Crazy Transit Pitches

The T in 3014

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Extend the Newburyport Line to Portsmouth, NH with a stop in Hampton...mostly because I want to live in Portsmouth and T access would be awesome.
 
OSUPhantom said:
Extend the Newburyport Line to Portsmouth, NH with a stop in Hampton...mostly because I want to live in Portsmouth and T access would be awesome.
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Oh, the Seacoast definitely wants that. The I-95 corridor is NH's most rail-friendly demographic, much moreso than the 93 and US 3 corridors where CR past Nashua is a constant controversy. Unfortunately Portsmouth is almost entirely a NH project, and the political will in Concord to help the Seacoast isn't anywhere close to being there. They won't even put the Capital Corridor on their long-range transportation plan because they don't see the funding ever coming available in the next 10 years, and are suicidally pushing the 93 add-a-lane project at expense of all else--including raiding the bridge repair fund to pay for it. It is far and away New England's most infrastructure-dysfunctional state (which is really saying something), and is the only one sliding backwards while the other 5--haltingly, and often not pretty to watch--are making forward progress on state-of-repair and have semi-coherent rail plans. This is going to be a long way away with their economic descent into third-world New England. And there aren't a lot of interim options because the Western Route from Plaistow to Newfields + Portsmouth Branch can't be tarted up enough to make tolerable commuter rail time. Existing Haverhill Line can't be sped up much at all because of the curves south of Plaistow, it hits a density cavity between Plaistow and Portsmouth that would be a loser on operating costs, and the traffic congestion in MA with freights + Haverhill locals + Downeaster is going to make decent on-time performance to Portsmouth a rough proposition.



It wouldn't be a hard project for MA to spring out of Newburyport. The Merrimack Bridge would need a large funding commitment to build a new movable span and rebuild the Newburyport-side abutment that was removed for the riverwalk. The last extension study found the approaches to be in solid enough structural shape that they'd be reusable if given a normal intensive rehab, so probably would not need a total teardown/rebuild. Downtown Newburyport may have some of the same cranky NIMBY's who didn't want the downtown station reopened back in '98, but most likely it's a different story with the line continuing into NH vs. terminating in Newburyport. As the full double-tracking of the line would probably only need to fill in to the existing Newburyport station with single + passing sidings being adequate enough for the extension, they could probably even keep rail-with-trail through much of downtown. Salisbury is only 3-2/3 miles of ROW, few abutters, and mostly out in the wilderness. My guess is the bridge would cost more than all other MA project costs combined, and the full in-state package probably doesn't go north of $200M unless Newburyport takes hostages for excessive downtown candy. Rural Salisbury wouldn't need an intermediate stop at all unless they really pushed hard for one at Route 110; what passes for their downtown has an easy MVRTA bus route hitting the existing Newburyport CR station + downtown Newburyport and the would-be downtown CR station, and there's another route that goes north to Hampton Beach and could hit the next would-be CR stops over the border.

So from the T's perspective it's a no-brainer if NH is all-in. The ridership boost more than justifies their share of the capital cost, and they would get the same type out-of-district operating cost compensation from NHDOT that they get from RIDOT so would collect an outright profit from the NH running miles. The track is nearly arrow-straight with few grade crossings and would be 80 MPH territory same as the North Beverly-Newburyport stretch that's considerably faster than the Beverly-south Eastern Route.

But NH is so slipping into oblivion on its transportation infrastructure that no amount of Seacoast enthusiasm is going to push this forward. There not only has to be a sea change in attitudes in Concord, but a massive effort to pull themselves out of the hole they've been digging before they're able to do a substantial amount of expansion. I can't see them being in any shape to tackle this before 2030.
 
^Thanks for that analysis, F-Line. Hopefully the line is extended one day, I'd value being able to get to Portsmouth by train immensely.

As a Newburyport resident I have to say I'm not sure how people will embrace extending the rail through the town again (the rail trail is pushed very hard by the city and is becoming quite popular) but they might be more accepting if the option exists for it to be single-tracked.

