Crazy Transit Pitches

Any particular reason why you chose not to extend the Red Line to Lahey/Burlington Mall?
 
Having services such as NextBus are helpful when you're at a bus stop you use all the time and you want to see when the next bus is coming. But, if you're at a bus stop you haven't used before, you have to bring up the stop on your handheld by navigating through five or six menus. A pain in the ass.

The solution is to have QR codes at every stop. With two clicks on your phone, you can bring up the exact page you need to see when the next bus is coming.

Below, the #39 bus stop at Back Bay station.

39_1.png
 
And another thing.

I'm spending three days a week working on a Children's Hospital web project. Took a shuttle bus today from one building to another. Took 15 minutes but to be expected. A very congested area.

So, can we have a monorail between all the hospitals and buildings? Please? And between all the museums while we're at it.
 
JohnAKeith said:
And another thing.

I'm spending three days a week working on a Children's Hospital web project. Took a shuttle bus today from one building to another. Took 15 minutes but to be expected. A very congested area.

So, can we have a monorail between all the hospitals and buildings? Please? And between all the museums while we're at it.
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It does suck to navigate the LMA. The traffic is just horrendous.
 
Umm...isn't Longwood pretty compact and walkable?

Re: QR codes - how many people actually use these? Every ad in the NY subway seems to have them now, but I can't imagine anyone actually sticking their phone up to one.
 
Yeah, the LMA is very dense but it's also spread out. They could build some underground pathways (some exist inside each) but walking distances are a bit long. They could add in NU, Wentworth, MassArt, and the SMFA, and the other Schools of the Fenway.

Like this: http://goo.gl/maps/hVZS

RE: QR Codes. I think ads with the codes are useless. It's no faster to bring up the page by taking a photo of it than typing in "http://fastandfurious4movie.com".

With the bus codes, you'd use it only in situations where you're somewhere you don't know the bus line schedule. Most people probably use the same bus lines every single day, so they wouldn't need it. Myself, I am often at different stops on the 43 and 39 and find it time consuming to search through the menus. I have bookmarked my fav's but don't add them, everytime.

Another practical use of the codes are on house for sale listings. Real estate agents can use a service such as toor.me to create a bar code and include it on a sign in front of the house. Perspective buyer driving around simply points and clicks. The agent likes it b/c he/she can use toor.me instead of having to create an individual site for each listing and b/c it's functional with android and iPhones.
 
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I updated my MBTA expansion plan at http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...=42.31337,-71.063347&spn=0.133286,0.3368&z=12

You have to zoom in to see the transit lines amid the blue markers representing future station locations.

Green lines are LRV; all others are electrified heavy rail.

The proposals I like the most are:

- Convert the Fairmount Line to an electrified Indigo Line, and extend it to utilize the existing Silver Line tunnel, and extend that on an elevated line to the north side of South Boston proper.

- Extend the Blue Line on both ends. On the Boston end, extend the tunnel to Park Street, convert the Green Line Central Subway to the Blue Line, and extend the Blue Line from Kenmore to Waltham on mostly elevated structure, using the abandoned Watertown freight line right-of-way from Watertown to Waltham.

- Construct an LRV line from East Boston, through Chelsea to Everett, using abandoned rail right-of-way. The Chelsea River crossing is tricky as the old railroad ROW has been built on. At that location the LRV line could utilize two of the four lanes of the new Chelsea River bridge currently being built.

- Extend the Red Line to terminate at the unused stub end of the U.S. 3 Expressway in Burlington. The interchange with 128 could easily be built up to provide access with the US 3 Expressway and 128. A large garage and station would be built at the abandoned stub end of the Expressway.

- Extend the Orange Line to end at the Anderson Transit center in Woburn. It looks like there was an old rail right of way running easterly of Anderson that could be used.
 
You've read my mind about an extension of a Green Line Charlie_mta!! I always wanted to connect the E Branch with the D Branch, and have the E Branch rerouted entirely under Huntington Avenue and converted to heavy rail. You read my mind. I only wish I knew the skills to create my idea of a Crazy Transit Pitch!
 
The "My Maps" feature in Google Maps is fairly easy to use. What I like about it is how you can switch to aerial orthophoto view and zoom in. This provides the info needed to route a future transit line to avoid buildings, follow old rail right of ways, etc.
 
What do you think of upgrading the 600 V DC Current to 750 V DC for the Red and Orange Lines and for future extensions, in addition to a new Urban Ring, an upgraded to heavy rail Green Line, and the Blue Line. Also, what do you think would be a good choice of rolling stock to replace the old Orange Line and Red Line Cars? Bombardier MOVIA, Siemens Metropolis? Perhaps they might choose MOVIA since most of the MBTA's heavy rail fleet was built by Bombardier or companies that were merged into Bombardier? That would be cool.
 
