Crazy Transit Pitches

Not so much of a pitch itself, but... hyperloops. Assuming they were to live up to the hype (honestly unlikely, but lets just run with it), what would the best use of that technology be for the Boston region?

Just for the sake of conversation.
 
Somewhat crazy idea: could we deck over the Lowell line out to west Medford if the commuter rail is electrified, a greenway is planned alongside the glx but it does not go all the way to west Medford.
 
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Somewhat crazy idea: could we deck over the Lowell line out to west Medford if the commuter rail is electrified, a greenway is planned alongside the glx but it does not go all the way to west Medford.

Like the Southwest Corridor? No. To deck it, you would need it to fully in a trench.
 
How Much will be below grade when the glx is finished. Out to tufts? I know that there is a viaduct at route 16.
 
How Much will be below grade when the glx is finished. Out to tufts? I know that there is a viaduct at route 16.

It's going to be permanently above grade at Harvard St. And GLX isn't removing any grade crossings (since there aren't any south of the mystic). Also even many of the "below grade" portions probably aren't deep enough for decking; like there's many places where the tracks are built at nearly the same elevation as the adjacent buildings.
 
The ROW is a post-Civil War line relocation/grade separation, with clearance improvements done to 17' tall freight cars in 1979. Maximum depth is achieved only under the individual street overpasses; between streets the cut fizzes out.


Only place you can deck is the Porter Sq. trench if GLX is ever extended there. The Green tunnel would underpin the Fitchburg tracks allowing a lowering of the CR depth and ability to deck over all from Beacon St. to Porter Station with a linear plaza. That's been pitched as a throw-in with STEP's advocacy for the Porter extension. But that's the only proposed build on the universe of projects where air rights are in-play.
 
I was thinking the same thing with it possibly being a streetcar but it was in the mass archives railroad map category for some reason, do you know anything more about it.
 
I think the Middlesex RR was a streetrunning (trolley) operation.

Yes. Network of horsecar lines eventually absorbed into BERy when electrified. Map pre-dates electrification, and pre-dates completion of the recently filled Back Bay street grid. Landfilling was done by 1882 but street grid to Kenmore not finished until 1890. Note how none of the streets north of Gloucester St. are named, and how the diagonal roadway bisecting Mass Ave. doesn't exist today.

So this map was definitely post-1882 / pre-1890 when the street grid planning in the northern half of the Back Bay was still in-flux.
 
Someone wanted to build the Tremont Street Subway as a mainline railroad?!
https://archives.lib.state.ma.us/handle/2452/50620

I'm pretty sure this is a proposal for an elevated steam train rail line, similar to the ones existing in Manhattan at the time. I've read somewhere else that this elevated rail line was seriously proposed, but opposition stopped it. Then the Tremont trolley tunnel was built instead a few years later.
 
Is there a Kml/google my maps of the Middlesex RR. Also is it feasible to run a branch of the orange line up 93 to Medford square, possibly meeting a branch of the Medford RR.
 
Is there a Kml/google my maps of the Middlesex RR. Also is it feasible to run a branch of the orange line up 93 to Medford square, possibly meeting a branch of the Medford RR.

A much cheaper option would be making the I-93 HOV lane bus only, and increasing service for the express buses.

The section from sullivan to the fellsway would be fairly easy to build, as I-93 is above grade. The section past that would be difficult.
 
Is there a Kml/google my maps of the Middlesex RR. Also is it feasible to run a branch of the orange line up 93 to Medford square, possibly meeting a branch of the Medford RR.

1. Branching Orange that far north would be disastrous for headway management on the whole system. Search the boards from this winter; there's an explainer why the Red Line's branching stays in perfect balance with the mainline while other branching schemes would elude that balance and cause outright harm.

2. There's no path to Medford Sq. to begin with. The Medford Branch is obliterated by housing west of Fellsway.


Route 16 BRT pinging between Red-Alewife, GLX-Route 16, and Orange-Wellington is probably the answer for getting suitably rapid frequencies to Medford Sq. It would be dependent on building the Alewife-to-Mass Ave. busways for making time, but if the stop selection were taut it would be a brisk enough trip and carry more than enough riders between rapid transit transfers to sustain BRT frequencies.