Anecdotally, I've heard multiple residents note how property values in town went up after the CR station was reestablished, so there could be some support there.
 
Could the tracks that are across from the Portsmouth Sheraton ever be used as an alternative to rebuilding the old branch. I believe it connect to the Downeaster line. If they did use this route it would have been great to have built the Portsmouth Transportation Center near these tracks.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Oh, the Seacoast definitely wants that. The I-95 corridor is NH's most rail-friendly demographic, much moreso than the 93 and US 3 corridors where CR past Nashua is a constant controversy. Unfortunately Portsmouth is almost entirely a NH project, and the political will in Concord to help the Seacoast isn't anywhere close to being there. They won't even put the Capital Corridor on their long-range transportation plan because they don't see the funding ever coming available in the next 10 years, and are suicidally pushing the 93 add-a-lane project at expense of all else--including raiding the bridge repair fund to pay for it. It is far and away New England's most infrastructure-dysfunctional state (which is really saying something), and is the only one sliding backwards while the other 5--haltingly, and often not pretty to watch--are making forward progress on state-of-repair and have semi-coherent rail plans. This is going to be a long way away with their economic descent into third-world New England. And there aren't a lot of interim options because the Western Route from Plaistow to Newfields + Portsmouth Branch can't be tarted up enough to make tolerable commuter rail time. Existing Haverhill Line can't be sped up much at all because of the curves south of Plaistow, it hits a density cavity between Plaistow and Portsmouth that would be a loser on operating costs, and the traffic congestion in MA with freights + Haverhill locals + Downeaster is going to make decent on-time performance to Portsmouth a rough proposition.



It wouldn't be a hard project for MA to spring out of Newburyport. The Merrimack Bridge would need a large funding commitment to build a new movable span and rebuild the Newburyport-side abutment that was removed for the riverwalk. The last extension study found the approaches to be in solid enough structural shape that they'd be reusable if given a normal intensive rehab, so probably would not need a total teardown/rebuild. Downtown Newburyport may have some of the same cranky NIMBY's who didn't want the downtown station reopened back in '98, but most likely it's a different story with the line continuing into NH vs. terminating in Newburyport. As the full double-tracking of the line would probably only need to fill in to the existing Newburyport station with single + passing sidings being adequate enough for the extension, they could probably even keep rail-with-trail through much of downtown. Salisbury is only 3-2/3 miles of ROW, few abutters, and mostly out in the wilderness. My guess is the bridge would cost more than all other MA project costs combined, and the full in-state package probably doesn't go north of $200M unless Newburyport takes hostages for excessive downtown candy. Rural Salisbury wouldn't need an intermediate stop at all unless they really pushed hard for one at Route 110; what passes for their downtown has an easy MVRTA bus route hitting the existing Newburyport CR station + downtown Newburyport and the would-be downtown CR station, and there's another route that goes north to Hampton Beach and could hit the next would-be CR stops over the border.

So from the T's perspective it's a no-brainer if NH is all-in. The ridership boost more than justifies their share of the capital cost, and they would get the same type out-of-district operating cost compensation from NHDOT that they get from RIDOT so would collect an outright profit from the NH running miles. The track is nearly arrow-straight with few grade crossings and would be 80 MPH territory same as the North Beverly-Newburyport stretch that's considerably faster than the Beverly-south Eastern Route.

But NH is so slipping into oblivion on its transportation infrastructure that no amount of Seacoast enthusiasm is going to push this forward. There not only has to be a sea change in attitudes in Concord, but a massive effort to pull themselves out of the hole they've been digging before they're able to do a substantial amount of expansion. I can't see them being in any shape to tackle this before 2030.
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The analysis was much appreciate! Very insightful.

NH unfortunately manages to outperform in some areas and underperforms in others; transportation in focus on urban development are two areas it seems to to be falling short on.

As a Republican (le gasp) I usually side on the low-tax, limited government side of the aisle however I think there is a balance between State\local investment and pro-growth policies. NH hasn't found that balance and it's allowed our state's infrastructure to fall behind.
 
