Crazy Transit Pitches

I see now, I wasn't aware that was the plan. I was thinking the northern half of the UR would be a complete semicircle, with trains crossing the BU bridge and following all the way through to Airport on the Blue.

If someone was getting on the UR at Kendall/MIT-ish stop, and wanted to get to Everett or Chelsea, they'd have to ride it to Lechmere, get off, and wait for another train coming from North Station, jump on and hit the Sullivan, Everett-wherever stop line. Makes more sense to me now, thanks for clearing that up.

Yeah. Unless they were riding that 1 out of every X trains that runs straight from MIT to Sullivan. I would just expect based on likely demand profile that 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 5 are going to want to go inbound at Lechmere to hit North Station and downtown just because that's proportionately higher demand than staying all the way on the outskirts. No big deal...change at Lechmere if you don't want to wait a couple more trains on the Kendall platform for a trolley signed "Sullivan/Airport". Same as they do taking a C or D out of Park and stepping off at Kenmore when they're too impatient to wait for a proper B. Or not caring at Harvard if the Red inbound's signed for Braintree or Ashmont and just stepping off at Andrew to catch the right one.

It's no inconvenience because that practice is such old hat to Boston commuters.
 
That one probably wouldn't work because the junction converges at a bad angle and there'd have to be a little duck-under underpass of the Fitchburg tracks to pop back up on the GLX side. See here underneath the McGrath overpass: http://goo.gl/maps/0dsrf.

That's the Grand Junction way in the background making a sharp turn in to the 2 Fitchburg tracks. All that empty space in the foreground is where the 2 Union Branch tracks are going to go, and that single freight storage track spread out from everything else is going to get flipped to the other side of the bridge abutment and packed closer to the Fitchburg tracks to make room. There used to be 6 tracks under this bridge till the mid-60's, so even GLX still leaves 1 track berth of extra slack space to shiv in a junction. The duck-under would slide diagonal under Fitchburg between sets of bridge supports, then pop up staggered alongside each Union track and merge downwind to the left out in the sunlight. Then about 500 ft. later it rises up on the flyover viaduct to pass over GLX Medford and Fitchburg tracks and do the 3-way junction with Lechmere and the carhouse/UR tracks.


You probably would not be able to do a wye and second duck-under for multi-directional access to the Union Branch outbound without blowing up the large Somerville Elder Services Center building on Medford St., which I'm gonna take a reliable guess is not gonna fly with the city. But I doubt the demand is high enough to merit. Need to get from the Ring to a Medford or Union/Porter outbound?...do what they do at Arlington and cross the platform to get from an inbound B/C/D to an outbound E. The more niche travel patterns have the same free transfer options at the nearest stop to the branch split as people have been doing downtown for 117 years. No biggie.

That makes sense -- T commuters are very used to cross platform transfers.
 
Fantasy: The state establishes tolls in the CAT to fund MBTA capital projects. Reality: You can't toll 93 because of federal interstate funding. Compromise: establish high speed tolls at the end of each CAT offramp... technically, that then tolls the city streets, not the highway. Sort of a limited congestion charge. Thoughts?
 
Fantasy: The state establishes tolls in the CAT to fund MBTA capital projects. Reality: You can't toll 93 because of federal interstate funding. Compromise: establish high speed tolls at the end of each CAT offramp... technically, that then tolls the city streets, not the highway. Sort of a limited congestion charge. Thoughts?

Reality: Placing a toll at the end of every off ramp where traffic has no choice but to go through it constitutes a toll on the CAT. This wouldn't hold water.

It doesn't matter, since the long-standing policy of the federal government against tolling interstates is changing.

Tolling the CAT is doable, potentially within 10 years, and a wholly reasonable course of action to take.
 
Not if you're using I-93 to get from Quincy to Manchester... isnt' that what interstates are for?
 
Not if you're using I-93 to get from Quincy to Manchester... isnt' that what interstates are for?