I think more cars like the Red Line 01800s for the Red and Orange (obviously OL's would be scaled down for the OL dimensions) lines would be awesome and I'd have no complaints there. I'd really like to see entirely articulated trains, though. Or at least 3-car articulations.

And what benefit would upgrading the voltage do? Even if the line is longer it's still the same voltage, isn't it?
 
BostonUrbEx said:
I think more cars like the Red Line 01800s for the Red and Orange (obviously OL's would be scaled down for the OL dimensions) lines would be awesome and I'd have no complaints there. I'd really like to see entirely articulated trains, though. Or at least 3-car articulations.

And what benefit would upgrading the voltage do? Even if the line is longer it's still the same voltage, isn't it?
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Voltage is pretty irrelevant. No need to change what's there, wouldn't add any flexibility if they did. You just need more substations to handle a bigger load. They're thinking of doing that on the Red Line where the Ashmont branch is near capacity. The Mattapan trolley doesn't have a substation of its own and just plugs into the Red Line, so they want a little more redundancy out there.

Red Line's also mangled by the signal system. Back in the 80's it ran on the same trip-arm mechanical system that the Blue Line does, and trains were much closer-spaced than they are today. They installed the ATO system and botched the spacing of signal blocks downtown so the headways had to be longer than they used to. They made excuses for it saying that because all the platforms were extended for 6-car trains (was only 4's before) that it would offset the lower frequency. It spectacularly didn't. And this is why you're stopped on the Longfellow every single morning behind another train and crawl under 10 MPH to Park St. If they re-did the signals into closer blocks they'd be able to run just as tight as they used to before they screwed everything to hell with the current layout. It would be expensive, but it's the literal only option to get more trains and less congestion through the transfer stations.


The problem with the Orange Line is that it's running the exact same fleet it had when the Washington St. El was still running and the line had 3 fewer stations on it. It can't pack the headways as full as the track capacity currently allows because there aren't enough cars. If you go by Wellington during rush hour you'll see virtually nothing sitting in the yard because they're all out running at once. That utterly kills the line when a bunch of cars are out of service like you had this winter. I think the new car order is supposed to be almost 20 cars bigger than the current fleet. That'll make noticeable difference in train frequency right off the bat. No major modifications really needed...they just need cars and lots of them.
 
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Ignore the fact that I forgot to replace Rt 1 Saugus with a green line.
 
Are you eliminating B, C, and E lines, or are they just not pictured because they do not constitute rapid transit level service?
 
NJBostonFan said:
What do you think of upgrading the 600 V DC Current to 750 V DC for the Red and Orange Lines and for future extensions, in addition to a new Urban Ring, an upgraded to heavy rail Green Line, and the Blue Line. Also, what do you think would be a good choice of rolling stock to replace the old Orange Line and Red Line Cars? Bombardier MOVIA, Siemens Metropolis? Perhaps they might choose MOVIA since most of the MBTA's heavy rail fleet was built by Bombardier or companies that were merged into Bombardier? That would be cool.
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Either Bombardier or Alstom could be good. Perhaps even Siemens.

The Movia sounds good for Boston, as it suits the city's subway styles. Alternatively, one could just refurbish the 1994-era Red Line cars and limit new rolling stock purchase to the Orange Line.

I was thinking something like the Movias used in Bucharest or London.

Bucharest Metro
407339bf5ceec4e6085a998a8fddfb20-d2zkmrz.jpg

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/269/4/0/407339bf5ceec4e6085a998a8fddfb20-d2zkmrz.jpg

London Underground
POD27-10-10.jpg

http://www.therailwaycentre.com/NewSite POD 2010/POD27-10-10.jpg

As for the new Green Line LRVs, I hope the contract to build them goes to Kinkisharyo.
 
HenryAlan said:
Are you eliminating B, C, and E lines, or are they just not pictured because they do not constitute rapid transit level service?
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Completely forgot about light rail. But as for the E, it's combined with the D.

Also didn't add 2 urban rings to avoid having too much clutter.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Completely forgot about light rail. But as for the E, it's combined with the D.

Also didn't add 2 urban rings to avoid having too much clutter.
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Even though having 2 urban rings might be considered clutter, it would be beneficial to reducing congestion and pollution on highways.
 
NJBostonFan said:
Even though having 2 urban rings might be considered clutter, it would be beneficial to reducing congestion and pollution on highways.
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I meant cluttering my map. I definitely think 2 rings would be a good idea (provided they're not some "BRT" crap)
 
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