PaulC said:
Could the tracks that are across from the Portsmouth Sheraton ever be used as an alternative to rebuilding the old branch. I believe it connect to the Downeaster line. If they did use this route it would have been great to have built the Portsmouth Transportation Center near these tracks.
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Yes. That's by the rail yard where the Eastern Route and Portsmouth Branch converge. The problem, as I mentioned, is that forking off the Downeaster route is far inferior and wouldn't fetch the ridership.


Consider the population differences between the routes. These are the towns each route passes through...NOT including adjoining towns in the station catchment areas.

Western Route + Portsmouth Branch
Haverhill, MA - pop. 60,879
Plaistow - pop. 7,609 (probable Haverhill Line terminus)
Newton - pop. 4,603
East Kingston - pop. 2,357
Exeter - pop. 14,306 (existing stop)
Newfields - pop. 1,680
Stratham - n/a (line clips unpopulated area with no public road access)
Greenland - pop. 3,549
Portsmouth - pop. 21,233 (possibility for intermediate stop @ I-95/NH 33/Pease Airport)

Eastern Route
Newburyport, MA - pop. 17,416 (2 probable stops)
Salisbury, MA - pop. 8,283
Seabrook - pop. 8,693 (probable stop)
Hampton Falls - pop. 2,236
Hampton - pop. 14,976 (pre-1965 stop, probable)
North Hampton - pop. 4,301 (pre-1965 stop, probable)
Portsmouth - pop. 21,233 (downtown stop only)


That's a large difference. Looking at the Western Route I'm not sure how you could justify any additional intermediate stops other than the pre-existing Downeaster stop in Exeter. And the only thing you can do with the Portsmouth Branch is to bet big on TOD at a 95/Pease parking sink and hope that has enough unique boardings to not dilute ridership at the downtown stop.

Now consider as well the only way to do this in under 2 hours is to slash and burn the number of stops it makes in MA. The Haverhill Line can't be sped up between Andover and Plaistow because of the curves. About the only thing you can improve is the Lowell Line to Wilmington. So say your only tolerable schedule is to make the Top 4 stops out to Haverhill: Anderson, Wilmington, Lawrence, Haverhill. That's a lot of rush hour revenue forfeited in MA when Haverhill trains usually fill up solid, and very little collected in NH past Plaistow.

This is a loss leader on both sides of the border. NHDOT bleeds farebox recovery like crazy on all those desolate running miles, and the T forfeits boardings at stops that pack Haverhill locals full and need more rush hour local slots. And it gets worse when you consider that weak performance puts it third on the passenger pecking order behind Haverhill and the Downeaster, on congested track. Portsmouth would have by far the most variable on-time performance of the three, and would not get benefit of the doubt when shuffling has to be done around conflicts. That's going to hurt its ridership.



Plus, all of this gets left on the table:

-- Should the T divorce the Reading and Haverhill halves of the line from each other and relocate Haverhill permanently back to the Lowell Line, the trip time savings on the locals will likely get cashed in for 1 or 2 reopened infill stops:
* North Andover (likely...coveted by the town)
* Shawsheen (less likely due to ownership and ADA-retrofit issues with the station building, but serving a growing office park)
* ...plus a Salem St. Wilmington trade-in for closed North Wilmington
* ...plus likely double-up of service at Winchester Ctr. and any future Woburn/Montvale infill on the Lowell Line.

That's a lot more revenue forfeited than just skipping Ballardvale, Andover, and Bradford to make this work. It's the difference between filling up a 7-car bi-level on every Haverhill/Plaistow rush hour slot vs. taking some of those slots for 4- or 5-car Portsmouth limiteds that are unlikely to fill up.


-- For NHDOT, peeling off at Newfields omits these Western Route destinations that pre-1965 commuter rail passed through (not including adjoining towns in the catchment area):
* Newmarket - pop. 8,936
* Durham - pop. 14,638 (Downeaster stop)
* Madbury - pop. 1,771
* Dover - pop. 30,220 (Downeaster stop)

That is a lot to pass up for one token Seacoast destination. And forking CR service to Dover gets a lot more distant a proposition if this Portsmouth misfit doesn't perform well enough to hold its own on schedule priority in MA. It can inadvertently hurt the buildout of further service to UNH and Dover to lead the expansion with this Portsmouth loss leader instead of Dover. This is not going to be the one to lead the past-Plaistow expansion with. Dover is. And that brings up another chicken-and-egg dilemma: how is Portsmouth-via-Haverhill ever going to carve out its traffic priority now when it's fourth on the passenger pecking order behind the MA locals, Downeaster, and Dover semi-expresses.




