Crazy Transit Pitches

HenryAlan said:
Or how about you prove it can't be done? If it's well established, then there are studies indicating why it doesn't work. You should have no trouble googling those up.
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or you could all put the rulers away?
 
Yes there was a study that was the genesis of a well known plan that is already underway so the burden of proof is on those that disagree with its conclusions. In 2017 the T did a study about what to do with the line, if it should be a bus, train, or trolley- and then implemented a plan to sunset the PCC's and bring aboard modern stock. It says that trolleys are actually cheaper than buses and heavy rail is expensive, has logistical considerations and is not supported by ridership or the community according to their polls. This is not news

Mattapan Line Transformation | Projects | MBTA

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Scott said:
Yes there was a study that was the genesis of a well known plan that is already underway so the burden of proof is on those that disagree with its conclusions. In 2017 the T did a study about what to do with the line, if it should be a bus, train, or trolley- and then implemented a plan to sunset the PCC's and bring aboard modern stock. It says that trolleys are actually cheaper than buses and heavy rail is expensive, has logistical considerations and is not supported by ridership or the community according to their polls. This is not news

Mattapan Line Transformation | Projects | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.
www.mbta.com www.mbta.com
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That study does not remotely state "can't be done," which is the claim you have asserted. Saying it is expensive is certainly true. Saying that the ridership from Ashmont to Mattapan doesn't justify it is also probably true. But we aren't talking about extending it only to Mattapan. The suggestion was extending it to Westwood. That could certainly be done, by extension to Mattapan, then following Fairmont ROW to NEC, and from there to Westwood. The question that I don't think has been answered, is whether the ridership increase from a Westwood extension would satisfy cost/benefit analysis. I'd guess it wouldn't, but I'm not aware of any studies on Ashmont to Westwood service.
 
Scott said:
Then prove it. Don't believe what the self proclaimed experts here say; they are playing Sim City. Their arguments rely on back of the napkin calculations and a suburbanites misunderstanding of the people
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You expect me to disregard what everyone else has to say here and only listen to you? For what reason exactly? Seems like you're trying to be a "self proclaimed expert" like you accused everyone else of being.

Scott said:
Yes there was a study that was the genesis of a well known plan that is already underway so the burden of proof is on those that disagree with its conclusions. In 2017 the T did a study about what to do with the line, if it should be a bus, train, or trolley- and then implemented a plan to sunset the PCC's and bring aboard modern stock. It says that trolleys are actually cheaper than buses and heavy rail is expensive, has logistical considerations and is not supported by ridership or the community according to their polls. This is not news

Mattapan Line Transformation | Projects | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.
www.mbta.com www.mbta.com
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No, the burden of proof is on you since you're the one making the claims. You confidently made the assertion that it's been "well established" that such an extension is infeasible without explaining why such an extension cannot happen. Sending a link to the MBTA Project page for the Mattapan Line Transformation isn't providing a source as you haven't cited anything specifically.

According to one of the Mattapan Line Transformation documents from 2019, a Red Line conversion was not even considered as one of the alternatives in the study.
 
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Yes, I am telling you to disregard anything you have heard here unless that person has commissioned a credible independent study that is contradictory to the T's.
 
From all the years of reading and educating myself about the T I thought the trolley was always suppose to be converted to Subway and that as Boston Be Boston Be, like Red/Blue, Blue Lynn, Red Arlington etc..., is why it hasn't as of yet and for the only real issue currently was property owners on and near the line were convinced that the subway would be worse via noise, frequency, traffic, blah blah blah that was never really found to be factual.
 
That's how the story goes I guess; blame the locals. But that is all we are hearing. Isn't it great that the PCC's are still alive on that funky little line on the edge of town? Isn't it awesome that it is actually a cheaper option than the bus?
 
