Crazy Transit Pitches

I'm not sure what you mean? The Haverhill line is along the current route and the Danvers branch is along an existing rail right of way.
 
The Haverhill Line of the future should run 100% via the Wildcat Branch and Lowell Line, with Malden to Reading being taken over by the Orange Line. The Danvers Branch should run on existing ROW from Salem Station to Peabody Sq, and then to Danvers Center area.
 
From Atlantic Cities

In San Francisco, Buses Become the Police

For transit-only lanes to operate effectively within a city, they must remain clear for the next transit vehicle. But many drivers, frustrated with the crowding of the car lanes, drift into a roomy transit one out of either ignorance or contempt. The problem requires a lot of manpower to enforce, and therefore often goes unenforced.

The result is lost time and money for the transit agency, which in turn can lead to service cuts or higher fares and less confidence in public transit.

San Francisco, with its long-running (if imperfect) "transit-first" policy, has come up with a way to address all these problems at once. By early next year the city's entire fleet of 819 buses will be equipped with forward-facing cameras that take pictures of cars traveling or parked in the bus and transit-only lanes. A city employee then reviews the video to determine whether or not a violation has occurred — there are, of course, legitimate reasons a car might have to occupy a bus lane for a moment — and if so the fines range from $60 for moving vehicles to more than $100 for parked cars.

The new transit-lane enforcement law [PDF] extends through 2015 a successful pilot program that started in 2008. Presently, as part of that effort, about 30 city buses are equipped with cameras, covering about 19 routes, mostly in the Financial District and Chinatown. San Francisco only has about 15 miles of transit-only lanes in all, but it intends to expand that reach in the near future, according to an update on the initiative presented earlier this month [PDF].

City officials consider the pilot program a success. "Schedule adherence" has improved, according to that update, as has general safety, since access to proper bus-stop curbs is impeded less often. In addition, the number of citations issued has risen over the past three years — from 1,311 in 2009 to 2,102 in 2010 and 3,052 last year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
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Continues ...
 
It's simple. Put a camera at intersections which ticket every vehicle in the transit lanes. If you drive in it for multiple blocks, multiple tickets, too.
 
Meanwhile in Boston, our Essex Street SL lane has been turned back over to cars because one car lane is being blocked by construction (Hong Luk House). Heaven forbid drivers should be reduced to only one travel lane.

I've said elsewhere on this part of the forum that streets like Essex should be 100% transit, in this case I'm actually thinking surface GL to South Station in addition to buses.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
The Haverhill Line of the future should run 100% via the Wildcat Branch and Lowell Line, with Malden to Reading being taken over by the Orange Line. The Danvers Branch should run on existing ROW from Salem Station to Peabody Sq, and then to Danvers Center area.
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Haverhill used to run exclusively via the Lowell Line + Wildcat before 1979. There was even a stop on the Wildcat at Salem St. that approximated the North Wilmington location. Weren't any passenger trains that went north of Reading through North Wilmington for decades prior, so had the Orange Line been built as envisioned in the 70's it wouldn't have altered the Haverhill Line's trajectory at all.
 
I do maintain the opinion that developing new infrastructure or altering existing infrastructure to grow the bus system is an extremely poor opinion compared to putting those same resources towards expanding rail instead.

Maybe it's just me, but I really don't see the appeal in a bus compared to either rail or driving - rail is cleaner, arguably cheaper over time, and not at the mercy of the roadways. Driving, meanwhile, is the absolute single-seat ride to anywhere (parking notwithstanding) and when you drive you're not at the mercy of a bus schedule, free to alter your plans on the fly as needed. The bus itself, to me (and this is especially the case with the Silver Line) is a combination of all the disadvantages of rail transit, all the disadvantages of driving put together in a package that I just don't feel offers that much in exchange - especially when making it work requires proposals like shutting down roads to become transit only.

The rail tunnel that could connect Silver Line light rail branches is still there, isn't it? I'd much rather see a renewed push towards abandoning the BRT and making Silver Line a light rail instead.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
I do maintain the opinion that developing new infrastructure or altering existing infrastructure to grow the bus system is an extremely poor opinion compared to putting those same resources towards expanding rail instead.

Maybe it's just me, but I really don't see the appeal in a bus compared to either rail or driving - rail is cleaner, arguably cheaper over time, and not at the mercy of the roadways. Driving, meanwhile, is the absolute single-seat ride to anywhere (parking notwithstanding) and when you drive you're not at the mercy of a bus schedule, free to alter your plans on the fly as needed. The bus itself, to me (and this is especially the case with the Silver Line) is a combination of all the disadvantages of rail transit, all the disadvantages of driving put together in a package that I just don't feel offers that much in exchange - especially when making it work requires proposals like shutting down roads to become transit only.

