Crazy Transit Pitches

What is the feasibility of extending the E line through Heath St (with a connection to the orange line at Jackson Square) then down the new center running bus lanes on Columbus ave? I am thinking his could end in Egleston as a first stage or more ideally or in a latter stage connect through Seaver St. to Blue Hill ave or continue in a cross town direction along Columbia Rd. In either version this would enable cross town trips in the center and south of the city, especially for people in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan getting to work/medical care in the LMA and it would massively expand transit access and reliability in parts of the city who currently lack consistent rapid transit.

If the line extended all the way it would be a long single seat ride downtown but could be sped up by switching to orange at Jackson or the Fairmont line at either Blue Hill Ave with that route or at Four Corners on the other. Other possible routes or possible connections could be made down Talbot Ave to Ashmont (this could be a truly transformative option if you extended it into the Mattapan High Speed line, potentially creating a loop with the route down Blue Hill, connecting the red and orange lines in the south of the city, as well as connect to the Fairmont line at Talbot ave) or down Morton St to Lower mills (which would also connect to the line but wouldn't have the same potential to create a single seat ride). Also in my Ideal mental map I see the silverline becoming the light rail line it always should have been and extending to connect with this proposal at Egleston (down Washington and for old times sake lets just say with with a contemporary style light rail L) and/or down Warren st from Blue hill ave (this looks like a possible choke point though it widens further down.)

I know there used to be trolly lines on most of this route (I deliberately picked streets that once had them and retain the width to make it possible) so I am thinking as "crazy" as it sounds politically it should be possible physically, is there a constraint I may be missing? Maps attached:View attachment 16105View attachment 16106View attachment 16107View attachment 16108

I look at these maps and just see "dispatching nightmare" written all over them. Maybe it's just me, but I even think that the idea of extending the E to Jackson Square might be more trouble than it's worth given how narrow Heath Street gets. The last thing the Green Line needs is even more unpredictability in schedule-keeping. Unless we're talking about taking every bit of surface parking on some of these roads, dedicated or semi-dedicated lanes with rigorous enforcement (ha...right...that'll be the day) and full trolley prioritization this amount of street running would blow the schedule to pieces, which would be bad if all it did was make this new service unreliable, but if it touches the Central Subway it then blows its schedule-keeping to hell too. It's already a problem (albeit one the T has been somewhat lax at trying to deal with), I don't like the prospect of making it worse, even as a Crazy Transit Pitch.
 
Once the Congress Street Tunnel reaches the Greenway it's more choose-your-own-adventure (within reason, preferably not in such a way that precludes the NSRL's Central Artery alignment). I'm not a fan of this route proposal for two reasons. One, Hudson Street was provisionally identified in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread as the best candidate for connecting the Green Line to the Silver Line Transitway (aka the replacement for the never-built Silver Line Phase III) via the disused Tremont Street tunnels and Marginal Rd, and I don't love the prospect of this alignment possibly precluding that option when this tunnel has a much freer range of options. Second, I think LRT out of the Tremont Street tunnels is a better, more feasible service pattern for Nubian via Washington than a giant new tunneling project. I get that this is Crazy Transit Pitches, but the transit pitch for Nubian, before any others, is replacement of the Elevated with something that works better than the born-broken Silver Line. Green Line via Tremont would get easy transfers to the westbound GL branches (and potentially the Seaport if you built that leg), downstairs transfers to Red at Park, downstairs transfers to Blue at Government, and easy transfers to Orange at North and Haymarket. The Congress Street alignment's transfers would be net worse (Blue at State and possibly Red at south might be about similar) while the Green and Orange would be less convenient at North/Haymarket because there's almost certainly not room for stations on the same level. A lot of that's personal opinion and preference, but, again, Congress Street's got tons of options of where you go on either end.
At what point are we hurting ourselves by having the green line bear every extension we ever make because its easy? So green line south/west goes to Nubian, Hyde, Needham, Riverside, Cleveland Circle (with provisions to cut it off), and Boston College with a theoretical, if not considered, reinstatement of the Watertown branch or a considered Harvard. North/East goes to Watertown (via porter), Waltham, Medford, Malden via Northern strand, and Everett via Broadway. THEN we layer in the Urban ring loops with the Silverline transit way added? What an operational nightmare we're creating. They are literally trying to reduce the use of the Park loop to push for the type 10s but stacking everything on it defeats the purpose. Why have type 10s if you cannot even use them?

