Crazy Transit Pitches

cozzyd said:
Does the Mystic freeze?
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Only his crystal balls

Couldn't resist. I suspect its right to say "more-so" on upstream side (fresher water?) of the Earhart Dam and less so the downstream/tidal (saltier?) side. Still winter water shuttles are no fun anywhere.
 
Since were talking about water shuttles, I got an idea a while back while watching the super duck boats go around boston. They are about the size of a normal city bus, so I wonder if it would work to build a few boat launches in key locations (kenmore, harvard, watertown) to allow for a water express that doesn't require you to freeze on a dock since it could go the "last mile" on land, making regular bus and subway connections. Other then a new fleet to maintain, the only issue I really see is with ada, since they appear to have stairs. Go easy, remember this is the crazy thread
 
davem said:
Since were talking about water shuttles, I got an idea a while back while watching the super duck boats go around boston. They are about the size of a normal city bus, so I wonder if it would work to build a few boat launches in key locations (kenmore, harvard, watertown) to allow for a water express that doesn't require you to freeze on a dock since it could go the "last mile" on land, making regular bus and subway connections. Other then a new fleet to maintain, the only issue I really see is with ada, since they appear to have stairs. Go easy, remember this is the crazy thread
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If you built some high-level platforms and specially designed the vehicles, I don't think ADA would have to be a problem. I suspect those things are horrible to maintain, though (particularly as they were built for WWII). I bet getting something like that certified would be tough also, since they'd have to be approved as both ferries and buses, right?

That said, awesome idea.
 
Equilibria said:
If you built some high-level platforms and specially designed the vehicles, I don't think ADA would have to be a problem. I suspect those things are horrible to maintain, though (particularly as they were built for WWII). I bet getting something like that certified would be tough also, since they'd have to be approved as both ferries and buses, right?

That said, awesome idea.
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Not the dukw's, these things:
SuperDuck2.jpg



Another thought, would something like that be able to handle the inner harbor, or can the water get too choppy? Also I have no idea how long it takes to get through the locks, so that might kill the feasability of an allston-charlestown or harvard-eastie type route anyway.
 
davem said:
Not the dukw's, these things:
SuperDuck2.jpg



Another thought, would something like that be able to handle the inner harbor, or can the water get too choppy? Also I have no idea how long it takes to get through the locks, so that might kill the feasability of an allston-charlestown or harvard-eastie type route anyway.
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I don't think it's got so much to do with that as much as there aren't enough months in the year where temps on the water are tolerable enough to get the ridership. The Duck Boats aren't exactly a comfortable ride in May when the water is still freezing-ass cold and half the days there's a raw seabreeze blowing in. Boston still has a tad too seasonally compressed ridership peak to make year-round maintenance of a sizable water taxi fleet wash financially. We're just playing a weak hand with the east/northeast facing shores having such an excruciatingly slow and delayed warm-up each spring vs. nearly every other Southern New England locale. Feels-like temp can be almost a night-and-day difference Southie vs. Allston on any given day before Memorial Day.
 
davem said:
Not the dukw's, these things:
SuperDuck2.jpg



Another thought, would something like that be able to handle the inner harbor, or can the water get too choppy? Also I have no idea how long it takes to get through the locks, so that might kill the feasability of an allston-charlestown or harvard-eastie type route anyway.
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The Super Duck Boats do operate in the Inner Harbor. Exclusively. They enter the water near the Autoport and tool around the Navy Yard to the Constitution and back. It would though be hairier if such vessels were plying across the shipping lane to Long Wharf or something. They're slow and cumbersome. I suppose it has nothing to do with the surf, which is often manageable to even man-powered boats, more to do with shipping/ferry traffic.

As for the locks, it varies depending on the traffic and the tide. If you get right in after signaling, it normally takes between 2 and 3 minutes. Rarely does it take 5. Sometimes you're waiting for a lock to drain or empty of boats on the far side, so you're just sitting there for a while before you even get in.

Also, an aside to Equilibria, the majority of the Boston Duck Tours' DUKWs are new constructions, not WWII-era relics. AFAIK, the bi-leveled ones are 1940s period (although I don't know that all of them are), the single-leveled vessels are new. Perhaps still a bitch to maintain, but modern.

EDIT

This is new:

493107671_321199f3ce.jpg


This (or at least some of those like this) is old:

B022-MOTT-Boston-Duck-Tour-300x194.jpg
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
I don't think it's got so much to do with that as much as there aren't enough months in the year where temps on the water are tolerable enough to get the ridership. The Duck Boats aren't exactly a comfortable ride in May when the water is still freezing-ass cold and half the days there's a raw seabreeze blowing in. Boston still has a tad too seasonally compressed ridership peak to make year-round maintenance of a sizable water taxi fleet wash financially. We're just playing a weak hand with the east/northeast facing shores having such an excruciatingly slow and delayed warm-up each spring vs. nearly every other Southern New England locale. Feels-like temp can be almost a night-and-day difference Southie vs. Allston on any given day before Memorial Day.
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Well, buses would be pretty uncomfortable in December too if they were open air. The boats could be heated. The bigger problem might be that the river freezes in the winter.
 
