Crazy Transit Pitches

Walpole-Medfield-Millis ends up taking a bit longer via the Framingham Secondary + Millis Industrial Track than it takes with a bus on Routes 27 & 109. The rail route bulbs out with a pronounced "Z" shape that's over a mile longer than the roads while serving a little bit less density, and there historically was never a southwest-facing wye leg at Medfield Jct. so some property acquisition would be required to make the track connection. It's also hard to see how it could be tied into a relocated Franklin-or-Foxboro-serving Walpole Station because the northbound Walpole Jct. wye is the freight clearance route and would have to be on passing tracks past the platforms before tying into the main. But Walpole will be getting :15 service under Regional Rail, so there are luxurious connections to be made for a connecting bus. I don't think you end up fileting service a third way for an un-dense trip slower than the roads. I think you make the connections sizzle by running a suitably frequent bus to what projects to be one of the southside's highest-ridership :15 stations. The MPO has previously studied peak-oriented bus shuttle service from Millis to Norfolk, but they should take a second crack at it meeting all-day Regional Rail frequencies at a diverging stop like Walpole. That wouldn't require any crazy pitches to get a far more useful-frequency service on the board. It could happen right from Day 1 of Regional Rail, and I bet would get very good utilization.


As for the dinky to Dover...pure God Mode. That town is so other-level NIMBY they don't even want the rail trail (after playing nice with the trail lobby at first for the sole purpose of getting the rails ripped out), and to throw rapid transit capital at only that part of that corridor would be tantamount to malpractice when there are so many more density-serving areas that could or should get their own boutique trolley first. At least pick a town that builds sidewalks so the station is plausibly walkable if we're going to be foisting crayoned lines on the unwilling masses. There are no sidewalks on any of the roads feeding the Downtown Dover station area; they literally all end at the end of the Town Hall block. Walking (or biking!) simply is "not done" in the land of good-fences-make-better-neighbors. I honestly can't understand that one's inclusion on these aB acid-dream spider maps. Just because there's a mostly grade-separated ROW extant there doesn't mean it would be anyone's smart money. Run them a bus to GLX-Needham Junction and see if they ride it. I bet they don't because buses are for "others", but since they already bogart too many parking spaces at Needham Junction with their personal vehicles it's at least a due diligence fig leaf to better transit.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
There are no sidewalks on any of the roads feeding the Downtown Dover station area; they literally all end at the end of the Town Hall block. Walking (or biking!) simply is "not done" in the land of good-fences-make-better-neighbors.
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I don't think I've ever seen someone walking in Dover, and I've driven through Dover hundreds of times. There are actually a lot of cyclists who ride on the roads in Dover, which is a big surprise considering the lack of sidewalks/bike lanes and the vociferous opposition to the rail trail.

Dover is probably the most NIMBY town in all of Massachusetts.
 
BosMaineiac said:
It’s my understanding that Main, Broadway, and Binney streets will have to be at-grade regardless of mode. It looks like there’s enough room to bridge/pass under Mass Ave for either mode as well. I think the main argument is that light rail will be able to interface with traffic better than main line rail can. Could better timed traffic signals be able to facilitate traffic flow with the addition of grade crossings? I feel like that problem would need to be sorted out with either light rail or main line rail.
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You are correct about MainSt, but an LRT system could be grade separated at Broadway and Binney
 
I'm not in the place to plan this, so I guess I'll give a prompt.

If Boston built a new Elevated Railway (an "El"), where would it/should it go?
 
themissinglink said:
There are actually a lot of cyclists who ride on the roads in Dover, which is a big surprise considering the lack of sidewalks/bike lanes and the vociferous opposition to the rail trail.
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Dover is actually a fun place to ride. Getting there, though, is somewhat problematic, which is why I only ride in Dover as part of a large group ride, where numbers = visibility.
 
thepixelnation said:
I'm not in the place to plan this, so I guess I'll give a prompt.

