Exactly!CR will never, ever happen on the GJ. The Cambridge government and NIMBYs are absolutely against it, and when Cambridge is against something, it ain't happening. On the other hand, light rail is politically doable.
And not sure what Harvard has to do with GJ GL. Thats more of a MIT thing
CR will never, ever happen on the GJ. The Cambridge government and NIMBYs are absolutely against it, and when Cambridge is against something, it ain't happening. On the other hand, light rail is politically doable.
Because the Allston project is what's driving this. And what's driving the Allston project is Harvard's desire to make a ton of money on real estate.
[CITATION!]IMO Cambridge wants the tracks gone completely. I don't think they will get that. I could see them putting up a stink but the end result would be status quo.
The opposition gets overstated to an absurd degree. Cambridge reacted negatively to the Worcester-North Station proposal because ex-Lt. Gov. Tim Murray had a particularly bad foot-in-mouth moment where he announced the plan as advancing ahead of the release of the scoping study, when in fact it was not. The City and MIT were angry that the Administration bypassed any local input, and got defensive in a hurry. At no point were any of the sticking points substantive...because they hadn't even seen the (middling) study results yet. It was all a reaction to the political faux pax of some big ego bypassing the established chain of command. Any municipality would react similarly to such a cold shoulder. It doesn't mean a pitchfork-wielding mob was ready to block the tracks at the first mention.CR will never, ever happen on the GJ. The Cambridge government and NIMBYs are absolutely against it, and when Cambridge is against something, it ain't happening. On the other hand, light rail is politically doable.
Okay, so maybe somehow Cambridge can be convinced to okay CR going through MIT, but I don't think so. I grew up in Cambridge and have seen multiple instances of any kind of substantive transportation project being blocked (the one exception being the Red line to Alewife, which made it because of favorite son Tip O'Neill fully backing it, but even that was scaled back to have a one way road to the Concord Turnpike at Alewife instead of the intended two-way road).The opposition gets overstated to an absurd degree. Cambridge reacted negatively to the Worcester-North Station proposal because ex-Lt. Gov. Tim Murray had a particularly bad foot-in-mouth moment where he announced the plan as advancing ahead of the release of the scoping study, when in fact it was not. The City and MIT were angry that the Administration bypassed any local input, and got defensive in a hurry. At no point were any of the sticking points substantive...because they hadn't even seen the (middling) study results yet. It was all a reaction to the political faux pax of some big ego bypassing the established chain of command. Any municipality would react similarly to such a cold shoulder. It doesn't mean a pitchfork-wielding mob was ready to block the tracks at the first mention.
In the actual study the City had open-ended concerns about the considerable traffic impacts at the crossings. MIT had some concerns about vibrations around their labs. Neither rose to the level of "absolutely against". Indeed, we haven't even well quantified how strong the opposition actually is because the study got no further development (and indeed no follow-up at all when Gov. Patrick made his hot-air Olympics-baiting dinky plan for the GJ). There's probably some...but we haven't even discussed what the potential scope is.
"Absolutely against" gets brought up time and again on these threads as a self-evident shutdown without a shred of evidence substantiating it. Please stop doing that, and cite any instances of opposition specifically instead of in blanket form.
Okay, so maybe somehow Cambridge can be convinced to okay CR going through MIT, but I don't think so. I grew up in Cambridge and have seen multiple instances of any kind of substantive transportation project being blocked (the one exception being the Red line to Alewife, which made it because of favorite son Tip O'Neill fully backing it, but even that was scaled back to have a one way road to the Concord Turnpike at Alewife instead of the intended two-way road).
The first project blocked by Cambridge was the 1963 proposed at-grade Mass Pike along the Boston side of the Charles, which would have filled in a sliver of the Charles River to shift SFR over a bit. That was blocked by Cambridge, even though Boston was okay with it, and so the viaduct was built instead. The next one was, of course, the Inner Belt in the late 60s. The entire project along with the connecting NW Expressway to Alewife was shot down. Even a double-decked version of the Inner Belt directly above the GJ proposed by the City of Cambridge, was blocked when MIT voiced concerns about vibrations, the same concerns they voiced about CR on the GJ. A more recent project blocked was in the 90s when MassDOT wanted to widen and improve the Alewife intersection of Routes 2 and 16, plus Alewife Brook Parkway itself a bit in the Rindge Ave area. In the annals of NIMBYism and stopping projects, Cambridge is legendary, and I've seen few urban areas in the US more intransigent and successful in their opposition to transportation projects than Cambridge.