Well, yes and no. I-95 to I-93 goes to Manchester too -- the long way around.

There should be a price to pay to use the short route through the dense urban core that cost $16 B to build.
 
If there's going to be any tolls on 93, it needs to pay for fixing the SE Expressway with full-regulation breakdown lanes...and every bridge replacement that has to go along with such an undertaking. I'm all for finding more MBTA funding sources, but if tolls are going to pay for something the road that toll is on goes first on the list. And here--so long as MassDOT doesn't try to cram more HOV capacity into it--there is a very worthy project to fund in making the worst expressway in the state more resilient to disruption by giving it the full 128 treatment on both its left and right shoulders.

^--- This can pay for the Savin Hill reconfig of the Red Line and Old Colony tracks (bury Braintree under surface Ashmont at the pinch point and double-track commuter rail), which is an expensive fucker in itself. So wouldn't be completely without beneficial MBTA angle despite being 93-centric.
 
Not sure if this the correct forum (I'm new) but I've been thinking about traffic flow around Haymarket and it seems like it would be improved by making Hanover and North St. each one way. North St would run one-way inbound to Congress and Hanover would run out from Congress towards the Surface Road. A one-way North St. would allow for three lanes in to Congress instead of the current two, allow for a dedicated right turn & left turn only lanes with a middle lane that could go either direction along with expanded sidewalks/bikelanes. Hanover St could then carry any outbound traffic to the Greenway and Sudbury on days when Haymarket is in session. I don't see North St. outbound to the greenway being a popular route and any traffic that really needs to get from Congress to the Greenway could use Milk to cut over. Is this a crazy idea?
 
BPLange7, welcome. Your idea might not be crazy enough for this thread ;)

Theres another thread for more realistic pitches.
 
Also, doesn't sound like a 'transit pitch'.

But to consider it: doesn't Boston have enough in the way of one way streets? They're not very friendly to local business.
 
Can we get back bay canals even if climate change doesn't happen? because I really want Back Bay canals.
 
Well, the pike canyon will probably become a canal on its own, so we just need to add some feeders.
 
The "cityscaping" ideas are just silly urban-design think pieces.

The accepted solution to rising sea levels is a storm surge barrier such as something like the St Petersburg (Russia) Dam or the barrier across Venice (Italy)

usually proposals either focus on an "inner" barrier (protecting "downtown" like a barrier @ the Verrazzano would for NYC, or, in Boston's case an "inner" one for Boston-Winthrop (only)

SEA__1275665801_6760.jpg


And usually an "outer" altnerative. For NYC it would go from the Rockaways (Kennedy Airport) to Red Hook (NJ). For Boston, a logical outer barrier would go from Nahant to Hull. (discussed in the Sea Level Rise video thread)

In most of these, you have the option of building a road or circumferential transit or trails across the top/bottom of the barrier
 
So West Medford is a major problem to increasing service on the Lowell Line - eventually you start getting enough Lowell locals and Haverhill expresses and Downeasters and maybe NH service that 60 will be a constant mess.

So my proposal: demolish the Dunkies, the liquor store, and take the one tiny double-decker off Circuit. Built a curved overpass that doesn't ruin the little downtown area. Playstead turns down the former 60 alignment to Canal Street.

J1d2eOn.png
 
Why not raise the rail up onto a viaduct? Is the grade too sharp because of the Mystic River Bridge?
 
So West Medford is a major problem to increasing service on the Lowell Line - eventually you start getting enough Lowell locals and Haverhill expresses and Downeasters and maybe NH service that 60 will be a constant mess.

So my proposal: demolish the Dunkies, the liquor store, and take the one tiny double-decker off Circuit. Built a curved overpass that doesn't ruin the little downtown area. Playstead turns down the former 60 alignment to Canal Street.

J1d2eOn.png


That's gonna make a fine mess of the place. It's a square with 5 converging bus routes, dense-ish sidewalk retail, and a fire station. I really don't think you can disrupt the street grid like that, engineering-possible or not. How would such a similar thing fly in [insert square here] in Somerville instead? I doubt it...it would get destroyed during community input, and for defensible reasons.