You could also make that part of an outer BRT 'ring arc' with Alewife-Wellington as the western 16 section, and an eastern 16 section that went Wellington to Silver/Urban Ring-Chelsea to Blue-[pick one: Suffolk Downs; Beachmont; Wonderland].
 
Is there a Kml/google my maps of the Middlesex RR. Also is it feasible to run a branch of the orange line up 93 to Medford square, possibly meeting a branch of the Medford RR.

No, but if the Orange Line is extended to Reading (likely with electrification ) the Green Line could continue north from Sullivan, over the Medford Branch to the Fellsway, up the median to 93 and then down beside 93 (one track per side) (nearly) to Medford Sq. Personally, I could also see another branch up to Malden Ctr ad over the Saugus Branch, at least to the cinema parking lot if not to Saugus Ctr.
 
No, but if the Orange Line is extended to Reading (likely with electrification ) the Green Line could continue north from Sullivan, over the Medford Branch to the Fellsway, up the median to 93 and then down beside 93 (one track per side) (nearly) to Medford Sq. Personally, I could also see another branch up to Malden Ctr ad over the Saugus Branch, at least to the cinema parking lot if not to Saugus Ctr.


The Medford Branch is obliterated well before 93 and at a different grade at bad angle from Fellsway...which is nowhere near 93 at the point they intersect. There is NO practical way to get rail rapid transit to Medford Sq. None. Think about BRT solutions, because it's not happening any other way and would be bad transit if it had to bend on itself umpteen times.


Saugus Branch has been covered here a multitude of times. The number of bad-angle grade crossings in Malden would make any use of this branch a freakshow of starts and stops. When the net result is barely functional transit as this would be, take a hard pass.
 
That just not true, F Line. The Fellsway crosses the Medford Branch about 1/2 mile west of the Orange Line. There is nothing north of thr ROW for 300ft. The Fellsway is more than wide enough for a two track median (the old Rt100 trolley went there) when you reach 93 (at the Fellsway, not the old Medford ROW, there is sufficient space for single tracks going south to Medford Sq. It is not the shortest route, but is still quicker than buses on 16 by far.
As far as Saugus, if you come off the existing row near the Super 88 and meet up with the Saugus row you hit Canal Main and Ferry Streets in short order all at nearly 90° angles and if stop lighting and transit prioritized your main angled intersection is Route 60. Again lights and transit prioritization should make that intersection which would be a stop anyways a relatively smooth experience. The next mile to Route 99 has 5 again 90 degree angle crossings all of which could be lighted and Transit prioritized. A stop at 99 is in order anyways. One more crossing at Clapp Street on the next mile to the Lynn Ave /Beach Street intersection which is a tangle but it's also the location of a stop opposite the parking lot of the cinema which has enough spaces to pull a ton of cars off of Route 1. Why pay for TSP if we aren't going to use it? It also has a cascade effect on thr Tobin, giving Chelsea some much needed relief.
 
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That just not true, F Line. The Fellsway crosses the Medford Branch about 1/2 mile west of the Orange Line. There is nothing north of thr ROW for 300ft. The Fellsway is more than wide enough for a two track median (the old Rt100 trolley went there) when you reach 93 (at the Fellsway, not the old Medford ROW, there is sufficient space for single tracks going south to Medford Sq. It is not the shortest route, but is still quicker than buses on 16 by far.

Go due west 1/2 mile to go due north 1 mile to go due west 3/4 mile to hit the highway to go due south 1 mile.

How is a routing that roundabout supposed to be good transit??? And you're going to somehow widen 93 through a tight-fitting residential neighborhood for this??? And somehow find access up onto the highway from below for station stops???

No build tries to prove you can stick rails there solely for the engineering achievement of sticking rails there. It's a transit service. And a transit service with that kind of kooky routing and those kinds of horrible vertical access issues is bad transit.