Let's go back to Van's proposal (latest version available) to use Stuart street to create an alt-spine out of the Tremont/ tunnel, eliminate Heath/Hyde Extension (Bus rapid transit between Kenmore and Jackson Square via Brookline Village?), separate them into two colors, and move on from the idea of replicating a system that was essentially running every bus in the metro area into the same tunnel. We don't need to do that. I'm with kcasiglio on this: the congress street alignment should be Charlestown/Chelsea to the north, and Nubian/28 -> Mattapan down below. Coverage for the two major areas that have been shafted in terms of transit service. One branch of service on a 30 branch green line (hyperbole) is not a replacement for the Orange line service they lost.
The massive cemeteries in the northern portion do make me doubt the potential quality of service to the Everett side of the highway, but it would be huge for Revere and Chelsea.
I always envision this line diverging from Rt 1 and going up Broadway into Revere along the route of the 116/117 (bus route -> increased service -> mode change as necessary), eventually going up all the way route 60 and the Northgate Shopping center becomes terminus as you have done. I envision a linked terminus with an Everett-Broadway line up rt 99 going to Northgate along the northern strand at rt 60.
 
At what point are we hurting ourselves by having the green line bear every extension we ever make because its easy? So green line south/west goes to Nubian, Hyde, Needham, Riverside, Cleveland Circle (with provisions to cut it off), and Boston College with a theoretical, if not considered, reinstatement of the Watertown branch or a considered Harvard. North/East goes to Watertown (via porter), Waltham, Medford, Malden via Northern strand, and Everett via Broadway. THEN we layer in the Urban ring loops with the Silverline transit way added? What an operational nightmare we're creating. They are literally trying to reduce the use of the Park loop to push for the type 10s but stacking everything on it defeats the purpose. Why have type 10s if you cannot even use them?

At what point are we hurting ourselves by proposing whole-cloth megaprojects to provide service that could be provided sooner, cheaper, and much more easily by glomming off of existing infrastructure?

I'm curious as to the sourcing on the idea that they're trying to reduce the use of the Park loop, because I haven't seen that. I know plans can change, but the same 2018 MBTA documents that laid out the basic proposals for the Type 10s to the FMCB specifically stated that the Park Street loop was required for operational flexibility, so at least at that point in time the agency itself was aware of the need for the new cars to be able to use the loop, so I'm very curious if that part of the plans has indeed changed, and if there's any documentation of that.

There is obviously a saturation limit to the Central Subway and to the various bits of the Green Line outside the main tunnels, which does put a ceiling on the number of cars that can run through it. We don't even know what those numbers will look like going forward in a world of Type 10s and a proper, modernized signaling system that doesn't yet exist, so it's not exactly as though we're talking about taking the current operation and just throwing more cars from more branches at it. It's also the case that the line was designed, when it was handling numerous more branches, such that not every car/service ran to every station. So while the system does have a limit, between operational and infrastructural changes it's not likely to be anything like what it looks like today, so I think the hyperbole is a little premature.