I think the only way grade separation works is:

1) Sink the tracks into a pretty steep dip coming off the Mystic Bridge. 1400 ft. of running room off the bridge before it has to level out under Route 60. 1.5 or 1.7% grade on the Mystic side, closer to 1% on the outbound side. 1.5% gets you to 21 ft. depth by the time it has to level out, adequate 100-year clearances for double-stack freight with no electrification or autoracks with electrification. 1.7% gets you 23'8" depth, future-proofed for double-stack freight under electrification. Note that this is better than the following commuter rail grades: Wellington tunnel on Haverhill/Reading (3.5%), Neponset bridge on the Old Colony (3%), Mystic bridge on the Eastern Route (1.6% Somerville side / 2% Everett side).

2) Bridge over Canal St. with equal roadway rise to the tracks' fall by that point in the incline.

3) Retaining walls poured to the ROW property lines so it is 4-track width and can take a GLX extension someday from Route 16.

4) After crossing under Route 60, widen out the cut a little bit more so you can do ramps down to the platform. Island platform probably works best. Regs are for 5' minimum unobstructed platform width (add extra cushion from there for benches, signage, etc.), although with an island having center signage and shelter supports and whatnot that probably means 10-12' width to meet the unobstructed regs. Cut has to future-proof for a rapid transit station displacing a commuter rail station, so make sure width is such that it can fit 2 thru commuter rail tracks and 2 island station GLX (or HRT) tracks at 6 cars' length. Which probably means you can do an 800 ft. full-high island commuter rail platform with 1 freight + Downeaster passing track off to the side, and still have a little slack space along the walls. Have the cut narrow the slack space to the north as it passes the 6-car threshold for whenever that becomes an RT station. If/when the station flips modes you'll be able to lop off some platform length and return that to just track space.

4a) Let's assume that the ugly-ass Rite Aid is history and there's a little bit of intersection realignment and air rights to tap. Let's also assume that if something clearance-wise in the cut needs adjustment there's play room for a 1-2 ft. 'hump' in Route 60 and the aligned intersections, which could nuke the Dunkies if it has to (I'm gonna take a wild guess that Dunkies is too-prime a property and will get redeveloped).

5) Can be constructed by doing one single track shifted to far west side of ROW (aligned with this maintenance-of-way siding), temp mini-high platform in the Rite Aid parking lot, and soil stabilization to dig two-thirds of the trench. Then shift single-track into the trench (may need to close station entirely or do a 1-car mini-high out by Playstead Park). Finish the other wall of the trench, pour platform, install second + passing track. No service disruptions except for the temp platforms, no freight disruptions.


That preserves and improves the square, eliminates the crossing, and future-proofs it for all height and width clearances for: tallest/widest freight under diesel, tallest/widest freight under electrification, GLX rapid transit extension displacing commuter rail station, and HRT conversion of GLX + extension displacing commuter rail station.

Pricey. But it's a 100-year solution you don't get by warping the street grid or building an ugly-ass ultrawide viaduct blotting out the sun over the square.
 
Reading through this document I found while surfing the web, and was curious what they meant by the bolded parts.
For the purpose of organizing the proposals, the metropolitan
area was divided into corridors. In the urban core area, there
were two main proposals contained in both documents: a connection
between the Blue Line and the Green Line via a new tunnel under
Beacon Hill and the Boston Common linking Bowdoin station to the
subway under Boylston Street
, and a circumferential transit line
running around the downtown area from South Station to Sullivan
Square in Charlestown. In addition, the Transportation Plan listed
other possible improvements including a rail connection between
North Station and South Station and the restoration and
revitalization of South Station.
http://ntl.bts.gov/DOCS/boston.html

This paper is from 1993, and Bowdoin's been there since (1913?). Are they talking about the MGH extension and it's just poorly worded, or what?
 

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