bigeman, your proposed shifts make good sense, even if it gives me a sad reaction. That dream didn't last long.
On the cross-Newton bus line, I think you are partly correct about the north-south routes, although I've always felt the 52 and 59 would have better ridership through Newton if it ran more often and if the streets could get unclogged. People who have the option of driving will just drive on side roads in their cars to avoid the bus slog and long traffic jams; they might ride those busses more if there were better reliability. The classic conundrum. Having said that, I agree that neither the 52 nor the 59 are anywhere near ready for serious discussion about going to even streetcar, much less tunnels, even if they could get boot-strapped up to optimum.
As for this:
There are parts of Newton for which this is extremely true, like the far Southern reaches of Newton - that is pure post-WW2 suburbia. But there are parts of Newton that are fairly transit-oriented and dependent, and this proposed NIMBY line connects several of them. None of Newton is so oriented and dependent as the South End or Cambridge, sure. But the D line has been in place a long time and many of the stations have not one iota of parking, so those neighborhoods have settled deeply into transit-oriented reality for those of us who work downtown or in Longwood. My wife and I both work and own only one car, which is often left parked as she can walk to work in good enough weather. There are Newtonites that literally GASP when they hear we have one car. Commuter rail serves a similar function on the North side of Newton, though with all the troubles of the commuter rail, and with the harsh reality that half the traditional commercial districts over there got wiped out by the Pike, and that tamps down the transit-orientation pretty severely.
Those parts of Newton that are fairly transit-oriented and dependent have a strong East-West alignment to the dependency. North-South, the 52 and 59 are huge dramatic steps down in transit-orientation, those who commute North-South mostly do so cars. Connecting the D line laterally to the "Indigo Line" would make for a big gain in transit density for the in-between parts of Newton (hence the fanatical NIMBYism you'd get there).
Odd place, Newton. I'm far from the only person in my immediate neighborhood who'd enthusiastically cheer a N-S streetcar line or even a dramatically more frequent and otherwise improved 52 / 59, even assuming those options would impact driving. But in some other parts of town the NIMBYism would be as ugly and as racist as it can possibly get. You can walk from my street to some of those areas in about ten minutes, and it's like you just walked from Brookline Village to Dedham as far as attitudes to the T go.
