Crazy Transit Pitches

[Delvin4519]

So, yes, I do agree with this in principle, and I think it's probably one of the best responses towards answering @kdmc's questions so far.

There are definitely cases where Regional Rail can be a solution to urban transit needs (say within 128), though. Most of these are cases where running frequent mainline rail as a "quasi-rapid transit corridor" (credits to you for the term) almost achieves what proper rapid transit does, but at a fraction of the cost:

• Fairmount Line, obviously and beaten to death
• Framingham/Worcester Line: Up to Auburndale/128, with infills at West Station, Newton Corner, and possibly others that people are currently discussing
• Fitchburg Line: Up to Waltham
  • Waltham itself is already a major node, plus Waverly has good transit share as well
• Newburyport/Rockport Line: Up to Salem and Beverly
  • I included it here not as a replacement for BLX, but for a few reasons. (1) The Grand Junction part of the route is unique, and even though a parallel rapid transit service can be implemented, they'll likely have different alignments and serve different needs. (2) Rapid transit to Salem is currently far-fetched, and to Beverly is virtually unheard of, yet they have extremely high demand as #2 and #3 highest-ridership commuter rail stations.

The difference between them and Braintree is that for all of them, parallel rapid transit for the same purpose is unlikely to happen anytime soon (though I'd definitely welcome a BLX to Auburndale), but RL Braintree branch already exists today. In some sense, these are best compromises, while Braintree is not. This also extends to GLX, OL, etc.

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 locations from an (alternate history) "BERy frequent rail service" network would still result in heavy feeding from Quincy, Lynn, and Waltham.

We see this today where the 441/442/455 buses from Lynn all converge on Central Sq. Lynn, and then form a single lengthy trunk of frequent service extending south from Lynn Central Sq. all the way to Wonderland (in the BNRD map).

Prior to the Red Line extension to Quincy Center, much of the Quincy Center routes fed into a single corridor merging at Quincy Center, forming a lengthy trunk of service extending from Fields Corner all the way to Quincy Center. I would have to imagine if the Red Line to Braintree didn't exist, that this corridor would show up prominately on the BNRD map.

In Waltham, the axis of demand extends towards Watertown Square, rather than Waverley.

Looking at the map of MBTA market analysis gives us this. Quincy Center, Lynn, and Waltham each have large, strong walk up densities that can support 10 minute frequencies for transit service. (This map doesn't extend to Salem/Brockton, but I'd be very interested to see). South of Quincy Center, the urban core drops off significantly, even before Quincy Adams and Braintree, where these 2 stations are located in areas marked as "only supporting hourly service", by the T.

Notably, the D branch west of Reservior and the 3 Newtons each don't perform as well in the T's market analysis. The strongest corridor west of Newton Corner on the B & A, Watertown Square's bus hub, and Reservior on the D branch, is the corridor extending from Watertown Square to Waltham Center.

My "rail corridor walksheds" map extended to these 3 terminals :

I feel like we're stepping into the alignment too early here. I'm going to basically restart, assuming BL is extended to Kenmore under the Esplanade and go from there. Here's my fairly exhaustive list of possible destinations we'd possibly want to connect that are west(ish) of Kenmore:

So what could be some final routes?

• The full D: Pretty much just the D Branch replacement, maybe with a couple modifications like a relocated Fenway and BC diversion, ends at Riverside
• The partial D: West Station-Hester Sq-Brighton Center-BC-D Branch ending at Riverside
• The Northern Option: West Station-Arsenal-Watertown Sq-Belmont
• The Hook: Follow the 57 to Watertown Sq then swing north to Belmont
• The "Blue" in Blue Line: Follow either the 57 or the Northern route to Watertown Sq, then run to Waltham and Brandeis
• The Newton: Follow either the 57 to Newton Corner or go Boston Landing-Arsenal-Newton Corner, then run in the median and/or elevated along I-90, diverging after Auburndale to end at Riverside.

With potentially the exception of the "Partial D" due to the weird interaction with the D branch I think any of these could be viable in a TBM world and it would really come down to ridership. I'd suspect the "Blue" would come out on top but I'm honestly not sure.

IMO, any HRT extension that gets to Kenmore or BU West, should aim to reach Waltham Center by way of Newton Corner or Watertown Square. As far as demand for transit shows in the T's market anaysis, Waltham Center dwarfts everything else west of the city by a longshot. I have to imagine the reliability of the 70 would continue to be very poor for as long it remains the size of 2 bus routes, and cycling a full trip on such a route would take foreve, being the only FBR west of the city to extend as far west as it does. The 70 bus route to Waltham seems very akin with the 441/442/455/450 Lynn routes.

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Now, I have a few questions on my mind, mostly relating with alternate scenarios/history:

1. If the Red Line to Braintree had not been built yet, and a frequent transit corridor was being proposed extending from Dorchester southeast, how far would such corridor extend to?
This could be today's regional rail proposals like that of Lynn/Salem, a dedicated HRT/subway line like BLX, BNRD, etc., etc., but NOT the "commuter rail/S-Bhan style service" that was proposed at the time that gave us the Braintree Branch of today.