As best as I can tell, original plans called for the transfer station to be at Fields Corner; the move to Ashmont appears to have been due to the number of grade crossings north of there. Future extension of grade-separated rapid transit to Mattapan was explicitly provisioned for during construction. That provision would allow for easy grade separation of the Central Avenue crossing. By the time the next major planning effort came around - the 1945 and 1947 Coolidge Commission reports - the focus had turned to longer suburban extensions. The 1945 plans keep the line as is; in fact, a similar feeder line is proposed for the East Watertown to Arlington Heights segment. A 1963 plan called for an extension from Ashmont south across the Neponset to an I-93 park-and-ride; this was soon dropped as redundant to the South Shore Line.

In 1968, the MBTA proposed to extend the Red Line to Mattapan. The motivation was not improved service, but to use Mattapan as a major yard to replace Eliot Shops. (Interestingly, that proposal had intermediate stations at Butler and Central Avenue, rather than Milton.) It was not well received - at first over the elimination of Cedar Grove, then over money. Milton filed multiple lawsuits, one of which went all the way to the state supreme court before being rejected in December 1969. However, by that time, the MBTA had reached an agreement with Penn Central to buy its Dover Street Yards. Kevin White fought that plan up until literally the hours before the MBTA vote (as it would decrease the Boston tax rolls), so the Mattapan site was kept as an alternate. A last-minute deal with White secured the Penn Central deal, and the Mattapan plan was dropped. There doesn't seem to have been any serious consideration of it since - I can't find discussion of it in any planning studies since. The line was rebuilt in the 1980s and the 2000s without any major changes.
 
kingofsheeba said:
Best we can do is OL and RL down to Westwood. One day.
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Rapid transit's never going to Westwood. There isn't enough side-by-side room on the ROW through Neponset Reservation. It's 4 tracks wide, with Amtrak already claiming the third track berth as necessary future capacity to 128 Station. All 4 tracks are very likely needed if both Providence and Stoughton are to get full Regional Rail service levels, so that's going to preclude any side-by-sideing of rapid transit. Orange was already blocked by Amtrak needing all 3 tracks + expansion considerations on the empty Tk. 4 berth between Forest Hills and Readville. The Fairmount Line does have 2 empty berths south of River St. in case you tunneled Red from Mattapan under River St., but that'll only get it as far south as Readville. Neponset Reservation pinches both the NEC and Franklin ROW's from any further widening, leaving only the landbanked Dedham Branch to Dedham Center for further extension (but that's arguably the best choice to be aiming for in any past-Mattapan universe, IMHO).

Westwood Landing has been such a colossal disappointment of sprawly auto-centric redev that it's kind of blown its chance of hubbing any rapid transit frequencies to begin with. It'll do fine with :30 Providence and :30 Stoughton service tag-teaming for 15-minute Purple Line frequencies to the city, and Dedham Corporate getting the same :15 service from Franklin/Foxboro sucks up the lion's share of 128 Pn'R traffic on that quadrant just fine. Westwood Landing would've had to build out to some impressive density akin to the narnia they were originally proposing there 10-15 years ago for it to make all-day use of 6-min. rapid transit frequencies. Local density way, way beyond a park-and-rider bread-and-butter. It never ended up happening that way; they blew it too big on the execution.
 
The EGE said:
In 1968, the MBTA proposed to extend the Red Line to Mattapan. The motivation was not improved service, but to use Mattapan as a major yard to replace Eliot Shops. (Interestingly, that proposal had intermediate stations at Butler and Central Avenue, rather than Milton.) It was not well received - at first over the elimination of Cedar Grove, then over money. Milton filed multiple lawsuits, one of which went all the way to the state supreme court before being rejected in December 1969. However, by that time, the MBTA had reached an agreement with Penn Central to buy its Dover Street Yards. Kevin White fought that plan up until literally the hours before the MBTA vote (as it would decrease the Boston tax rolls), so the Mattapan site was kept as an alternate. A last-minute deal with White secured the Penn Central deal, and the Mattapan plan was dropped. There doesn't seem to have been any serious consideration of it since - I can't find discussion of it in any planning studies since. The line was rebuilt in the 1980s and the 2000s without any major changes.
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In 1968 I recall hearing about opposition from Carney Hospital about the noise from HRT on an extension of the Red Line to Mattapan.
 
