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Haymarket -> Courthouse Green Line?
South Station to Courthouse Green Line. Extensive discussion in this thread and the Green Line Reconfiguration thread.
Haymarket -> Courthouse Green Line?
Would it make sense to incorporate the urban ring concept into the NSRL?
^ There's a lot there...
If two of the possible four tracks in the link are reserved for rapid transit, it could potentially tie into an urban ring somehow... though I'm not sure how.
This is crazy transit pitches after all. Let's go all out; might as well bury Storrow along with the subway line (definitely going to need major engineering with the riverbank/water and the structure of the tunnels incorporating auto and transit. As for the Mass Ave subway, you got me there.Your proposal seems to involve a Storrow Drive riverbank subway, which would require a major downgrading of Storrow. It also seems to involve a Mass Ave subway, which is just a non-starter.
Would it make sense to incorporate the urban ring concept into the NSRL? You could make an "inner loop" that starts at North Station, stretches down Storrow, turns at Hynes and continues to Mass Ave (OL stop), [somehow] get to South Station, and loop up to North Station. The "outer loop" would start at the airport, go through east Boston, Charleston, Cambridge, link with the inner loop at Mass Ave, and then stretch into South Boston/Seaport.
While building the inner loop section between north and south station, the NSRL link could easily(using the term loosely) be constructed, and the cost benefit of the urban ring could possibly add the needed value to the multi billion dollar NSRL.
I don't know much about this urban ring proposal and what the plan is now, but this seems to make sense to me.
If we get Commuter Rail to Springfield, can we send all of our old subway stock that-a-way and build the WesT subway system?
I kind of enjoy the sound of hopping onto a train at South Station, getting off at Springfield Union Station and transferring to the Red Line to Six Flags.
And I don't even like thrill rides.
Commute -- don't forget the Basketball Hall of Fame
Crazy Transit Pitch: Extend the Blue Line past Charles/MGH, to Kendall via a new tunnel, under the Grand Junction, and take over the Medford Branch of the Green Line Extension.
That lets you use heavy rail rolling stock for the Medford Branch trunk line, with frequencies not limited by the Green Line subway capacity. 99% of the GLX investment is reused - just raise Brickbottom station, drop the trackbed or raise the platform at the others, and drop third rail if it's worthwhile over catenary.
Somerville/Medford and Eastie/Revere/Lynn get direct Kendall Square connections; Orange and Blue get a relief from the overcrowded Red Line.
Frees up the Green Line for more Union Square (and extended), and Urban Ring service.
Useful alignment if it were truly feasible... really. though, that's lots of tunneling.
I've wondered for a time whether there was a piece of infrastructure that already exists which is being overlooked, that could bring rapid transit more easily across the Fort Point Channel. I think there is: the 93-->90/Airport HOV lane. It's tremendously underused, stretching from Albany/Kneeland straight into the Seaport. I'm not, though, clear on the dimensions and whether it could accommodate two tracks.
Here's a schematic of the interchange.
Well, shoot, it's even right next to the approach tracks to SS, almost like someone planned for an eventual conversion. Good eye spotting that.
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.345...4!1s0ggXX3BTq49eDP10dubfRA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Looking at street view, the tunnel narrows to one lane with a shoulder, maybe 18'-20', with 13' 9" vertical clearance. So I think it's wide enough, but maybe not tall enough.
Found a nice design standard document, btw.
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/B...ion/Commuter Rail Design Standards Manual.pdf
I wish you luck finding the parallel universe where thick-skulled state highway dept.'s don't ludicruously overrate the value of HOV lanes, though.
So the question is, what approach would rapid transit (let's assume GL coming gout of the Tremont St Tunnel) take into that HOV tunnel? Can tracks fit between Herald and the CR tracks with an incline under Albany St and 93? That would put it on a very straight alignment.