Building transit to 128's Office Parks
Phase -1:
Maximize bidirectional all-day frequencies to Anderson/Woburn, Dedham Corp Ctr, and Route 128. I don't think any of this has a prayer of working without 20-min frequencies at the very
least (and I think it's possible it'd still be DOA until/unless we achieve 13-min SUAG headways). I would also look at extending the Orange Line to Reading and then to Anderson/Woburn, partially by way of -- you guessed it -- a power line ROW that vaguely runs between the two mainline ROWs. The Reading Line corridor is well within normal commuting distance to Burlington Mall, to say nothing of Mishawum, so the Orange Line connection is a significant benefit. (Optionally, also complete Needham GLX and Weston/128.)
Phase 0: Implement
high-frequency low/medium-capacity shuttle services between stations and offices, in "Mishawum" (idk an actual name for this area), Burlington Mall, North Waltham (if Weston/128 is built), Needham Crossing (if GLX) and University Park. I
think Dedham may not need a shuttle, although if the parcels toward the north end up getting larger businesses, that might drive enough demand; for the moment, Legacy Place is a 6-minute walk from the platforms. I think Hanscom is too far from potential transfer points.
Phase 1: Using the power line ROW and the line of parking lots,
build a light rail line from Anderson/Woburn to Burlington Mall, with 10-12 minute headways. Running non-stop between Anderson/Woburn and the edge of Burlington Mall Road, it should be able to run at a pretty decent clip. Stops within the Burlington Mall area TBD, but I would truncate the line before it crosses Middlesex Turnpike. In principle, this entire segment could be in a dedicated ROW (albeit with some grade crossings).
Phase 2: Create an
Aldgate junction between the Riverside and Needham branches, and extend tracks from Riverside to either Auburndale or Norumbega/128; run a light rail shuttle service that connects the Worcester Line to Needham Crossing (and Newton Wellesley Hospital and downtown Needham). I don't expect this to be an amazingly high-yield extension, but in principle it would be relatively simple to do.
Phase 3:
Extend the Burlington Mall Line. At this point, you have some choices:
3a:
Blue Sky Center: looking strictly at job counts, turning north along/parallel to Middlesex Turnpike probably has the highest payoff
3b:
Hanscom: following the power line ROW gets you to the Minuteman Branch
One option from there would be to run in or along the streets to Hanscom Air Force Base. For the most part, buildings are set back from the road, so it could be possible to create a median, or dedicated ROW alongside.
3c:
Red Line connection
The other option would be to turn southeast and use the Minuteman Branch to reach a Red Line transfer station in Lexington, Arlington, or at Alewife. This would significantly increase the number of 2SRs and 3SRs to the Burlington Mall
3d:
some combination of the above
Perhaps there is a pair of services: Anderson/Woburn <> Blue Sky Center, and Arlington Heights <> Burlington Woods, with interlining within Burlington Mall proper. Or perhaps it's Anderson/Woburn <> Hanscom, Arlington Heights <> Blue Sky Center, with interlining along the power line ROW and a good transfer point somewhere near the AMC cinema. At this point, Burlington Mall will have had its Anderson/Woburn light rail service for a little while, so it will be clearer where demand would be.
Phase 4: Build a
light rail line through North Waltham (maybe). On the one hand, this is a pretty narrow linear corridor (the arm off to Waltham Woods notwithstanding) that could do well with transit. On the other hand, it's a bit cramped and there's less space for a small maintenance facility than there is to the north; the highway itself also pretty cleanly divides the area in two, and it would be hard for a single line to serve both sides. If Route 2 and the Cambridge Reservoir could be crossed, in theory you could have a line running all the way from the Fitchburg Line to the Lowell Line. But, for the reasons I went through previously, I'm skeptical of the viability and need for something like that. On the balance, I think this corridor will probably be a better fit for frequent shuttles for a while.
Phase 5:
Cross the Charles River (maybe maybe maybe). Brandeis and Auburndale are just over 1 mile (just under 2 km) apart. It
seems like it should be easy to build a line between them. But as soon as you start looking more closely, it gets gnarly
fast. Rivers, islands, residential neighborhoods... absent the aforementioned subway under Moody St, or stealing lanes from 128, or building a viaduct over 128 (all of which seem like tall orders), I don't think there's really a good way to do this.
Phase Triangle (by which I mean, done independently of the above phases): implement
an open BRT system on 128. In an open BRT system, buses running on non-BRT infrastructure (e.g. mixed traffic) move into dedicated BRT infrastructure for some amount of time before leaving again. (Somewhat similar to streetcar branches entering a subway and exiting at the other end.) Open BRT is useful when there's a high concentration of overlapping routes, but with a disparate range of destinations. Adding BRT infrastructure along 128 would allow for a layer cake of routes that can originate within town centers (not just constrained to being near 128 itself), speed along 128, and exit at various office parks where they can provide door-to-door services for different offices.
Despite BRT's reputation as the "low-cost alternative" to everything, I'd argue that proper open BRT on 128 would actually be a significant investment, since it would probably require significant stretches of grade separation where there's no room to widen 128 -- meaning, viaducts. The viaducts would also need dedicated access points -- potentially new ramps, although I've always wondered whether an open BRT system that has at-grade intersections with overpasses might actually be viable; there would be long stretches without intersections, so high speeds would be achievable, and the at-grade intersection would solve the access point problem. And since the overall number of vehicles would be lower, it might not be a problem to have the hard right angles of the intersections.
In closing
Like I said, I think 128 is hard. I think the particular location and layout of the Burlington Mall (and Middlesex Turnpike) area means that one or two services centered on it might be unusually viable. But, as much as anything, that's because there's an unusually wide gulf between the Lowell Line and Fitchburg Line. So, perhaps I'd say that I'm mildly optimistic about a "Burlington Mall transit expansion", and modestly pessimistic about a "128 Outer Ring".
(That all being said, to be clear -- I think
@The EGE's map is really cool in its own right. My comments are meant to complement his, not try to rebut.)
EDIT: I want to more explicitly acknowledge
@jbray here — he laid out a lot of what I presented here already (including making the IMO vital observation about the parking lots in Burlington Mall). My suggested phasing differs from his, but many of the underlying ideas are his!