The rail tunnel that could connect Silver Line light rail branches is still there, isn't it? I'd much rather see a renewed push towards abandoning the BRT and making Silver Line a light rail instead.
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I have to agree with this opinion. BRT is the kind of compromise you get from bureaucrats that spend their commutes in limos with drivers. The officials responsible for these systems (Silver Line, for example) have never ridden transit a day in their lives.
 
whighlander said:
It's interesting that people are still obsessing over maps and plans made in the 1960's, the 1940's or even earlier

Nothing at all involved the Metro- NW

yesterday I had to pick up some closet doors at a Lowe's and the place I end-up at was in Hudson

This BigBox paradise on a hill top split between Hudson and even more obscure Berlin -- Lowe's , BJ's so far with open land for at least 2 more Big Boxes -- was so new that neither the GPS nor Google could locate the street address (6 Highland Common East)

the growth in the Greater Boston area is coming in places not on those maps and plans
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Agreed-- I'd love to know future projected job growth in this state is
 
JeffDowntown said:
I have to agree with this opinion. BRT is the kind of compromise you get from bureaucrats that spend their commutes in limos with drivers. The officials responsible for these systems (Silver Line, for example) have never ridden transit a day in their lives.
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I took a couple transportation policy and transit economics classes when I was at the Kennedy School. There have been a bunch of studies done that measure the economics of each different form of transit (trying to capture all costs - capital expenditures, maintenance, pollution, the opportunity costs of people's time spent on longer commutes, etc.). From a purely economic standpoint BRT is hands down the "best" approach to transit because the capital costs are so low. Of course, that's only true if you have a 100% dedicated bus line.

If I recall correctly the hierarchy went BRT, light rail, regular bus service, subway (separated grade), individual driving.
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
I took a couple transportation policy and transit economics classes when I was at the Kennedy School. There have been a bunch of studies done that measure the economics of each different form of transit (trying to capture all costs - capital expenditures, maintenance, pollution, the opportunity costs of people's time spent on longer commutes, etc.). From a purely economic standpoint BRT is hands down the "best" approach to transit because the capital costs are so low. Of course, that's only true if you have a 100% dedicated bus line.

If I recall correctly the hierarchy went BRT, light rail, regular bus service, subway (separated grade), individual driving.
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Folk -- its interesting that if you ask the public you would find that most prefer cars and then light rail well over BRT
 
^ The economic studies clearly don't take into account ridership as a criterion of success. Just because you can implement something cheaply doesn't mean it's the most cost-effective way to solve a transportation problem (imagine if New York wanted to implement a transit system today - BRT would be cheap, but it would be totally overwhelmed).

Dedicated lanes are part of this. Perception is another. BRT works well in Latin America because compared to the chaotic chiken buses that came before, it seems like a piece of expensive, clean, organized infrastructure that attracts riders who might have otherwise used growing incomes to go the car route.

In North America, building successful transit lines takes more effort.
 
czsz said:
^ The economic studies clearly don't take into account ridership as a criterion of success. Just because you can implement something cheaply doesn't mean it's the most cost-effective way to solve a transportation problem (imagine if New York wanted to implement a transit system today - BRT would be cheap, but it would be totally overwhelmed).
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Excellent point. I don't recall how passenger volume was accounted for in the studies. But I've got to believe the hierarchy of transit options changes when you go from New York (or Boston, or Philly) to Los Angeles (or Houston or Atlanta).
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
This basically goes where no one would use it. Why not connect the train station with Salem State through downtown?

http://g.co/maps/q7zvm
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You'll never get through 114 and Peabody Sq from 4pm-8pm with your map, unless it has it's own dedicated ROW.

With my map, the loop to the west was mainly for residents over there, and the eastern loop hits up the museum, gets close to Washington Square/Salem Common, goes through a fairly dense area, would hit the Salem ferry and proposed Salem Wharf project, runs down Derby St, House of Seven Gables, the wharfs, Wharf Street. It's also to facilitate more density and more mixed use to the west and east of Washington St.
 
Well, I talked about converting the Green Line to heavy rail earlier, and that inspired me to make this.

Now if I can get google maps to cooperate with me for the other things I wanted to make maps of, that'd be great.
 
I like it! I would extend your Watertown Branch line out to Waltham, an area lacking transit service. The line could be elevated above the old Watertown Branch ROW.
 
Charlie_mta said:
I like it! I would extend your Watertown Branch line out to Waltham, an area lacking transit service. The line could be elevated above the old Watertown Branch ROW.
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I figure it's more thematically appropriate to run a Blue Line off of the Charles/MGH connection along the Charles over that way.

EDIT: And totally unrelated to the Blue Line, am I the only one seriously unsettled by the fact that the Mattapan Trolley runs straight through a cemetery? I'm not superstitious in the least, but man, that is creepy.
 
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