to get there, and it used to get full before the first express pre-pandemic. Ayer and Shirley, which are the stations that I have personally used a lot - are in places where large parking garages would be difficult to build, and access. If it takes 10 mins to leave a parking garage, it starts to be less useful.
I would think that LOWERING the cost of parking is essential too, esp on the 495. Taking a car off the road at 495 is more beneficial than taking it out at I95.

I think the garages near 495 that are easiest to get to from the highway are the first to get filled up. Getting to Lowell from 495 is not easy in the morning, for example

While bus services can help, I dont think we will ever get to the point that is a bus that is a 10 minute walk from every house in places like Groton, Townsend, Dunstable etc. My walk out of my subdivision to the nearest "road" is 30 minutes.

 

[DMo_Infrustructure_Ideas]

IMHO, on the line I am most familiar with, the Fitchburg line, Parking should be increased at Littleton - as the station is already in the middle of nowhere, non-drivers arent going to get there, and it used to get full before the first express pre-pandemic. Ayer and Shirley, which are the stations that I have personally used a lot - are in places where large parking garages would be difficult to build, and access. If it takes 10 mins to leave a parking garage, it starts to be less useful.
I would think that LOWERING the cost of parking is essential too, esp on the 495. Taking a car off the road at 495 is more beneficial than taking it out at I95.

I think the garages near 495 that are easiest to get to from the highway are the first to get filled up. Getting to Lowell from 495 is not easy in the morning, for example

While bus services can help, I dont think we will ever get to the point that is a bus that is a 10 minute walk from every house in places like Groton, Townsend, Dunstable etc. My walk out of my subdivision to the nearest "road" is 30 minutes.

Not to take a tangent on a different topic (and a tricky one because it potentially makes a lot of these other ideas moot) if you picture the full potential of an autonomous electric uber fleet or tesla fleet I think it will fill that need. Sort of negates the need for the parking garages I want to build - I would keep going on this but to stay on point I think that will be transformative for adoption. My idea with the garages and large increase in service is ultimately attempting to solve the problem of adoption for the forms of public transit that we already have in place. The worst thing about garages like that is not knowing if they are going to be full or not almost removes them as an option if you cant afford to be late somewhere. Ultimately I think more frequent transit (which may require building out parallel tracks in places) would be huge / I also think having Express trains during rush hour would drive a ton of adoption - I'm not positive about this but I think electrifying the trains would speed them up - someone told me the red line trains can accelerate so much faster than the commuter rail trains that even with their extra stops there isn't a big difference in travel times (once they succeed in getting rid of these slow zones). Imagine if you could get from the end of some of these lines into the city 30-35 minutes (from Kingston to South Station). If people have other ideas for creating a major shift to public transit I'd love to hear them.

 

[ritchiew]

Not to take a tangent on a different topic (and a tricky one because it potentially makes a lot of these other ideas moot) if you picture the full potential of an autonomous electric uber fleet or tesla fleet I think it will fill that need. Sort of negates the need for the parking garages I want to build - I would keep going on this but to stay on point I think that will be transformative for adoption. My idea with the garages and large increase in service is ultimately attempting to solve the problem of adoption for the forms of public transit that we already have in place. The worst thing about garages like that is not knowing if they are going to be full or not almost removes them as an option if you cant afford to be late somewhere.

A fleet of autonomous cars might solve the parking problem (kind of, they still need to park somewhere at night). But I'll pretty comfortably say that isn't going to solve any transportation problems.

You might find this interesting. A chart like this is what got me more interested in this stuff years ago. It shows the maximum number of people that can travel down a standard 12ft right of way under ideal conditions

Those numbers are for ideal conditions, so the Red Line (Heavy Rail) which runs fewer and shorter trains might be a quarter of that. 2,000 people/hour for cars is the highest estimate I've ever seen, but that's for smooth running highway traffic. On city streets (or navigating a parking garage) the true number might be in the hundreds.

And the main takeaway is that cars just kind of suck at moving people in any kind of confined space, like Boston. That's why I'm pretty confident that switching to autonomous cars isn't going to save anything. Cars just take up a lot of space. Robot cars are still going to sit in traffic. Even if the robots double the efficiency of cars, they'll still be an order of magnitude worse than a shitty subway, and no faster than what you have today.

Like I said, a chart like this is what got me interested in transit, but this is just scratching the surface of the field. Maybe people here have some recommended reading or material for you. Also, you could browse the Transit or "Design a Better Boston" threads, because people here are extremely knowledgeable on the subject.

. Ultimately I think more frequent transit (which may require building out parallel tracks in places) would be huge / I also think having Express trains during rush hour would drive a ton of adoption - I'm not positive about this but I think electrifying the trains would speed them up - someone told me the red line trains can accelerate so much faster than the commuter rail trains that even with their extra stops there isn't a big difference in travel times (once they succeed in getting rid of these slow zones). Imagine if you could get from the end of some of these lines into the city 30-35 minutes (from Kingston to South Station). If people have other ideas for creating a major shift to public transit I'd love to hear them.

Absolutely! Our commuter rail network has great bones but isn't running anywhere near its potential. Faster and frequent trains are possible, and really necessary for bringing more people in and out of the city.

And here, I do have some reading recommendations if you're interested. TransitMatters is an advocacy group that puts out these reports for how to improve transit in the region, and a lot of their focus is on the commuter rail.
All the reports are found here. There's one specifically for each line at this point (I think), so find yours and check it out.
You might also be specifically interested in their report on electrifying the lines, which would make trips faster. And maybe also their report of "Regional Rail." That's the idea of shifting from commuter-focused transit to running trains at least every 15 minutes on all lines all day (plus more for AM and PM peaks).