Crazy Transit Pitches

[F-Line to Dudley]

Lots of money to nuke the at-grade crossings is the only way to get rapid transit down that route. I have other maps that leave the Riverside/Needham Jctn branch on the Green D. That's much more feasible for real world GLX.

I always find myself extending the Blue Line down the riverbank and at Kenmore the easiest route for it is converting the D to HRV. I have other maps that have the blue go through Allston and Watertown via pricey tunnels...

Yes...that's the rub with heavy-railing the D. If you want to fork to Needham Jct. you ain't doing it with HRT. Grade separating Oak St. Newton probably destroys the historic Upper Falls station house, and Needham Heights and Center have tricky abutting density. Cost probably kills the upside of doing the line. Ditto if you're coming via Orange from the south. They aren't bad crossings for light rail, though.

 

[George_Apley]

Gotcha. I gotta say, this is much more fun than playing Sim City (which I'll probably buy anyway when it comes out).

Looking to the South Shore, I've noticed that there are very few at-grade crossings along the Greenbush line until you get to the area around E. Weymouth. Admittedly, not very far by Commuter Rail standards. Wish there was a way to loop up around there to the shore, around the shipyard area.

You mean for rapid transit? Probably not worth the trouble. The Red Line is pretty well finished in Braintree. I sometimes run it down to Randolph (tunneled under the city center) and along a utility RoW to Route 24 near Ikea, but that would also be much more trouble than its worth in real life.

Yes...that's the rub with heavy-railing the D. If you want to fork to Needham Jct. you ain't doing it with HRT. Grade separating Oak St. Newton probably destroys the historic Upper Falls station house, and Needham Heights and Center have tricky abutting density. Cost probably kills the upside of doing the line. Ditto if you're coming via Orange from the south. They aren't bad crossings for light rail, though.

Right. Assuming Blue is someday brought to Kenmore via Riverbank, do you see any reasonable possibilities for extension beyond there if not via Riverside conversion? Or are any other branchings more or less cost-prohibitive?

 

[DominusNovus]

You mean for rapid transit? Probably not worth the trouble. The Red Line is pretty well finished in Braintree. I sometimes run it down to Randolph (tunneled under the city center) and along a utility RoW to Route 24 near Ikea, but that would also be much more trouble than its worth in real life.

They originally wanted to run it down to Brockton, didn't they?

 

[BostonUrbEx]

They originally wanted to run it down to Brockton, didn't they?

The Red Line was at one time intended for Randolph and East Weymouth. Don't know about any further than that.

They thought the death of the Old Colony RR meant the Red Line would swoop in. But ultimately, they instituted commuter rail on the Old Colony branches. But not before crippling capacity on the ROW. The 4 track ROW was hogged up with the Red Line, leaving one track for commuter rail.

 

[mass88]

All new rolling stock for the orange line and replace the older red line cars.

Bury the b line to Harvard Street. Bury the c line to Washington Square. Bury the e line the entire stretch and restore service to Heath Street.

Extend the blue line to Lynn.

Modern LED signs inside train cars showing all the stops on the line and where the train currently is located. Also more clear and consistent automated voice messages saying the stop information.

Interactive maps at the major stations where it would allows people to have the entire system at their fingertips and plan trips, get station info, schedules, etc. at the tap on the screen.

Completely rebuild Downtown Crossing and Park Street stations. I am talking a total overhaul and rebuild.

Convert the silver line to heavy rail on all branches and have it be one seamless line. Running from Logan Airport to Dudley Square via the SB waterfront, South Station, Chinatown, and the South End.

More trash cans in stations.

A stop on the Braintree branch near the Stop and Shop on Morrissey Blvd.

A complete upgrade and replacement of any outdated signals, track and other infrastructure that could cause delays.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Completely rebuild Downtown Crossing and Park Street stations. I am talking a total overhaul and rebuild.

I know this is crazy pitches and all, but what's your plan?

Complete shutdown of the Red line from Harvard to Broadway, Orange Line from North Station to Back Bay, and the Green Line from Government Center to... I'm not even sure where to? Because that basically sounds like what would have to happen.

Although I think the ideal solution is to build further below ground. This would also make it possible to have an entirely uninterrupted unpaid retail-lined Winter/Summer concourse, a paid one below that (for changing directions, get to whatever exit you're going for, etc), then the subway lines on two levels below that.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I know this is crazy pitches and all, but what's your plan?

Complete shutdown of the Red line from Harvard to Broadway, Orange Line from North Station to Back Bay, and the Green Line from Government Center to... I'm not even sure where to? Because that basically sounds like what would have to happen.

Although I think the ideal solution is to build further below ground. This would also make it possible to have an entirely uninterrupted unpaid retail-lined Winter/Summer concourse, a paid one below that (for changing directions, get to whatever exit you're going for, etc), then the subway lines on two levels below that.