This isn't quite transit, but it is a crazy pitch:

Autotrain (or auto carriers) to Cape Cod.

Could a few day coaches and some car-carriers (either from the freight-railroads car-delivery fleet or from AMtrak) be spared for a train that shuttled from Cape Cod to the mainland?

It could either operate like the Chunnel car- ferry trains (a short trip) or like a mid-distance AutoTrain.

The hard part is a seasonal terminal. Is there a big gravel patch with road access somewhere?
 
Arlington said:
This isn't quite transit, but it is a crazy pitch:

Autotrain (or auto carriers) to Cape Cod.

Could a few day coaches and some car-carriers (either from the freight-railroads car-delivery fleet or from AMtrak) be spared for a train that shuttled from Cape Cod to the mainland?

It could either operate like the Chunnel car- ferry trains (a short trip) or like a mid-distance AutoTrain.

The hard part is a seasonal terminal. Is there a big gravel patch with road access somewhere?
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Can't. Autoracks are too wide to fit through high platforms, so the only places you can run them are on freight clearance routes. Middleboro platform is a blocker for that even if you took the Readville-Walpole-Attleboro-Middleboro Yard (slow) freight clearance route out of Boston. MassCoastal RR simply doesn't ship any wide loads on-Cape because its primary business is the trash train, so they don't have a waiver against high platforms. Amtrak's popular Virginia-Florida Autotrain also doesn't make it all the way into D.C. for a direct NEC connection because of the high platforms at D.C. Union and other area stops. But that isn't much of a constraint for Autotrain ridership because obviously people are driving to the autorack terminal; the Virginia one is pretty closeby to D.C.


To make the economics of such a service wash here you'd really need to glom onto one of those freight facilities in the state that does get daily autorack deliveries. The Eastern Mass. terminals are East Brookfield and Ayer, because the Worcester area and 495 are the furthest points east where a single long-distance freight train can ship large quantities of cars before they get broken up and scattered to the local dealerships. The former auto facilities at Framingham south yard and Moran Terminal were mothballed in favor of expanded 495/Greater Worcester facilities because of that.





The easiest path to convenient cars-on-Cape access is simply approaching the existing Airport rental car vendors (Hertz or whoever) near the station and cutting some promo deals with them in Year 2. Barnstable Airport does have a full contingent of rentals available and quite likely rental shuttles between the station/ferry terminal and the car rentals on the west side of Airport. CCRTA also ought to entice Zipcar to plunk a sizeable supply of cars at Hyannis station for easier grab-'n-go rentals, plus smaller supplies of Zipcars in the station parking lots of the intermediate stops in Sandwich and Barnstable when those inevitably get added to the schedule in Years 2 or 3. Ditto a Hubway-like bike rentals setup. Lots of room for public-private partnerships and promotion here to buff out the on-Cape transit options. I could also see Zipcars + Hubway on the islands substantially increasing the train's patronage because the ferry terminal is right there and it is a pain to get your own car on the ferry.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The Globe's siding on the Old Colony is still active, but they've also outsourced so much printing to the 'burbs it's rare they get deliveries more than once a month...if that.
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I pulled this quote from the Abandoned T Tunnels thread and dropped it here in an effort to be a good citizen. Plus my question is crazy because of the component parts that would have to fall into place for it to be implemented.

So, in some sports-ier corners of the Internet, much has been made of the fact that the Globe's 18-odd acres would make a good site for a Fenway replacement a generation from now. Put aside any political roadblocks and other hurdles for a moment -- I assume by then Henry will be the mayor as well as the proud owner of Dunkin' Donuts, Gillette, and most of the Freedom Trail, so really anything goes.

If they built a stadium on that site and wanted direct rail access there for events, I imagine they could repurpose/reposition that freight spur to hold some CR platforms, either on an event-only basis or as a replacement for JFK if they put a second cut under the Expressway. But I know that there are some bottleneck issues in this area between the Old Colony and Red, to say nothing of the highway itself -- I admittedly don't have a great grasp on what they are, which is why I'm asking. Would the ability to send some tracks under the Expressway in this area provide the breathing room needed to solve any of those issues? Taking it a little further, what could be done if the east side of the Expressway from the Globe to JFK somehow became available for fresh trackage?
 
ErnieAdams said:
I pulled this quote from the Abandoned T Tunnels thread and dropped it here in an effort to be a good citizen. Plus my question is crazy because of the component parts that would have to fall into place for it to be implemented.

So, in some sports-ier corners of the Internet, much has been made of the fact that the Globe's 18-odd acres would make a good site for a Fenway replacement a generation from now. Put aside any political roadblocks and other hurdles for a moment -- I assume by then Henry will be the mayor as well as the proud owner of Dunkin' Donuts, Gillette, and most of the Freedom Trail, so really anything goes.