While BLX would extend as far as Lynn Central Sq. (as far as I'm aware), today's Braintree Branch runs past further south of Quincy Ctr. for 2 additional stops, mostly in areas that perform poorly in the T's market anaylsis. If the Blue Line mirrored the Braintree Branch, it should extend 1 or 2 more stops to "East Lynn", or "Swampscott". Whereas conversely, if the situation was flipped opposite and RLX was considered, would it only go as far as Quincy Ctr., or would the additional distance to Braintree still be desired, despite the lack of a major bus terminal there? (They were primarily intended as park & rides?) Do common proposals for BLX to Lynn terminate at Central Sq, or continue past to east Lynn? (BNRD forks the FBRs at Central Sq. Lynn and splits freqencies past Central Sq.)

2. If the Highland Branch (Green Line D) was not converted to Light Rail and transit service did not survive on the Highland Branch in the 1950s/60s, how high of a priority would a transit reactivation/extension (past Reservior) be for the Highland Branch?
The Green Line D is quite unusual for how far it extends west past Reservior, with very limited bus connections and passing through mostly areas that perform poorly in the T's market analysis. I can't imagine the corridor west of Reservior being high on the priority list if the transit service was outright completely cut from the Highland Branch in the 1950s/60s. I'd also imagine that the Reservior short turns ended up not being needed since light rail is not as high capacity as proper HRT (if it were converted to HRT, the Reservior short turns may have panned out). If a proposal were to be made today to reactivate the Highland Branch (under a scenario it were abandoned outright), that it would only go as far as Reservior and not Newton Highlands or Riverside.

 

[TheRatmeister]

1. If the Red Line to Braintree had not been built yet, and a frequent transit corridor was being proposed extending from Dorchester southeast, how far would such corridor extend to?

I think we'd talk about RL to Quincy the same way we do about BL to Lynn. Braintree or Brockton or Weymouth comes later, Quincy first.

2. If the Highland Branch (Green Line D) was not converted to Light Rail and transit service did not survive on the Highland Branch in the 1950s/60s, how high of a priority would a transit reactivation/extension (past Reservior) be for the Highland Branch?

Fairly high since the line is fully grade separated and hits the center(s) of Newton. I suspect the line might have gone to Needham rather than Riverside though.

 

[Delvin4519]

Fairly high since the line is fully grade separated and hits the center(s) of Newton. I suspect the line might have gone to Needham rather than Riverside though.

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 Green Line?

The Highland Branch reopened in 1959 as the Green Line D branch after just over a year of conversion, and 10 years later a shortage of vehicles caused the closure of the A branch in 1969, which had previously served much more densely populated urban areas unlike the Highland Branch.

I would be curious under an alternate timeline where the Highland Branch had been outright abandoned in 1958, or had lasted an additional 10 years into the 1960s, if there would have been opposition to restoring the Highland Branch as an additional Green Line branch. By the late 1960s, the MBTA did not have enough Green Line cars to add an extra branch to the GL. In such a case, the T would have had needed to decide whether to sacrifice an existing urban Green Line branch for a new branch on previously commuter rail tracks, abandon plans to restore the Highland Branch, or restore the Highland Branch as something else.

 

[TheRatmeister]

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 Green Line?

I have to imagine that the same incentives that saw it connected with the GL in our world still ultimately prevail, mainly the fact that connecting it to anything else is just so much harder (and more expensive) that it kills the value proposition entirely.

 

[Charlie_mta]

..and 10 years later a shortage of vehicles caused the closure of the A branch in 1969, which had previously served much more densely populated urban areas unlike the Highland Branch.

I don't buy the story that the A branch closed because of a shortage of cars caused by the Riverside line. I think the closure was due to the MBTA's aversion to street-running, because they could have re-opened the A Branch when new cars were procured, but they didn't. Same with the E Line to Arborway.

 

[Delvin4519]

I don't buy the story that the A branch closed because of a shortage of cars caused by the Riverside line. I think the closure was due to the MBTA's aversion to street-running, because they could have re-opened the A Branch when new cars were procured, but they didn't. Same with the E Line to Arborway.

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 like they couldn't be bothered to simply add additional cars rather than pulling it from elsewhere at the time.

I have to imagine that the same incentives that saw it connected with the GL in our world still ultimately prevail, mainly the fact that connecting it to anything else is just so much harder (and more expensive) that it kills the value proposition entirely.

I would wonder what would the originally intended headways be on the outer portion of the Highland Branch, had every other train short-turned at Reservior.

I'm only seeing the signalling system at the time had 2 minute headways east of Reservior and 4 minutes between Reservior and Riverside (which was later upgraded to 2 minutes after the high demand on the outer portion). The only other source I could find is that the MBTA in 1959 ran 134 daily round trips across the Highland Branch all the way to Riverside. This would mean an average headway of 8.7 minutes across all hours of the day (peak and off peak averaged), which is comfortably SUAG frequencies.

That could mean that either:
1. The T was either going to run to run 180 - 268 trips east of Reservior on the inner portion (which would be 4.3 - 6.5 min headways east of Reservior, closer to the signalling system design capacity).
2. Or the other way around, the T originally intended to only operate 67 - 90 round trips on the outer portion (Riverside to Reservior), which would give an average headway of every 15 - 17.2 minutes for the segment within Newton. That would be more akin to regional rail scheduling, which is "check departure times but journey whenever" (perhaps 12-15 min peak and 20 min off peak?).

I just find the D branch and Braintre branches to be quite unique/peculiar in the system, being the longest branches providing frequent service, extending far past any other frequent services, having gotten "lucky" in a way.