With regards to Nubian/Washington St. in particular, I should make it clear that I don't have an objection to the idea of linking it to Congress Street/Chelsea as much as I consider it a far less preferable option to the Green Line option. Nubian has been starved of proper transit service since the Elevated was taken down with the lie that was "equal or better" replacement. That that replacement turned out to be a Silver Line bus that got shotgun-married to the Seaport/Logan service resulting in the never-built Phase III leaving it a broken mess (see the details of that debacle for why tunneling down Essex Street is a scary prospect) only increases the need for an actually-adequate replacement that serves the main goal of hitting the transfer stations in the core. A Green Line F-branch via Washington serves that goal; it would probably be slower and maybe a little less reliable than a new subway to Congress street, but, critically, all it requires is rehabbing the disused Tremont Street tunnels, a bit of tunneling from Elliot Norton Park to the other side of the Pike, an incline up out of the pit, and then surface tracks along the Silver Line's route on Washington. Not free, but nowhere in the same ballpark as a brand-new subway under Washington, and under Congress, then to the choose-your-own adventure to the north. In the real world outside of Crazy Transit Pitches, shotgun-marrying the supposed-to-exist-already proper replacement for the Elevated to the pie-in-the-sky Congress Street megaproject means it doesn't get built, just like shotgun marrying Elevated replacement to Seaport transit in the form of the Silver Line begat the Phase III debacle that makes the Nubian end of the Silver nothing more than a silver-painted bus. The Green Line option is the easiest one for actually getting the transit there; yes it's imperfect and relying on the GL for so many extensions eventually becomes untenable, but I don't see any reason to prefer a conceptually better project with a slim-to-none chance of being built anytime soon (for a route that was promised a proper Elevated replacement decades ago) versus one that's maybe less perfect on paper but a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to do. One of the two is way more likely, in my opinion, to go from Crazy Transit Pitch to actual functioning transit.
 
I know this is politically DOA but engineering wise how crazy would it be to build the north south rail link as an el. I’m thinking you would have two tracks going over either Atlantic avenue or purchase street with stops at north and south station. Ideally you’d do four tracks with a stop at aquarium but I think that would ruin the greenway. Pictured below is how I think it could work with the yellow line as an alternate way to get to north station
Elevated nsrl.png
 
The "Roadies" gutted a city when they built the Central Artery, and Government Center. Could 4 railroad tracks over the Rose Kennedy be any worse? And It would be CHEAP!
 
As far as aesthetics are concerned, The Ink Block developments overlook an expressway and a railroad and a turnpike. But they still got built. So let's not worry about the Greenway too much.
 
I was thinking that you’d still have the underground alignment so that in the distant future when you did build a proper underground nsrl you could repurpose the elevated as a park like the high-line or use it as bypass for trains that wanted to run through Boston without making multiple stops in the city.
 
I know this is politically DOA but engineering wise how crazy would it be to build the north south rail link as an el. I’m thinking you would have two tracks going over either Atlantic avenue or purchase street with stops at north and south station. Ideally you’d do four tracks with a stop at aquarium but I think that would ruin the greenway. Pictured below is how I think it could work with the yellow line as an alternate way to get to north station

South Station Tower makes that alignment impossible now.
 
I know this is politically DOA but engineering wise how crazy would it be to build the north south rail link as an el. I’m thinking you would have two tracks going over either Atlantic avenue or purchase street with stops at north and south station. Ideally you’d do four tracks with a stop at aquarium but I think that would ruin the greenway. Pictured below is how I think it could work with the yellow line as an alternate way to get to north stationView attachment 16166
I've often thought about an elevated NSRL, and the physical problem is at the north and south ends. The north end would require a structure two levels up to get over the Leverett Circle approach ramps that cross over the North Station tracks. The south end would be impossible because there isn't enough distance from the south end of Atlantic Ave to ramp down to the existing rail lines from the west and the south. Also the approach ramps to the South Station garage would be in the way.
 
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This whole idea of the Rose Kennedy Greenway... It's the meat of a logjam sandwich. The greenway is a parking lot most of the time.
 
I know this is politically DOA but engineering wise how crazy would it be to build the north south rail link as an el. I’m thinking you would have two tracks going over either Atlantic avenue or purchase street with stops at north and south station. Ideally you’d do four tracks with a stop at aquarium but I think that would ruin the greenway. Pictured below is how I think it could work with the yellow line as an alternate way to get to north station

I've often thought about an elevated NSRL, and the physical problem is at the north and south ends. The north end would require a structure two levels up to get over the Leverett Circle approach ramps that cross over the North Station tracks. The south end would be impossible because there isn't enough distance from the south end of Atlantic Ave to ramp down to the existing rail lines from the west and the south. Also the approach ramps to the South Station garage would be in the way.