If they built a stadium on that site and wanted direct rail access there for events, I imagine they could repurpose/reposition that freight spur to hold some CR platforms, either on an event-only basis or as a replacement for JFK if they put a second cut under the Expressway. But I know that there are some bottleneck issues in this area between the Old Colony and Red, to say nothing of the highway itself -- I admittedly don't have a great grasp on what they are, which is why I'm asking. Would the ability to send some tracks under the Expressway in this area provide the breathing room needed to solve any of those issues? Taking it a little further, what could be done if the east side of the Expressway from the Globe to JFK somehow became available for fresh trackage?
Click to expand...

Great question. Also note that given that that parcel is worth $38m JOhn Henry really only paid $210m for the Globe
 
ErnieAdams said:
If they built a stadium on that site and wanted direct rail access there for events, I imagine they could repurpose/reposition that freight spur to hold some CR platforms, either on an event-only basis or as a replacement for JFK if they put a second cut under the Expressway. But I know that there are some bottleneck issues in this area between the Old Colony and Red, to say nothing of the highway itself -- I admittedly don't have a great grasp on what they are, which is why I'm asking. Would the ability to send some tracks under the Expressway in this area provide the breathing room needed to solve any of those issues? Taking it a little further, what could be done if the east side of the Expressway from the Globe to JFK somehow became available for fresh trackage?
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The bottleneck is because there is just not enough room for four red line tracks, an eight lane highway, and the commuter rail. The CR got the short end of the stick and was left with only a single track, when it really needs two, or even three. The only way to fix it is to completely rebuild the twoish miles of railroad between the portal near Andrew and the Ashmont split from scratch. It's going to have to happen, but it won't be easy, or cheap.

The east side of the highway there wouldn't help too much, the globes property is the one place where there is some room to maneuver. The real pinch point is just south. I hate to say it but when they built the expressway they should have demolished the houses on the east side of Sydney Street.

Regarding using the siding, absolutely. There is enough room to fit an entire train if a platform is built tangent to the expressway. As long as the games dont start/end at rush hour capacity isn't much of an issue, even with the bottleneck.


Now my real question is, why a new stadium? I've never really understood the need. The location can't be beat, and the park itself has the status of the Colosseum. Red Sox without Fenway just seems wrong. A huge part of the reason I love going to Sox games is that you can walk around and do stuff before/after in the immediate area and transit is fantastic. On the globes (or really any other) site it would just be another stadium surrounded by parking lots. Do people really have the need to tailgate before a game that badly?

(I'm assuming the answer is going to be obstructed view seats and capacity.)
 
Sightlines, capacity, and also just taking the ownership at its word. When they redid the concrete and put up the Monster seats shortly after buying the team, they said they bought the park 30 more years with all the upgrades. So we're actually almost 10 years into that already. I do think a new park is an inevitability on that timeline, but now that Fenway has some historic protection you can expect that it won't go away. Instead its use and role will just change, maybe just a few big league games per year along with more concerts and community use.

Follow up thought... It's not possible to fit the Red Line through that freight siding, right? I imagine it would be too tough to get around the Old Colony without a lot of digging.
 
What would you do after sending the Red line through that siding? Route it down Morrissey Boulevard?
 
Only thought would be to move one of the nearby RL stops to there, but I know the physics of the existing layout probably wouldn't allow that. As it is, JFK is probably a comparable distance to that site as Kenmore to the ballpark is now, so it would not likely be a priority.
 
If a stadium were built at that location, why not a red line spur like the Babcock spur off of Comm. Ave. for Braves Field?
 
Dunno if this has been suggested before, but continuing the B line through Newton down Commonwealth Ave, either connecting up at Riverside, or just ending in its own new terminal near the Pike in Auburndale (or some joint facility with a theoretical DMU line there).

Physically speaking, I figure it shouldn't be too hard; there's that grassy median going all the way down. I'm just certain that the residents living right on Comm Ave would hate the idea, so its certainly a CTP.

It would improve transit access to (besides residential neighborhoods for commuters into Boston):
- BC Law School
- Newton City Hall/N. Newton HS
- Auburndale

My other crazy idea for the day is running a heavy rail line directly under the D line tracks and all the way through until Gov't Center where it could join up with the Blue Line, to ease the horrendous congestion the Green line gets during commuting hours. It could be positioned as an express service, skipping many of green line stops (particularly in Newton) in order to keep things moving, and to encourage the D line for most intra-Newton/Brookline(Needham?) trips.

Just as a brainstorm idea for stops:
- Riverside
- Newton Center
- Reservoir
- Brookline Village
- Kenmore
- Copley
- Park
- Gov't Center
 
There was once a trolley service on that median in Newton. I believe it terminated at BC for connecting service. Through-routing it onto the "B" runs into the problem that the "B" is incredibly slow and unreliable. It would just be too long and unwieldy until that problem is fixed.

Nothing will ever get built "under" the Boylston Street subway. Except maybe deep bore? Your best hope is a riverfront subway, or maybe we get a clue and learn how to construct Copenhagen-style.
 
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