Crazy Transit Pitches

http://projects.sasaki.com/lynnwaterfront/Documents/LYNNDraftplanPPT.pdf

Lynns waterfront master plan which the ferry is suppose to be a part of helping to stimulate but honestly i really don't like the idea of the ferry it will be a overpriced option to get to into Boston and as urbex has allready said in sort of a no man's land. If lynn really wanted to get this masterplan to become a reality then they need to get the blue line as a reality other wise it is going to fall short of what they expect..
 
Blech, that plan doesn't seem very fitting for Lynn or for that waterfront at all. Rather disappointing, honestly. It is, of course, an improvement... but it isn't hard to improve from what is there now...
 
Id be afraid to shove that much density into Lynn without a Blue line Extension.
 
Could the Silver Line look like this one day?

Probably not. (Also, Mass Ave station probably needs a better name, or like half the stations on the Gold Line will be named "Mass. Ave" :p )
 
novitiate said:
Could the Silver Line look like this one day?

Probably not. (Also, Mass Ave station probably needs a better name, or like half the stations on the Gold Line will be named "Mass. Ave" :p )
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The Greenway Trolley should have a stop at Hanover Street, and a better name for that stop is Northampton.

I'd like to see the Green Line converted to Heavy Rail along the D branch, and all of its light rail branches painted Silver, i.e., B/C Branches routed along/under Essex Street Boylston - Chinatown - South Station - Waterfront, D-Line from Chelsea to Dudley via North Station and Park (sorry, F-Line!), and E-Branch (restoration to Arborway optional) to Everett.

Some parts of that are less crazy than others...
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
The Greenway Trolley should have a stop at Hanover Street, and a better name for that stop is Northampton.
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Agree with Hanover, but you might as well also put one at Haymarket, don't you think? Especially if it remains a major bus terminal.

I definitely agree about renaming Mass. Ave to Northampton.

novitiate, I really like what you have so far there. Any chance of a system map/diagram/set of diagrams? (What are your plans for the Green and Gold lines, in particular?)

I'd like to see the Green Line converted to Heavy Rail along the D branch, and all of its light rail branches painted Silver, i.e., B/C Branches routed along/under Essex Street Boylston - Chinatown - South Station - Waterfront, D-Line from Chelsea to Dudley via North Station and Park (sorry, F-Line!), and E-Branch (restoration to Arborway optional) to Everett.

Some parts of that are less crazy than others...
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Wait, where does the Heavy Rail Riverside line go if the B/C lines are still routed through the Boylston St. Subway and the D line goes through Park?
 
Riverside said:
Agree with Hanover, but you might as well also put one at Haymarket, don't you think? Especially if it remains a major bus terminal.

I definitely agree about renaming Mass. Ave to Northampton.
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Hanover and Haymarket would be connected - they're about 300 feet apart as it is and Hanover is only necessary because of the existing track/tunnel geometry precluding any configuration that lets you surface south of Haymarket.

The Heavy Rail Green Line would go Riverside - Kenmore - Riverbank Subway up to right about Berkeley Street, then it's either a straight shot deep-bore into Government Center OR some kind of curving operation to get to Beacon Street along the Public Garden and Boston Common with an optional stop at the corner of Beacon/Charles (connected to the Boston Common Garage) and another stop at Park Street (Park Street Station would be extended up Park Street to reach the new platforms and a new exit on the corner of Beacon/Park would be made).

From there, it curves up into Government Station and into the existing Green Line tunnel, approaching from the opposite side of the burial ground so that expansion is possible. (North of Government Center it shouldn't be too difficult to get 2+2 tracks for Green and Silver Line.)
 
Oh cool, I'm glad people found my previous map interesting...