Almost certainly physically impossible. As various members have pointed out, there are severe obstacles at the north and south ends of the Greenway. Accurate heights are very difficult to find, but on the north end over the Leverett ramps we're talking a necessary height of 45-50 feet at the bottom of the rail deck at minimum (possibly much higher) and not much lower than that on the south side over the access ramps to the South Station garage. At the usual-circumstances maximum grade of 1.5% there would very likely be a height conflict with the Tobin Bridge ramps rendering construction impossible. Even at CR-max 3% grades you'd be starting on the north side of the drawbridges in constrained circumstances (and would have to account for both replacement of the conflicting bridges and probably have a drawbridge on the incline to keep the waterway clear if that's even doable). On the south side the problem's even worse; even at CR-max 3% grade you're very likely going to overshoot the South Station interlockings to clear the garage ramps, and there's not sufficient room to clear the spaghetti ramps on the Back Bay side meaning heading south towards Southampton Street is probably the only option that's even physically possible to construct. And that's contingent on maximum 3% grading, which only exists a handful of places on the system (Wellington Tunnel was 3.5% because it was meant for Orange Line conversion, and they recently re-opened the surface track for Haverhill Line trains, and then the 3% on the Mystic and Neponset River bridges that were replacements for drawbridges.) If you can't get approval for 3%, and that's a distinct possibility, then the project's born-unbuildable.

Not if you take out the Postal Annex.

Leaving aside the potential problems that might come from cannibalizing expansion space at South Station post-Postal Service annex as well as the fact that feeding traffic from that side out to Back Bay would just increase the current problem with the interlockings and track crossings, the bigger issue is that the Postal Annex has been a major issue for South Station for years, and nothing's come of it. Baking in its relocation as a project requirement is risky at best and fatal at worst, because they're almost certainly impossible to remove by force, meaning that if they don't want to go the project is dead. And it still wouldn't solve the problems on the north end of the alignment.
 
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As far as aesthetics are concerned, The Ink Block developments overlook an expressway and a railroad and a turnpike. But they still got built. So let's not worry about the Greenway too much.

There is a world of difference between the redevelopment of an industrial area adjacent to a railroad and a turnpike and the idea of building an elevated structure over a park that itself replaced a notoriously despised elevated highway. Not to mention that it's baked into Ink Block that the railroad and the turnpike are there, whereas it took years and billions to finally rid the city of the Artery only to suggest a bait-and-switch rail replacement, that'd be political suicide for anyone in government.
 
There is a world of difference between the redevelopment of an industrial area adjacent to a railroad and a turnpike and the idea of building an elevated structure over a park that itself replaced a notoriously despised elevated highway. Not to mention that it's baked into Ink Block that the railroad and the turnpike are there, whereas it took years and billions to finally rid the city of the Artery only to suggest a bait-and-switch rail replacement, that'd be political suicide for anyone in government.
I respectfully disagree. The Inkblock are residences and the Rose Kennedy is lined with office buildings and Hotels . It isn't Commonweath Ave. It's more like Boylston Street. Hopefully the view for the Ink block will improve when the tracks and highway are covered over. Also, remember this is crazy transit pitches so, anything goes. Ride trains!
 
I respectfully disagree. The Inkblock are residences and the Rose Kennedy is lined with office buildings and Hotels . It isn't Commonweath Ave. It's more like Boylston Street. Hopefully the view for the Ink block will improve when the tracks and highway are covered over. Also, remember this is crazy transit pitches so, anything goes. Ride trains!

Technically speaking I think "anything goes" in the God Mode thread, but that's not important right now. You have a point insofar as we're talking about views, at least to a degree (that degree being that people who don't frequent forums like this don't tend to think of trading a view of a park for a view of an elevated railway as an improvement, no, I don't understand it either 🙃 ). My point was not specifically about the visual impact, so much as the broader political/cultural impact. The Central Artery wasn't hated just because it was ugly, it was hated because it tore the city in half and and functioned as a psychological and physical barrier between the city and its waterfront. The idea of putting anything elevated along the Greenway would provoke backlash disproportionate to its effect on the views because of that history (not to mention the fact that it would detract from the park, and ruining green space also tends to make people touchy). Part of what makes that different from Ink Block is that the existing roads and railroads around Ink Block are part of the bargain to anyone who wants to live there; if they're eventually decked over that's great and an improvement, as opposed to the idea of taking a current open space in the Greenway and (partially) decking it with an elevated railway. Respectfully, in my opinion we go beyond Crazy Transit Pitches into God Mode territory if we simply ignore the political/community horror that would accompany any suggestion of putting anything elevated along the Central Artery route.
 