DTX is labyrinthine, but I don't really know what improvements could be made. Busiest in the system by a good margin...it's going to be crowded. But I wouldn't necessarily say it's defective by design.

Park BADLY needs a second egress on the far end of the platform, overhauling the emergency exit for a Red-only headhouse here. Nothing fancy, can be exit-only...but the platform dwells kill the schedule when it takes that long to unload a train into the hordes heading for a single staircase.

Would be a hard, expensive, and time-consuming construction project for sure. But at least it's fairly non-invasive to 95% of the station.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Right. Assuming Blue is someday brought to Kenmore via Riverbank, do you see any reasonable possibilities for extension beyond there if not via Riverside conversion? Or are any other branchings more or less cost-prohibitive?

B to Packard's Corner, then over Brighton Ave. to Watertown via North Beacon.

Wait, whoops, sorry, you said "reasonable" and I forgot that an elevated ROW is not and never will be reasonable in the city of Boston. Well, deep bore or cut and cover on that same route is likely far too destructive, and tunneling under the Charles is always going to be a huge complication. We've already established the problems with converting the D (I submit an additional problem in the form of the fact that some D stations are heavily used by ped traffic crossing from one side of the tracks to the other with no intention of boarding any train, so there's an additional problem with regards to access control), No Els is a great way to instantly defeat a C conversion (although tunneling the C is probably less of a challenge than the B would be) and losing Cleveland Circle would fuck up the B and D.

Of course, extending the Blue anywhere west of Charles/MGH is never going to be reasonable to begin with, so for what it's worth, yours is a trick question.

 

[datadyne007]

I personally think Brockton is the ideal terminus for the RL. It's a major fairly urban community with a demographic that would greatly benefit from rapid transit. Boston needs to think outside its imaginary limits. The metro area really could be so much larger.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I personally think Brockton is the ideal terminus for the RL. It's a major fairly urban community with a demographic that would greatly benefit from rapid transit. Boston needs to think outside its imaginary limits. The metro area really could be so much larger.

Red Line is already 26 miles from Alewife to Braintree. +11 miles to Brockton really starts getting excruciating on a RL car. And it's not like we want to stop expanding the RL. +9 miles to Lexington. That's 46 miles--longer than the Worcester Line--with dense stop spacing and a 50 MPH speed limit. How is a 90-minute trip ever going to be dispatchable with all it has to plow through? And where the hell is Red going to short-turn if you want to segment it.

The T isn't built for that. 70 years of studies have said that 128-to-128 is the theoretical limit of a robust rapid transit system. Brockton is intercity. Commuter rail is what intercity is for. It should get very frequent commuter rail service, and even without contemplating the boondoggle of double-tracking through Dorchester there are some things they can do to bump headways. SS expansion. 2 platforms at JFK and Quincy Ctr. to stage train meets. Double-tracking between Braintree Yard and Quincy Adams/Burgin Pkwy. where 2 widened overpasses and a widened Red Line underpass adds 1.5 more miles and offers more schedule flex around the Greenbush junction and the daily freight schedule around Braintree Yard.

I don't think we need radical rethinking around here until it's time to tackle the Savin Hill boondoggle.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Red Line is already 26 miles from Alewife to Braintree. +11 miles to Brockton really starts getting excruciating on a RL car. And it's not like we want to stop expanding the RL. +9 miles to Lexington. That's 46 miles--longer than the Worcester Line--with dense stop spacing and a 50 MPH speed limit. How is a 90-minute trip ever going to be dispatchable with all it has to plow through? And where the hell is Red going to short-turn if you want to segment it.

Park Street, the same place Red's going to have to short-turn anyway once Longfellow Bridge work starts in earnest. Right downtown, about equal distances between Lexington, Burlington (the other place a Red Line extension should end up) and Brockton, and you get equal inbound/outbound ridership distribution instead of a huge bell curve that becomes even more exaggerated by the distances in question.

Okay, so maybe you say Harvard from the south and South Station from the north are both huge sources of demand and cutting things at Park Street hurts both end-points by introducing an arbitrary transfer - then let's fix Alewife up into a proper terminal and start running "short" turns Alewife - JFK/UMass, or feeding any northside branches/extensions into a JFK/UMass terminus and cutting all Braintree/Brockton and Ashmont/Mattapan/Readville(?) trains at Alewife regardless of any future northward extensions. Okay, so you've "lost" your single-seat ride from Readville to Burlington or Brockton to Lexington, but how can you truly lose something you never had to begin with? And besides, the full length of the line would indeed be much too long for an end-to-end ride.

