Crazy Transit Pitches

The NSRL would only be a 1.5 mile connection between 2 rail nodes. Crossrail on the other hand includes a totally new 13 mile tunnel through the center of London with multiple new stations. It's much more complex then the NSRL would be.

Of course if you add in electrification of all of the commuter rail lines plus some good old Massachusetts corruption and inefficiencies the cost of the NSRL may near the cost of the Crossrail project in London.

I'm not sure that would be the case. First, I doubt London is particularly less corrupt than Massachusetts, just going off pure gut instinct. Second, electrification can be done gradually. Third, the construction of Crossrail requires a lot more finessed engineering than I understand NSRL to require.
 
Extra tall double decker 60' articulated buses for route 28 extended to Malden

Seattle has some double decker buses.

Unfortunately, those buses apparently have somewhat limited interior headroom. That's presumably a result of trying to keep the height within the typical 13.5' to 14' limit of state laws; the ADA regulations related to white cane users choose to care about people up to 6' 8" tall, and having two levels able to accomodate 6' 8" people would require 13' 4" plus a bit of extra headroom, ground clearance, and floor / ceiling space.

The big issue with building a bus 16' or 17' or 18' tall would be if the route it operates on needs to pass underneath bridges. If you can find a route that avoids passing under bridges that don't have generous clearance, then there should be no physical problem with a tall bus, although shipping it from the factory to where it gets used might be a challenge.

In looking at Google Street View images of some random parts of the MBTA's route 28, I didn't see anything south of Dudley St that would preclude an extra tall bus; the bus goes above the Fairmount Line. The busways at Dudley Station and Ruggles Station might need some changes to deal with extra tall buses.

If the route was continued northwards above the Amtrak / commuter rail tracks from Ruggles Station to Mass Ave, and then along Mass Ave to Vassar St and somehow to Lechmere, I don't think there any any obvious obstacles there unless the new Lechmere Viaduct ends up being too low.

If a bridge gets built from near Lechmere Station to Inner Belt Road, hopefully that could be above everything else.

I suspect passing under I-93 on Cambridge St to get to the existing Sullivan Station busway would be problematic. However, if the unused western tracks at Sullivan are converted to Green Line, perhaps there would be some way to share the underpasses under Mystic Ave and Broadway / Maffa Way between Green Line and tall buses; the tall bus wouldn't be any taller than the bilevel commuter rail cars, although trying to have Green Line overhead wire share the space with a tall bus might be problematic. But a ramp up to Cambridge St at the south end of the potential Green Line tracks at Sullivan would at least be to the west of I-93 and potentially solve the clearance problems passing underneath I-93.

Sweetser Circle to Malden Orange Line seems to avoid overpasses as long as the bus stays on the east side of the tracks at the Malden Orange Line station.

I'm not aware of anyone ever having built an articulated double decker bus, which might be the real challenge. And it's not clear that there's much value in a double decker articulated bus; while it would offer a good view from the upper level, the staircase(s) waste a significant amount of space (although that would probably be a smaller percentage of the lower level with a longer bus unless that's used as an opportunity to add a second staircase where typical double deckers might only have one staircase). Just running frequent 60' single level low floor buses probably provides adequate capacity.
 
Mid coffee crazy idea....Relocate North Station to the rail yards in Cambridge. Remove all the rail bridges over the Charles river into North Station. Make a tunnel under Grand Junction over to West station for commuter rail connection. Green line on top. Increase Orange and green line capacity from new north station into the city. And increase capacity of the new green line connection to the red line.

Hire only Chinese companies to do it all on one weekend in August for about $2 billion plus room and board.
 
Mid coffee crazy idea....Relocate North Station to the rail yards in Cambridge. Remove all the rail bridges over the Charles river into North Station.

What would be gained by this?

And increase capacity of the new green line connection to the red line.

Where's this coming from?
 
Mid coffee crazy idea....Relocate North Station to the rail yards in Cambridge. Remove all the rail bridges over the Charles river into North Station.

The truncating of the commuter rail lines was proposed in the 1960's by the MBTA. That is why the Red Line extension to Braintree and the Orange Line to Melrose have only one commuter rail track next to them, which was originally meant for freight trains only. The commuter rail lines would have only come in as far as the ends of those two lines. North Station and the nearby rail bridges over the Charles would have been eliminated, and South Station reduced in size. This plan was killed by suburban NIMBYs who wanted a one-train commuter rail ride all the way to downtown Boston, and who also didn't want to ride subway trains with less desirable populations.
 
