F-Line to Dudley
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This would be the reference to bookmark for ID'ing those street corridors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston-area_streetcar_lines. And this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/1925_BERy_system_map.jpg. Our old streetcar network. Most of the numbers still corresponding to bus routes today. Remember...we've always been a square-to-square travel patterns type of city...not a grid like Manhattan...so the Point A-to-Point B demand patterns really haven't changed very much at all and need almost no major philosophical re-think a la trying to impose NYC-style subway gridding on Boston's cowpaths-begat-squares. So little has changed, in fact, that the routes themselves follow almost exactly the same streets with exactly the same route numbers on the Yellow Line as they did on streetcars and horsecars before we ever built the subway. If it's not a New Boston neighborhood like the Seaport, history--not wild out-of-box reconceptualizing--is your guide.
Where we need to get back to basics is FREQUENCIES. The Yellow Line has to stop being a shameful stepchild. And the places where we do need rapid transit augmentation are simply frequency increases by a different and more capable mode. Sometimes requiring expensive steel-and-concrete and...yes, maybe some tunneling. And sometimes not needing more than a better-organized and suitable-to-task surface corridor. That's it. No need to re-draw the whole damn city out of Manhattan-on-the-brain when the city organically works and has always organically worked. Just fix the transpo frequencies and capacity that hasn't kept up with the times on these square-to-square patterns.
Bus routes (approx.) that used to run through the Central Subway (portals bolded):
92 -- Sullivan, Main St., North Station, subway (to 1949)
93 -- Sullivan, Bunker Hill St., North Station, subway (to 1948)
69 - Harvard, Cambridge St., Lechmere/North Station, subway (to 1922)
87 - Clarendon Hill, Broadway, Lechmere/North Station, subway (to 1922)
88 - Clarendon Hill, Highland Ave., Lechmere/North Station, subway (to 1922)
Silver Line -- Dudley, Pleasant St., subway (1938)
43 -- Egleston, Pleasant St., subway (1956/1961)
9 -- City Point, Pleasant St., subway (to 1953)
60 (partial) - Brookline Village, Huntington Ave./Boylston St., subway (to 1932; current 60 west of BV was out of BERy district, required transfer @ BV)
60 (partial) - Cypress St., Brookline Ave., Kenmore, subway (to 1932)
Note: that Dudley route on present-day Silver Line and the 2 Sullivan routes used to be matching subway pairs replicating the Orange Line El with denser streetcar stop selection.
Harvard Sq. bus tunnel trolleys (run-thrus to other subways bolded):
77/77A - Harvard, Arlington Heights (to 1958)
71 - Harvard, Watertown (to 1958)
73 - Harvard, Waverley (to 1958)
72 - Harvard, Huron Ave. (to 1938)
1 - Harvard, Newbury St./Green Line surface transfer (to 1949)
69 - Harvard, Cambridge St., Lechmere/North Station, subway (to 1922)
68 - Harvard, Broadway, Inman, Kendall, Charles Circle, Cambridge St., East Boston subway, Maverick, Jeffries Point (to 1919)
I won't list the Maverick/East Boston/Revere routes because the Blue Line extension replicated them pretty well, and all the Lynn/Chelsea/North Shore routes were out of the BERy district. We know how important Lynn terminal and the North Shore are to hit.
We don't have to think too grand here about firing up the TBM.
Comb deeper still. . .
It doesn't change any of our build priorities, really, because the square-to-square travel patterns have been so rock-stable for >100 years. The only thing that's really been reshuffled is build priority order from modern congestion and development stressors. Otherwise, we know exactly what we have to do. GLX, Red-Blue, Downtown-Seaport, Urban Ring, the Indigos, the Crosstown buses, the two-seater frequency boosts.
The only two big desireable links we can't really build are:
...and then there are some obvious concessions like no Washington St. grade separation because we stupidly blew up the El and tunneling's too disruptive, and the southern-half Urban Ring not having a street grid suitable for tunneling through Longwood. Tactical nuclear strikes for perfectionism's sake just have to take a knee here for 50-75 years until we get all critical moving parts of other megaprojects done first.
Where we need to get back to basics is FREQUENCIES. The Yellow Line has to stop being a shameful stepchild. And the places where we do need rapid transit augmentation are simply frequency increases by a different and more capable mode. Sometimes requiring expensive steel-and-concrete and...yes, maybe some tunneling. And sometimes not needing more than a better-organized and suitable-to-task surface corridor. That's it. No need to re-draw the whole damn city out of Manhattan-on-the-brain when the city organically works and has always organically worked. Just fix the transpo frequencies and capacity that hasn't kept up with the times on these square-to-square patterns.