To be clear, I think extending the Red Line to Brockton is a horrible idea because there's no real way to do it without destroying the Middleboro/Lakeville Line's ROW and thereby fucking over everyone south and east of Brockton right up to and including the Cape, or expanding the ROW to four tracks which looks like it would involve a pretty hilarious amount of property takings from the very people you would be expecting to ride the new extension. I'm just saying that it's not so impossible to segment the Red Line if it ever become long enough to require such things.

 

[DominusNovus]

Red Line to Burlington? I'm intrigued, is there an actual RoW over there, or are you suggesting something akin to the suggested route on futurembta?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Park Street, the same place Red's going to have to short-turn anyway once Longfellow Bridge work starts in earnest. Right downtown, about equal distances between Lexington, Burlington (the other place a Red Line extension should end up) and Brockton, and you get equal inbound/outbound ridership distribution instead of a huge bell curve that becomes even more exaggerated by the distances in question.

Where??? It's an unexpandable 2-track station with no nearby storage. You can't short-turn from the south because of the center wall separating the tracks from DTX to Park. The crossovers are on the north side, meaning you induce a 5-minute delay that stops traffic dead on the whole line while the train pulls out, crosses over, stops, and the operator changes ends. Plus where are you going to get the vehicles to feed two ends when Cabot Yard can only send trains south? Even if you have 2 humongous yards at the ends, it doesn't work unless you have a yard accessible to the short-turn point.

And, no, you aren't physically widening Park for extra tracks when it's underpinning the entire Green Line level, the entire Winter St. concourse, and Winter St.

Park's an immovable object.

Okay, so maybe you say Harvard from the south and South Station from the north are both huge sources of demand and cutting things at Park Street hurts both end-points by introducing an arbitrary transfer - then let's fix Alewife up into a proper terminal and start running "short" turns Alewife - JFK/UMass, or feeding any northside branches/extensions into a JFK/UMass terminus and cutting all Braintree/Brockton and Ashmont/Mattapan/Readville(?) trains at Alewife regardless of any future northward extensions. Okay, so you've "lost" your single-seat ride from Readville to Burlington or Brockton to Lexington, but how can you truly lose something you never had to begin with? And besides, the full length of the line would indeed be much too long for an end-to-end ride.

To be clear, I think extending the Red Line to Brockton is a horrible idea because there's no real way to do it without destroying the Middleboro/Lakeville Line's ROW and thereby fucking over everyone south and east of Brockton right up to and including the Cape, or expanding the ROW to four tracks which looks like it would involve a pretty hilarious amount of property takings from the very people you would be expecting to ride the new extension. I'm just saying that it's not so impossible to segment the Red Line if it ever become long enough to require such things.

The only place Red can be segmented is Columbia Jct. if the Cabot Yard leads fed into the N-S Link. That's where Cabot is the center of the "X", you have equal track capacity on every flank of the "X", and there's zero traffic intermixing. But you're still running end-to-end. The only southern flex that brings you is if you terminate at North Station and don't think about going any further north.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Red Line to Burlington? I'm intrigued, is there an actual RoW over there, or are you suggesting something akin to the suggested route on futurembta?

No extant RR ROW, but a very wide power line ROW going all the way to the Mall.

http://goo.gl/maps/6MAf1

Take a hard right off the Minuteman behind the buildings on Hartwell Ave. Which is pretty much where a Hanscom storage yard would go. You can easily see that fat power line ROW about 150 feet wide. Lay tracks in the center between the pairs of power line towers. Trace all the way to the Mall parking lot. Only structures required are overpasses of Route 4, Grove St., Turning Mill Rd., and Route 3. Footbridge over Middlesex Turnpike for station access.

I'd build it as later add-on to Hanscom terminal, but it's very doable, would produce mega ridership, and would take a shitload of traffic off 128 by diverting Route 3 park-and-riders.

 

[mass88]

I know this is crazy pitches and all, but what's your plan?

Complete shutdown of the Red line from Harvard to Broadway, Orange Line from North Station to Back Bay, and the Green Line from Government Center to... I'm not even sure where to? Because that basically sounds like what would have to happen.

Although I think the ideal solution is to build further below ground. This would also make it possible to have an entirely uninterrupted unpaid retail-lined Winter/Summer concourse, a paid one below that (for changing directions, get to whatever exit you're going for, etc), then the subway lines on two levels below that.

DTX is just such a dump. It's one of the main subway stations in the network and it looks like crap and smells like crap. It really is kind of embarrassing to be honest. Perhaps it's not the most realistic project, but then again this is crazy transit pitches.

I am not an expert, but perhaps you could stop southbound service and Park Street and have people board buses that take them to South Station. Northbound could also end at South Station and bus people to Park Street. For the Orange Line, have people get off at Haymarket for southbound service and bus them to Tufts. People could stay on the train to hit State Street, but make the announcement that for further southbound service, people need to get off at Haymarket. Northbound service ends at Tufts and people are bused to Haymarket. Or you could use Back Bay station as the terminus since there is more space to have a line of buses over there.