If Boston built a new Elevated Railway (an "El"), where would it/should it go?
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For conventional elevated rail, there really aren't that many corridors that are wide enough. The wide viaducts block out nearly all light from the streets below, which is made much worse if it's surrounded by tall buildings. Here's my list of streets from a previous discussion:
TheRatmeister said:
Melnea Cass: Would be great for connecting Andrew/Widdett Circle and Nubian.

Revere Beach Pkwy: The section from Broadway to Bell Circle could be useful, but it bypasses the densest parts of Revere. The rest could maybe be an orbital connection between Everett and Revere but again it bypasses the important parts of both and there also just isn't tons of demand for such a connection.

Fellsway/McGrath: Connects nicely to the Grand Junction but doesn't go anywhere particularly useful otherwise.

Rutherford + Broadway: Could be a good corridor between Medford or Everett and Downtown, but a tunneled continuation would be needed on both sides to make it useful, and if we're building a new subway line downtown I think sending it to Chelsea is a better choice, although Rutherford is well positioned to get to Everett.

BHA: What BHA doesn't really need is a fast line to downtown, that already exists and it's called the Fairmount Line. What BHA needs is a faster local service, capable of branching often and running many different services. (Aka, buses and/or trams)
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I'd probably also add the Grand Junction, and upgrade my evaluation on Broadway/Alford to be more positive.

If we're willing to consider a suspended railway, and I'm aware I'm really pushing the limits of a crazy transit pitch here, that would potentially open up more corridors. Suspension railways have significantly less negative impact on the street below in terms of blocking light, and could in theory be used on any corridor wider than around 65ft, which is most main streets. I believe the SAFEGE and SIPEM systems have also mostly solved switching, so you don't need the slow sliding switches of a conventional monorail or the Schwebebahn. Stations still need to be much wider and therefore more thoughtfully placed, but it's a lot easier to find that kind of space every half-mile or so than a continuous corridor.

Of course, the big problem is that essentially zero existing infrastructure could be reused given that Boston currently has zero suspended monorails. (and I don't think any have been built since the last time I checked.) The swaying also presents a minor challenge for accessibility but that should be solvable.
 
thepixelnation said:
I'm not in the place to plan this, so I guess I'll give a prompt.

If Boston built a new Elevated Railway (an "El"), where would it/should it go?
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I've always thought Columbia Road might be a decent candidate. It's wide, there is a high population density, and it connects well to UMass and the Red Line on one end. Going the other direction, I'm not sure what you do with it when it reaches Blue Hill Ave., but it would be nice to find a way to connect it to the Orange Line (without going through the park).
 
TheRatmeister said:
It seems like there could actually be more than that. There's a few spots that look interesting from above, and I saw one comment somewhere, I unfortunately can't find it now, saying that they were able to find something on the east side of 93.

Even if the ROW is intact as far as I think it might be, you're right that it's still around .4 miles of new ROW that would need to be taken from the tree boundary.
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I am sure I am not alone in that there is a special form of satisfaction looking on satellite views for hidden, ancient RR ROWs—unmatched except by the pleasure of being in some old town and suddenly noticing that that elevated ridge looks a little too graded, or seeing a random abutment to a long-gone overpass, in a place you never expected.
 
FK4 said:
I am sure I am not alone in that there is a special form of satisfaction looking on satellite views for hidden, ancient RR ROWs—unmatched except by the pleasure of being in some old town and suddenly noticing that that elevated ridge looks a little too graded, or seeing a random abutment to a long-gone overpass, in a place you never expected.
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It's piqued my curiosity enough that I'll probably go in person to check it out and see what's left. I'll be sure to post pictures if it's interesting.
 
TheRatmeister said:
It's piqued my curiosity enough that I'll probably go in person to check it out and see what's left. I'll be sure to post pictures if it's interesting.
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Awesome. Yeah I am a sucker for ROWs swallowed up by nature.
 
Going back to an extension to Millis, could a double tracked Franklin line even carry Franklin, Foxboro and Walpole services in a RR setting?
 