As far as Saugus, if you come off the existing row near the Super 88 and meet up with the Saugus row you hit Canal Main and Ferry Streets in short order all at nearly 90° angles and if stop lighting and transit prioritized your main angled intersection is Route 60.
No, you don't. The Western Route-Saugus Branch connection follows the derelict freight siding to Piantedosi Baking on Commercial, then crossed the River where the CHA Malden Family Medicine practice parking lot is and hit the Saugus Branch right where it starts pulling away from Canal St. That's all existing RR property, where everywhere else requires private property acquisition. And it's also the only turnout where the curvature is OK enough to not be speed-killing.

Try to turn out by Super 88 and you're. . .

  • Banging a right off the Western Route at nearly 90-degrees. And, yes, that hurts performance much more than the bad-angle grade grossings.
  • Spending a lot of $$$ rebuilding the embankment with retaining walls so it could be widened for a 4th track.
  • Doing property acquisition on every single parcel between there and the Saugus Branch.
Not to mention, you are attempting this as Green Line which means invasive changes to Orange's track layout and blowing up 3-platform Wellington Station to redo in a completely different setup

As for the crossings:

  • Main: 25 ft. from the stop line for the Charles light. Probable carpocalypse.
  • Ferry: 45 ft. from the stop line for the MA 60 light. Probable carpocalypse.
  • 60: 45-degree angle 70 ft. from the Holden St. light. Probable carpocalypse.
  • Franklin St: 1 block from 60, slight angle. Not bad.
  • Bryant St.: 1 block from 60, perpendicular. Not bad.
  • Faulkner St.: 1 block from 60, perpendicular, some sightlines issues with proximity to Bryant. Not bad...preferable if one of these crossings were blocked off.
  • Cross St.: 180 ft. from 60, one-way. Not bad, since one-way traffic faces away from 60. Line is curving here, so proximity to adjacent crossings not great for sightlines.
  • Maplewood: 170 ft. away from 60, congested. Problematic.
  • MA 99: 160 ft. away from 60, congested state highway, angled crossing. Carpocalypse.
  • Chapp St.: minor side street. Not bad.
  • Beach St.: very bad angle, <100 ft. from messy intersection pooling several roads. Carpocalypse.
These are all high-difficulty crossings, even if individual bad crossings can be mitigated any. As a whole collection, this is a worst-case. For an extremely not-at-all cheap project for all the reworking you must do along the Orange Line, that's untenable baggage to be carrying.



Again lights and transit prioritization should make that intersection which would be a stop anyways a relatively smooth experience. The next mile to Route 99 has 5 again 90 degree angle crossings all of which could be lighted and Transit prioritized. A stop at 99 is in order anyways one more Crossing at Clapp Street on the next mile 2to the Lynn Ave /Beach Street intersection which is a tangle but it's also the location of a stop opposite the parking lot of the cinema which has enough spaces to pull a ton of cars off of Route 1. Why pay for TSP if we aren't going to use it? It also has a cascade effect on thr Tobin, giving Chelsea some much needed relief.
That's magical thinking not rooted in evidence. Look at how many of those crossings are inside car queue distance of a traffic light to a state highway...but too far from the stop line to actually tie in the signal priority. At crossing after crossing after crossing. This isn't even like the B line where there's a zillion crossings but all of them have squared-up signals. You can't do that at distances 50+ ft. away.

Again, it is not that there is "a" bad crossing...it's that the whole collection of them are bunched in close proximity, contains multiples with bad-angle geometry, and contains multiples too poorly positioned from signalized intersections. So you fight 3 crummy battles at once.

That is not a recipe for functional transit. At all.


And as for giving Chelsea some much needed relief? Why this exercise in civil engineering strongman theatre instead of building the actual proposed Urban Ring Southeast quadrant as light rail: Sullivan, Assembly, Encore Boston, Everett, Chelses...and so on via a converted or co-mingled SL3 busway. We actually have studied ridership and congestion relief data for that one instead of magical thinking.
 
Who said anything about going up on 93? And there are only three cross streets on the Fellsway in 1.5 miles and another 1/2 mile to the CR lines. Yes, the half mile down Brookside Parkway(a 65ft ROW) has a street crossing at Webster and the tracks need to cross from the east side of Brookside to the west just before the off ramp. That gets you to City Hall. Six street crossings in 4 miles and you're at Assembly. 20 min to Haymarket, tops
 
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