Mid coffee crazy idea....Relocate North Station to the rail yards in Cambridge. Remove all the rail bridges over the Charles river into North Station.

There's a Charles Eliot proposal from like the 1890s to do this too. I think I have a map in a book at home, will try to scan tonight.
 
There's a Charles Eliot proposal from like the 1890s to do this too. I think I have a map in a book at home, will try to scan tonight.

That would be pretty neat if you shared it, thank you in advance :)
 
This plan was killed by suburban NIMBYs who wanted a one-train commuter rail ride all the way to downtown Boston, and who also didn't want to ride subway trains with less desirable populations.

Let's not imply people opposing this would have been racist. Having people switch to subway would add 10-30 minutes (depending on whether the subway has an express service and how good it is) to a suburban commute. Also the commuter rail services that would have been cut off did not exist at that time.
 
Let's not imply people opposing this would have been racist. Having people switch to subway would add 10-30 minutes (depending on whether the subway has an express service and how good it is) to a suburban commute. Also the commuter rail services that would have been cut off did not exist at that time.

Plus if all our commuter rail lines ended at the subway terminal stations, then we'd be effectively cut off from ever developing a regional rail system like is now being advocated.
 
There's a Charles Eliot proposal from like the 1890s to do this too. I think I have a map in a book at home, will try to scan tonight.

From Inventing the Charles River - highly recommended, total catnip

40987585040_44919bbbe0_c.jpg
 
That would have gone a long way to restoring the lost mile of the Charles but it was bad transit. Once the NS Link is built the need for North Station as a hub is greatly lessened. It's only real draw will be sports. I like Ari's proposal to build a combined North/Central station around Haymarket instead of an underground North Station. North Station was a product of circumstance, we don't need to repeat the same mistakes.
 
Not a pitch but a question: Whats the best way to build a one-seat ride between the airport and Encore Casino? The simplest I can think of would be extending SL3 all the way to the casino, but thats not very crazy.
 
The new casino ferry service could stop directly at the airport.
 
Very broad level question here: ideally, what are the best terminal locations for each current line? Not counting commuter rails, and no additional branching of existing lines (converting Mattapan into a proper red line branch is an option).

So, just to get the ball rolling, here’s some not-to-serious suggestions, basically all designed to reach out to the 128 beltway:

Blue Line
Salem to Auburndale/Riverside

Green Line
Woburn (Mishawum) to Riverside

Orange Line
Reading to Needham Heights

Red Line
Lexington to Braintree and Westwood (Rte 128)
 
Very broad level question here: ideally, what are the best terminal locations for each current line? Not counting commuter rails, and no additional branching of existing lines (converting Mattapan into a proper red line branch is an option).

So, just to get the ball rolling, here’s some not-to-serious suggestions, basically all designed to reach out to the 128 beltway:

Blue Line
Salem to Auburndale/Riverside

Green Line
Woburn (Mishawum) to Riverside

Orange Line
Reading to Needham Heights

Red Line
Lexington to Braintree and Westwood (Rte 128)

Most of these seem like really long lines to have no express service. Don't you think some of these distant communities aren't better served by CR/EMU with many fewer stops? I can't imagine riding the Red Line for 10+ miles as my morning commute... Maybe if you could 4-track the Red Line from Harvard north?

I would much rather see the rapid transit NETWORK in the urban core improved to expand the area of truly walkable city than to expand the hub-and-spoke model ever further into the 'burbs. Granted, your Blue Line concept does indeed improve the network, but not the others.
 
Most of these seem like really long lines to have no express service. Don't you think some of these distant communities aren't better served by CR/EMU with many fewer stops? I can't imagine riding the Red Line for 10+ miles as my morning commute... Maybe if you could 4-track the Red Line from Harvard north?

I would much rather see the rapid transit NETWORK in the urban core improved to expand the area of truly walkable city than to expand the hub-and-spoke model ever further into the 'burbs. Granted, your Blue Line concept does indeed improve the network, but not the others.

I think the Orange Line to Needham makes sense, and there was/is a third express track in place and planned to go all the way to Reading. The Red to Lexington also makes sense (and should have happened/was planned to happen), and it would be pretty much the same commute/length as the end of the Braintree Extension which is quite heavily used.
 
I don't think Westwood makes any sense for the red line. Lexington does though.
 

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