Bus routes (approx.) that used to run through the Central Subway (portals bolded):
92 -- Sullivan, Main St., North Station, subway (to 1949)
93 -- Sullivan, Bunker Hill St., North Station, subway (to 1948)
69 - Harvard, Cambridge St., Lechmere/North Station, subway (to 1922)
87 - Clarendon Hill, Broadway, Lechmere/North Station, subway (to 1922)
88 - Clarendon Hill, Highland Ave., Lechmere/North Station, subway (to 1922)
Silver Line -- Dudley, Pleasant St., subway (1938)
43 -- Egleston, Pleasant St., subway (1956/1961)
9 -- City Point, Pleasant St., subway (to 1953)
60 (partial) - Brookline Village, Huntington Ave./Boylston St., subway (to 1932; current 60 west of BV was out of BERy district, required transfer @ BV)
60 (partial) - Cypress St., Brookline Ave., Kenmore, subway (to 1932)
Note: that Dudley route on present-day Silver Line and the 2 Sullivan routes used to be matching subway pairs replicating the Orange Line El with denser streetcar stop selection.
Harvard Sq. bus tunnel trolleys (run-thrus to other subways bolded):
77/77A - Harvard, Arlington Heights (to 1958)
71 - Harvard, Watertown (to 1958)
73 - Harvard, Waverley (to 1958)
72 - Harvard, Huron Ave. (to 1938)
1 - Harvard, Newbury St./Green Line surface transfer (to 1949)
69 - Harvard, Cambridge St., Lechmere/North Station, subway (to 1922)
68 - Harvard, Broadway, Inman, Kendall, Charles Circle, Cambridge St., East Boston subway, Maverick, Jeffries Point (to 1919)
I won't list the Maverick/East Boston/Revere routes because the Blue Line extension replicated them pretty well, and all the Lynn/Chelsea/North Shore routes were out of the BERy district. We know how important Lynn terminal and the North Shore are to hit.
We don't have to think too grand here about firing up the TBM.
- The 87 and 88 are well-augmented by building GLX.
- Silver Line-Dudley should've been a GL branch from Day 1, and we can right that wrong any time we want by refurbing the Tremont Tunnel with a Tufts Med. Ctr. intermediate station.
- The 43 gets its difference split pretty well flanked by Green to Dudley on one side and existing Orange on the other.
- City Point gets re-enabled if we build the Green Line-Transitway connector connecting Silver Line Way to Boylston.
- 92/93 get augmented by Green at both the Sullivan and NS/Haymarket ends by building out the Urban Ring. And, yes, a reanimated Dudley-Sullivan/Ring pairing would have a lot of demand.
- The 60 variants are replicated by D-to-E connecting streetcar track allowing boosted Huntington Ave. headways via Brookline Ave. short-turns and run-thru options to Kenmore Loop. This also traces out a chunk of the SW quadrant of the Urban Ring (mode TBD), so could much later be subwayed if you can find a coherent way to do it.
- Red-Blue serves up all the frequencies imaginable replicating that insane 68 routing from Harvard to Eastie.
- Red Line to Arlington Heights rapid-transitizes the outer half of the 77 just like the Alewife extension did for the inner half.
Comb deeper still. . .
- The 66 gets its load shifted around in a big way with the Urban Ring + Harvard spur.
- Indigo-Riverside + a short 71 extension to Newton Corner super-sizes the Watertown-Harvard corridor.
- Indigo-Fairmount + strengthened E-W bus frequencies strengthen the network effects in Dorchester.
- Red to Mattapan + Green to Dudley + Indigo-Fairmount anchors both ends of the 28 corridor and allows you to dust off that 28X-Blue Hill Ave. proposal in a big way.
- Look how clearly you can trace the SE quadrant Urban Ring on the 1925 map via Dudley, Southampton St., Andrew, and Southie/Seaport. That was even before the forces of urban renewal "gifted" us Melnea Cass Blvd. as an I-695 byproduct.
It doesn't change any of our build priorities, really, because the square-to-square travel patterns have been so rock-stable for >100 years. The only thing that's really been reshuffled is build priority order from modern congestion and development stressors. Otherwise, we know exactly what we have to do. GLX, Red-Blue, Downtown-Seaport, Urban Ring, the Indigos, the Crosstown buses, the two-seater frequency boosts.
The only two big desireable links we can't really build are:
- That Mass Ave. subway under the 1. For many, many cost, climate change, and geological reasons.
- A Lechmere-Harvard connector uniting the Green Line with the Harvard bus/trolley tunnel & routes. Was briefly considered up Cambridge St. via Inman 100 years ago and would've changed the face of the system, but never quite came together. Would've been nice to have an Inman subway station, but given all we're capable of triaging via the Urban Ring, UR Harvard spur, and taking GLX through Porter we're never going to be at a loss of new and incredibly useful ways to link pieces of Cambridge together via other corridors. This simply isn't an omission worth getting hung up about while Allston-Harvard so badly needs a link and Porter still beckons the Union Branch (nevermind far-future possibilities past Porter on the Watertown Branch augmenting the 70 & 71).
...and then there are some obvious concessions like no Washington St. grade separation because we stupidly blew up the El and tunneling's too disruptive, and the southern-half Urban Ring not having a street grid suitable for tunneling through Longwood. Tactical nuclear strikes for perfectionism's sake just have to take a knee here for 50-75 years until we get all critical moving parts of other megaprojects done first.