TheRatmeister said:
For conventional elevated rail, there really aren't that many corridors that are wide enough. The wide viaducts block out nearly all light from the streets below, which is made much worse if it's surrounded by tall buildings. Here's my list of streets from a previous discussion:

I'd probably also add the Grand Junction, and upgrade my evaluation on Broadway/Alford to be more positive.

If we're willing to consider a suspended railway, and I'm aware I'm really pushing the limits of a crazy transit pitch here, that would potentially open up more corridors. Suspension railways have significantly less negative impact on the street below in terms of blocking light, and could in theory be used on any corridor wider than around 65ft, which is most main streets. I believe the SAFEGE and SIPEM systems have also mostly solved switching, so you don't need the slow sliding switches of a conventional monorail or the Schwebebahn. Stations still need to be much wider and therefore more thoughtfully placed, but it's a lot easier to find that kind of space every half-mile or so than a continuous corridor.

Of course, the big problem is that essentially zero existing infrastructure could be reused given that Boston currently has zero suspended monorails. (and I don't think any have been built since the last time I checked.) The swaying also presents a minor challenge for accessibility but that should be solvable.
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The suspended railway in your streetview link (screenshot below) could just as easily be a normal elevated railway, with the tracks mounted on top of the horizontal beams in that suspended railway structure. Sure, the structure would be a few feet wider on each side of the two parallel beams, but when it's that high up off the ground, I think that would be acceptable.

1734400259758.png
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
As for the dinky to Dover...pure God Mode. That town is so other-level NIMBY they don't even want the rail trail
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Can't turn 'em into YIMBYs without something to say yes to 🤷‍♂️

All kidding aside, yes this is a project that fails on the current-and-foreseeable political level, regardless of the physical considerations. And like I said:
Riverside said:
yes there are many projects whose priority I would put above this one.
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Exploring an idea on a web forum =/= endorsement.

And besides -- proverbially putting it on an acid-dream spider map did draw my attention to the Town Forest, and I think that is a concept worth adding to the conversation. (Particularly because, in terms of "lines on a map", to the general public it would look like an expansion of service, which Needham GLX otherwise might seem "wobbly" on to a layperson.)
 
CheapLeak said:
Going back to an extension to Millis, could a double tracked Franklin line even carry Franklin, Foxboro and Walpole services in a RR setting?
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Yes. There's only 1 fairly minor grade crossing (Norwood Depot Station) out to Walpole Jct. so there wouldn't be any crossing carpocalypses with 12 TPH, and nearly all schedules would be local meaning it's an orderly linear procession with no real dispatching complexity. The problem is simply that it's not going to be as fast as a bus to Walpole Station given the somewhat circuitous rail route, and all-day Regional Rail service levels may be wasted on the un-dense surroundings.

I really think it should be a priority to get a timed Millis-Medfield-Walpole bus up and running as soon as Regional Rail implants itself. If there's any juice at all for the rail route (and I doubt there is) it would come from that bus hitting a home-run on utilization. We don't need to rely on a lot of Crazy Pitches guesswork; the route-priming strategy is very straightforward here.
 
Random thought I had today:

Logan Airport is space constrained. They're never going to grow their footprint outside of what they have today. At the same time, there is significant demand for them to add more gates and ramp space.
Building a Logan Peoplemover would require a maintenance facility inside of the Logan footprint or an elevated yard on top of some other building. Right now they have about 4.5 acres dedicated to a bus facility. Offloading this to the UR would mean there doesn't need to be a maintenance facility at Logan and that space can be reallocated to other uses (e.g. a new State Police station)
 
People mover yards aren't that big. The one for SFO, substantially bigger than Logan would need, is about a 1-acre building with half an acre of outside trackage.

The more I fly through Logan, the more convinced I am that it needs a people mover. The airport is simply so frustrating to access on public transit. The SL1 is paralyzed by traffic much of the day; I don't know if it's fixable without dedicated lanes through the Ted. The shuttle buses are next to useless - they seem to operate on no fixed schedule and get caught up in airport traffic. Massport must be induced to make transit a priority - which will necessarily require decoupling rental car and parking income from the rest of airport operations. Otherwise, they will continue to prioritize those to improve their budget.
 
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