Speaking here as someone whose day job is in planning rapid transit extensions, extension to Mattapan would not be difficult engineering-wise. There are only four undergrade bridges (Gallivan Boulevard, Neponset Trail flyover, Neponset River at Milton, Neponset River at Mattapan) that might need reinforcement or reconstruction, and Milton and Ashmont stations would not be particularly complicated. Two new overpasses to grade-separate Central Avenue and Capan Street. Realignment near Codman to connect the Mattapan Yard directly to the mainline, probably a wye at Codman, and possibly some track replacement. Because it's already an active transit corridor, environmental would be pretty easy; you're probably looking at a few sound walls and/or vibration mitigation due to the heavier trains. With typically inflated construction prices, you're talking probably a $150 million project.

Politically, of course, it would be a massive fight. 2010 ridership was 58% at Mattapan and 29% at Central Avenue + Milton. That leaves only 13% at the four stops that would be eliminated - but that's 336 people who are substantially wealthier and better-connected than the average MBTA rider. (I can't find any by-stop ridership from the era, but based on the 1976 counts for nearby stations, I suspect it wasn't terribly different from today.) Milton would surely pull out the stops on fighting it just like 1968, particularly with the environmental documentation.

The bigger question is: why bother? The benefits are the elimination of a transfer for about 2,000 daily riders and attendant travel time decrease, elimination of two grade crossings and attendant travel time decrease, and the elimination of a small isolated fleet. The downsides are elimination of several local stops, the large capital cost, and an increase in operating cost. Pre-COVID MBTA heavy rail productivity was about 14,000 daily boardings per mile; at 2,600 for 2.6 miles, the Mattapan extension would be one-fourteenth of that. (Green Line was about 10,000 per mile.) Even with TOD on the Boston side of the Neponset, you're still not talking about a high-productivity extension.

As comparison, the 2004 PMT predicted 4,700/mile for BLX-Lynn (21k/4.5miles), 16k for RBX (6.5k/0.4), 2k for GLX (8.4/4.2, substantially lower than is now expected), 7k (14k/2) for Arborway, 900 for Needham (3.4k/3.8), and 2,200 (11.5k/5.1) for OLX-West Roxbury (with a station at Route 128 past West Roxbury). (Note: these are new riders on the given mode, which roughly indicates the ridership of the extension. New transit riders is smaller, as most of these would displace bus riders to rail.)

If you want to improve transit to Mattapan Square, BRT on Blue Hill Avenue and electrification + 15 minute headways on the Fairmount Line would be much more cost-effective improvements. The only good reason I see to extend the Red Line to Mattapan would be to extend to Readville and perhaps Dedham. Even then, I think you want to wring every possible benefit out of Fairmount + BRTizing the 32 and 34 before you consider it.
 
What I would rather see transit $$ invested in (instead of converting the Mattapan line to HRT) is to build LRT from the Jackson Sq OL station, down Columbus Av, Seaver St, and Blue Hill Av to Mattapan Square, and continuing on to Ashmont via the existing Ashmont-Mattapan line. This would provide an LRT line serving Dorchester and Roxbury, connecting to the Red, Orange, and Indigo lines.
 