Technically speaking I think "anything goes" in the God Mode thread, but that's not important right now. You have a point insofar as we're talking about views, at least to a degree (that degree being that people who don't frequent forums like this don't tend to think of trading a view of a park for a view of an elevated railway as an improvement, no, I don't understand it either 🙃 ). My point was not specifically about the visual impact, so much as the broader political/cultural impact. The Central Artery wasn't hated just because it was ugly, it was hated because it tore the city in half and and functioned as a psychological and physical barrier between the city and its waterfront. The idea of putting anything elevated along the Greenway would provoke backlash disproportionate to its effect on the views because of that history (not to mention the fact that it would detract from the park, and ruining green space also tends to make people touchy). Part of what makes that different from Ink Block is that the existing roads and railroads around Ink Block are part of the bargain to anyone who wants to live there; if they're eventually decked over that's great and an improvement, as opposed to the idea of taking a current open space in the Greenway and (partially) decking it with an elevated railway. Respectfully, in my opinion we go beyond Crazy Transit Pitches into God Mode territory if we simply ignore the political/community horror that would accompany any suggestion of putting anything elevated along the Central Artery route.
The greenway is still bordered by cars; many cars all day long. I think the Greenway is a bit of a myth. As far as pedestrian traffic is concerned, I believe the Greenway is almost as big a divider as the Central Artery was . It LOOKs a lot better but I don't think it connected neighborhoods as much as hoped. And the aesthetic of a new right of way could be much improved over the artery. And they would be electric trains. There may be many people who might enjoy it; especially if other things like a walkway and bikeway are included. It doesn't have to be ugly. And it would be a WHOLE lot cheaper than an underground link. Seems to me the North South Rail Link is VERY important to a lot of people interested in infrastructure. I don't think anything should be ruled out. On another note. That crazy pitch aside,I believe the greenway would be ripe for a surface trolley that could connect to a new boulevard over the turnpike to Back Bay, which would eliminate some of the "eysore" for those Inkblock residents! Ride trains.
 
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That crazy pitch aside,I believe the greenway would be ripe for a surface trolley that could connect to a new boulevard over the turnpike to Back Bay, and points west. Ride trains.

Ooh, I like the idea of a quasi-transit, quasi-heritage line (Philadelphia-style modern-innards PCCs anyone) running along the Greenway and a decked-and-developed Pike trench. Wouldn't have the network effects of a proper NSRL, but as a not-insanely-expensive bauble-slash-tourist trap I'd go for it.
 
Ooh, I like the idea of a quasi-transit, quasi-heritage line (Philadelphia-style modern-innards PCCs anyone) running along the Greenway and a decked-and-developed Pike trench. Wouldn't have the network effects of a proper NSRL, but as a not-insanely-expensive bauble-slash-tourist trap I'd go for it.
I think THAT is a no brainer and it would have to be a true trolley type mode. It would FEEL like you're walking but much faster! When you can bring a city closer, conveniently, it's a winner for locals , visitors, and commuters. Think South Station travelers getting to a Celtics/Bruins game. North Station travelers getting to a Red Sox game or something at the convention center in the Seaport. And the beginnings of the the urban loop!
 
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Ooh, I like the idea of a quasi-transit, quasi-heritage line (Philadelphia-style modern-innards PCCs anyone) running along the Greenway and a decked-and-developed Pike trench. Wouldn't have the network effects of a proper NSRL, but as a not-insanely-expensive bauble-slash-tourist trap I'd go for it.
Tie it right into the new bus hub
 

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