That could very well happen. I personally would be very supportive of CR on the Grand Junction. A light rail project on the Grand Junction is probably decades in the future, but CR on the Grand Junction would immediately provide direct transit service from the west metro area (and the forthcoming West Station) to the MIT and Kendall Sq area.Charlie, I always appreciate the rich historic perspectives you share, particularly about Cambridge. I just want to point out one potential (somewhat) recent attitude shift, which is MIT's public recognition that Kendall/campus lacks the requisite commuter infrastructure to sustain the campus going forward. They've since been strongly incentivizing employees to take the T (full T pass reimbursement, deeply discounted CR, various measures to dissuade driving/parking). They are also a sponsor of the GJ walking/biking path. In full fairness, I have not heard (to my recollection) them offer any sort of official endorsement of GJ LRT/etc, but endorsing such would seem highly congruent with other recent activity/stances. Cambridge as a whole may still offer resistance, but I wouldn't be surprised to see MIT emerge as a supporter.
Just saying, putting electrified CR underneath the GJ would probably go down easier with the NIMBYs (and possibly reduce the vibration issue?). It's not as if Cambridge/MIT lacks money or engineering talent.
The Red Line is an issue, but it's cut and cover so it's not extremely deep. Maybe 50 feet? With 0.85 miles of room to the north and 1.2 miles to the south those don't seem like crazy grades.
Put an underground island platform between Mass Ave and Main St. Sacrifice the Albany St parking garage and the MIT visitor lot to make room for the dig sites/headhouses.
Tunneling under a natural gas plant will be lots of "fun" but it's not impossible (to play God Mode for a second, wield the local enviro-NIMBYs to your advantage and pressure MIT to relocate their air-polluting, fracking-funding fire hazard to a less populated area -- it's not as if the power plant needs to straddle the GJ anymore since it's not taking any coal deliveries anytime soon--the whole block could be redeveloped for lab/classroom/dorm space).
Tricky and pricey? Yes. But it will quell most of the concerns. But the throughput needs to be worth the price tag, which is why having both Worcester AND Providence/Northeast Corridor trains using it via NSRL makes more sense to me.
Until LRT conversion happens, would it be worth it to redirect one or two peak trains over the Grand Junction and place a temporary station along the single track amongst the MIT buildings between Mass and Main? Maybe. Maaaaaaaaaybe. But it shouldn't be seen as a long-term proposal. And frankly I think there's better places for us to spend our political advocacy.
Regarding future Boston-Chicago HSR: of course it's speculative, but the idea that it isn't feasible because airplanes are faster just ignores a ton of precedent around the world. Shanghai to Beijing is technically faster by air, but that corridor is one of the busiest HSR corridors in the world because of the intermediate stops and the relative comfort, convenience, frequency, and delay-resistance of HSR compared to air travel.
It's not just a Boston-Chicago HSR line. It's a Boston - Worcester - Springfield - Albany - Syracuse - Buffalo - Erie - Cleveland - Toledo - South Bend - Chicago HSR line! That's not something you can replicate with an airplane.
And that corridor operates at an average speed that's a good 20 mph higher than the maximum speed the new Acelas are supposed to see in service. While the Acela is admittedly a slowpoke by global HSR standards, we're talking upgrading a mostly-freight-owned non-HSR corridor to world-best speeds and conditions just to make the route competitive with air travel, which has a massive incumbency advantage that doesn't require untold billions just to reach parity (and likely with a lot less density along the corridor). I'll buy the idea of HSR on BOS/NY-CHI being even theoretically something seriously advocated when I see the airlines operating A350s and B777s on schedules like current ones as indicators of a need for a new massive capacity option; until then, I don't think anyone sane would touch the idea with a 10-foot-pole given how woeful the cost-benefit analysis would probably turn out.
So...stops? Lots of stops? All of which increase the travel time. Is it better for those intermediate cities, sure? But those aren't the load-bearing demand points, and if serving them all with HSR (as opposed to regional corridors) tanks the travel time (and the only way it doesn't is with some combination of reduced stops and higher speeds), then people will default to the faster/more convenient option.
While I certainly agree that a true electrified HSR corridor between Boston and Chicago is a non-starter, I believe there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to travel time on the Lake Shore Limited. The trip takes like 22 hours and yet there are still people who choose to ride it, if the travel times were improved it would almost definitely attract more ridership. It doesn't necessarily need to be faster than or competitive with air travel for it to be a useful transportation asset.
If MIT's primary concerns are about vibration and traffic back-ups from trains running at surface level, then it's not unthinkable (although perhaps it is "crazy," as that's what this thread is after all) that they would consider an option that avoids trains running at the surface level.