My thought was that with the Filene's tower going to be under construction soon, why not just tear up that stretch of Washington Street and Summer streets and do the rebuild.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Red Line to Burlington? I'm intrigued, is there an actual RoW over there, or are you suggesting something akin to the suggested route on futurembta?

There's the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway. Since Arlington and Lexington are extremely anti-transit, them actually supporting a Red Line extension would signal enough of a dramatic shift in public opinion out that way that we can safely propose utilization of the Bikeway ROW regardless of whether or not it was landbanked.

A branching service pattern would split around here - the Lexington branch proceeding up the Bikeway all the way through Lexington to a terminus somewhere reasonably able to be called "Lexington Center" or all the way out to a Bedford Depot / 128 Park and Ride, while the Burlington Branch peels off, goes over/under into either a tunnel or a viaduct and follows Summer Street to Lowell Street to the Middlesex Turnpike and Burlington Mall, then over Lexington Street to a terminus at Burlington Center near Simonds Park.

Of course, it's doubtful that there's ever going to be a strong enough demand to justify a mile-long tunnel to Burlington, but maybe in the universe where some NIMBY "Friends of the Bikeway" demand any extension be tunneled so as not to disturb the bikeway...?

EDIT: Or do what F-Line said, but that's not a branch so much as it is an extension.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

The only place Red can be segmented is Columbia Jct. if the Cabot Yard leads fed into the N-S Link. That's where Cabot is the center of the "X", you have equal track capacity on every flank of the "X", and there's zero traffic intermixing. But you're still running end-to-end. The only southern flex that brings you is if you terminate at North Station and don't think about going any further north.

Or, you could take the reasonable course of action and keep the Cabot Yard leads feeding into layover space only for the Red Line, clean up the JFK/UMass - Savin Hill clusterfuck by shifting JFK to have two commuter rail tracks and three Red Line tracks, and use two of the three platforms for continuing service while the third is exclusively for trains reversing direction or proceeding into Layover Hell.

There's no need to pull a zany proposal to cripple the Rail Link so that a rapid transit branch can do absolutely nothing that the Greenway trolley will/would do about one hundred times better into this conversation.

 

[Matthew]

More trash cans in stations.

What a crazy idea.

 

[DominusNovus]

Updated my map a bit, included a GL Waltham Loop, ran the OL up through to Reading (obv, lots of grade crossings need to be fixed first), and the BL up through to Beverly (ditto).

- Thinking of running the BL on a spur over to Danvers/Peabody. There's three different RoWs there that could work, one running parallel to 128 south, one to 128 north, and one just straight on perpendicular to it.

- Do anyone see any other existing RoWs inside 128 that I haven't taken over in my map?

- Anyone have any ideas for Quincy? I'd like to try to expand their coverage somehow. My craziest idea at the moment is a spur off the MHSL over to Quincy somehow.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Or, you could take the reasonable course of action and keep the Cabot Yard leads feeding into layover space only for the Red Line, clean up the JFK/UMass - Savin Hill clusterfuck by shifting JFK to have two commuter rail tracks and three Red Line tracks, and use two of the three platforms for continuing service while the third is exclusively for trains reversing direction or proceeding into Layover Hell.

Terminate at JFK? How exactly do you propose to sell that turkey? And busting Red to 3 tracks harms headways and kills the grade separation that currently exists there.

The simple course of action is Braintree-under-Ashmont. Shallow box tunnel...tunnel roof supports the Ashmont tracks on bare concrete...combined electrical/signaling plant.

There's no need to pull a zany proposal to cripple the Rail Link so that a rapid transit branch can do absolutely nothing that the Greenway trolley will/would do about one hundred times better into this conversation.

You think a Greenway trolley stopping at light after light in heavy traffic is going to outperform rapid transit through the Link? Good lord.

The only thing that's going to cripple the Link is Central Station. Penn Station somehow hasn't ground to a halt with only 2 tracks feeding Amtrak and NJ Transit into it for the last century. 2 tracks through the considerably lighter Link ridership is nothing...especially since it's in a single bore with crossover redundancies. The T's fantasy map of thru-running everything is bullshit. There won't be enough platforms below ground at NS and SS to apportion every single line thru slots, especially with Central Station's crippled capacity. And there's little chance they can justify building the Fitchburg, Fairmount, and Old Colony portals with those chewing up half the project cost for a sharp minority of the traffic.

It's a non-issue.

And RL trains every 3-5 minutes will absolutely shred the wildest dream commuter rail ridership going through there. Red today has 241,000 daily boardings. The entire commuter rail system has 132,000 daily boardings. Which do you think would move more people around the city, especially if it kept going north?


Scream "zany" all you want. Math is math.