Why do we put such a premium on one seat rides to downtown? Would there be value for Boston in not replacing the Mattapan HSL with heavy transit, but rather expanding it as light rail? If I'm thinking of examples, TfL Croyden tram, or Newark Light rail all connect out at suburban terminals. Take it up via Blue Hill to Nubian, and/or Cummings to Roslingdale / future Roxbury OL & Needham Green.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Rapid transit's never going to Westwood. There isn't enough side-by-side room on the ROW through Neponset Reservation. It's 4 tracks wide, with Amtrak already claiming the third track berth as necessary future capacity to 128 Station. All 4 tracks are very likely needed if both Providence and Stoughton are to get full Regional Rail service levels, so that's going to preclude any side-by-sideing of rapid transit. Orange was already blocked by Amtrak needing all 3 tracks + expansion considerations on the empty Tk. 4 berth between Forest Hills and Readville. The Fairmount Line does have 2 empty berths south of River St. in case you tunneled Red from Mattapan under River St., but that'll only get it as far south as Readville. Neponset Reservation pinches both the NEC and Franklin ROW's from any further widening, leaving only the landbanked Dedham Branch to Dedham Center for further extension (but that's arguably the best choice to be aiming for in any past-Mattapan universe, IMHO).

Westwood Landing has been such a colossal disappointment of sprawly auto-centric redev that it's kind of blown its chance of hubbing any rapid transit frequencies to begin with. It'll do fine with :30 Providence and :30 Stoughton service tag-teaming for 15-minute Purple Line frequencies to the city, and Dedham Corporate getting the same :15 service from Franklin/Foxboro sucks up the lion's share of 128 Pn'R traffic on that quadrant just fine. Westwood Landing would've had to build out to some impressive density akin to the narnia they were originally proposing there 10-15 years ago for it to make all-day use of 6-min. rapid transit frequencies. Local density way, way beyond a park-and-rider bread-and-butter. It never ended up happening that way; they blew it too big on the execution.
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The only thing that I scanned for that is apt would be the fact that WW Station has been a dud.
 
The trolley should be a single subway fare with a transfer. Back in the day it was free to and from Ashmont. Having either of those might help with ridership.
 
Scott said:
The trolley should be a single subway fare with a transfer. Back in the day it was free to and from Ashmont. Having either of those might help with ridership.
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As far as I can tell, it already is a single subway fare with a transfer?

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Charlie_mta said:
What I would rather see transit $$ invested in (instead of converting the Mattapan line to HRT) is to build LRT from the Jackson Sq OL station, down Columbus Av, Seaver St, and Blue Hill Av to Mattapan Square, and continuing on to Ashmont via the existing Ashmont-Mattapan line. This would provide an LRT line serving Dorchester and Roxbury, connecting to the Red, Orange, and Indigo lines.
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This is an interesting idea.

In my opinion ideally this is done with green rolling stock (and the corresponding bridge upgrades on the existing Mattapan line), with a connection to the green line as well. From a ridership perspective Centre Street to Huntington Ave to Heath St would be ideal, but it seems like they may not be wide enough.
 
Charlie_mta said:
What I would rather see transit $$ invested in (instead of converting the Mattapan line to HRT) is to build LRT from the Jackson Sq OL station, down Columbus Av, Seaver St, and Blue Hill Av to Mattapan Square, and continuing on to Ashmont via the existing Ashmont-Mattapan line. This would provide an LRT line serving Dorchester and Roxbury, connecting to the Red, Orange, and Indigo lines.
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We're in Crazy Transit Pitches, so why would this be a better choice than LRTing the whole 28+Mattapan?

1. There just isn't that much ridership on the existing 29 bus serving this alignment.
2. Would connect Red, Green (via F, although the actual useful additional Green trips would be limited), Indigo, and Orange.
3. Connect to major commercial and transfer point at Nubian.
4. Connect Mattapan Line to Central Subway and Riverside via non-revenue trackage to F-Line
5. Allow Mattapan to become a Lake St/Old Lechmere style storage-only yard, shifting maintenance tasks to Brickbottom.
6. Free up 60' buses to tackle other routes. Maybe some consolidation with 23 too.

The biggest downside I see is that ride times from Mattapan to Orange would probably be about 5-10 minutes longer, but I think the known massive ridership and operational issues that would get cleaned up
 
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Probably makes sense to continue up to Ruggles and maybe over to Huntington.
28 north of Seaver would be a nightmare. Much of 28s ridership stays on until Ruggles. They would ride the LRT to Ruggles in this scenario
 
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