For the Gold Line, I was thinking something like this... heavy-rail Orange Line-type subway from JFK/UMass (not sure how necessary a new stop there is to replace the shuttle bus, but this is the crazy thread) to BU (to link up with the Commonwealth Ave. Subway) mostly under Mass Ave., then two branches, one heading over the Grand Junction to Sullivan Square (ideally with a track connection to the Orange Line, allowing them to share a fleet and have access to Wellington, though I don't think through service to Malden is necessary), and the other stays with the Pike a little longer, then jumps the river to end at Harvard Sq. (thus connecting Harvard to Allston)

A few issues here- not really sure how to handle the Kenmore Sq. region, and there's no Blue Line connection (because in my fantasy world I'm not really sure what to do with the Blue Line, really- I like Blue-Eats-D, but then that kind of prevents a Needham Green Line extension) In general I think the value to this line is the number of connections; say you're going from the South Shore (via the Red Line) to the Museum of Fine Arts, it should be faster to change at JFK and Symphony than to go downtown, even if you need one more line to do so. (So frequency of service is a key)

I'd like to do a spider map, but I probably need something more advanced than Microsoft Powerpoint to do it :p
 
Rethinking my map and decided to change things up a bit in the Brookline Village/Longwood area:

SAEtM.png

Brown, pink and hunter green lines are light rail; orange, silver and black are heavy rail; thicker red and yellow lines are commuter rail services.

Current D and E routes basically swap north/east of Brookline Village and the intersection of Huntington/South Huntington. The D (shown as the brown line) is rerouted along the current Huntington Ave corridor while the E (hunter green) continues north towards Longwood and Kenmore to join the B and C branches at Kenmore to follow the Boylston Street Subway. The pink line is a new crosstown service connecting Dorchester, Roxbury, Brookline and Brighton and the silver/black is part of the heavy rail urban ring.
 
Interesting- where is Mission Park-Riverway? Looks like it would have to be pretty much where Riverway is now (and also on the Huntington side) for that service pattern to work.
 
novitiate said:
Interesting- where is Mission Park-Riverway? Looks like it would have to be pretty much where Riverway is now (and also on the Huntington side) for that service pattern to work.
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at the intersection of green pink and brown
 
NYskF.png


Exactly - two inter-connected platforms: one along Huntington to serve the brown line (Mission Park) and another along South Huntington to serve the green and pink (Riverway).
 
how about we add 8 new highways in the city and abolishing the mbta and, making amtrak stop at framingham for the lsl, 128 for the regional, and woburn for downeaster?
 
deh74 said:
how about we add 8 new highways in the city and abolishing the mbta and, making amtrak stop at framingham for the lsl, 128 for the regional, and woburn for downeaster?
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I say we just get rid of the city; that would solve all the transit problems.
 
but then where would we put all the hobos, welfare queens, and all the other trashy p[eople who are the sole inhabitants of all large cities?
 
Question for people who know the track and tunnel layout around Boylston:

If an Essex Street tunnel were excavated allowing eastbound GL trains to continue to South Station, AND if the Tremont Street tunnel were opened as well, how would that be configured in practice? Would some service routes be more practical than others (for example, E/W Kenmore-South Station and N/S Dudley-GLX crossing as essentially separate lines?) And, finally, would Boylston itself need to be closed to accommodate new tracks? (Not too much loss there if the GL now serves Chinatown).

Thanks.
 
I love to read the transit maps you guys design for Boston. I really love to look at all the different options and picture what could have been. I was wondering though has anyone ever calculated how many miles of track would have been added if there transit system was implemented. How would some of these systems match up against well either london tube or maybe NYC subway system verses track milage and ridership. I think it would be really cool to see some obviously hypothetical figures to go along with your maps. I think most of you do the maps in your spare time but it would be great to go along with the map. Even if you added maybe a plan on how mbta would be able to build something like this a list of lines and extensions based on priority. I don't know it is just a idea I thought of while checking out all the maps you guys put together..
 
You could probably use the provisions for the Post Office Sq extension to dive underneath the current Boylston Station/Junction. I don't know how you'd work out the platforms/connecting tunnels though.
 
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