You get the picture. Yes, it's theoretically possible to have every service and keep it in some semblance of balance. But the finances just do not work with it having the worst farebox recovery on the northside MBTA paired with the worst farebox recovery of any of the Top 3 or 4 potential NHDOT commuter rail routes. No one's going to be able to look at that with a straight face and say that it's the right thing to do.

They're far better off just going for it on the Eastern Route where speeds are fast enough to make all stops on a full schedule, max out the T's Newburyport revenue intake by packing supersize trains full on every peak slot, hit the gut of the Seacoast's population center...and not overcomplicate the Western Route where more Haverhill/Plaistow locals, more Downeasters, and Durham/Dover service make the most effective use of that line's remaining capacity. Yes, it's expensive. But it's chasing a winner. Chasing a loser carries with it its own costs in stalled momentum.
 
One thing NH-DOT does right is the horizontal curves on the highway turns
 
Red Line re-alignment: ashmont and braintree branches modified and merged (some dorchester stations move a block or two). everything after Broadway station to Ashmont would be buried under Dot Ave; the fairmount branch would branch off and continue underground, surfacing at a portal at Southampton St onto the (would-be-former) CR tracks

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/viewer?mid=zHBKbWS6THfI.kF-laLo5Cc88

for those seeking a fast trip form braintree to boston without going through Dorchester, there's a DMU that runs from the abandoned ROW to Randolph, hitting all the original braintree branch stations, and splitting off to either Back Bay or South Station.
 
There are like, way too many additional stations on the Red Line there. It would barely move. For example, the current placement of stations on the Fairmount Line already have a good enough spacing for rapid transit and the spacing on the existing Red Line obviously are as well. The only place on the current Red Line where this is not the case is on the Braintree Line between JFK and North Quincy, but its designed that way to speed things up for South Shore commuters.

Also frankly, if you were going to turn the Indigo Corridor into rapid transit then it would be better off as its own line and continue through the N-S Link than joining with the Red Line.
 
asap_mozart said:
Red Line re-alignment: ashmont and braintree branches modified and merged (some dorchester stations move a block or two). everything after Broadway station to Ashmont would be buried under Dot Ave; the fairmount branch would branch off and continue underground, surfacing at a portal at Southampton St onto the (would-be-former) CR tracks

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/viewer?mid=zHBKbWS6THfI.kF-laLo5Cc88

for those seeking a fast trip form braintree to boston without going through Dorchester, there's a DMU that runs from the abandoned ROW to Randolph, hitting all the original braintree branch stations, and splitting off to either Back Bay or South Station.
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Quincy would need to add 15,000 transit-oriented people and become Boston's most populous suburb for this to be viable.
 
asap_mozart said:
Red Line re-alignment: ashmont and braintree branches modified and merged (some dorchester stations move a block or two). everything after Broadway station to Ashmont would be buried under Dot Ave; the fairmount branch would branch off and continue underground, surfacing at a portal at Southampton St onto the (would-be-former) CR tracks

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/viewer?mid=zHBKbWS6THfI.kF-laLo5Cc88

for those seeking a fast trip form braintree to boston without going through Dorchester, there's a DMU that runs from the abandoned ROW to Randolph, hitting all the original braintree branch stations, and splitting off to either Back Bay or South Station.
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Fairmount Line can never get flipped over to rapid transit. It's the only route with clearances for carrying trailer-on-flatcar freight traffic from the ports in Southie. The Worcester Line and NEC can only handle standard-size boxcars, etc. because of the Pike and SW Corridor tunnels, not the slightly taller trailers + shipping cubes. And the Old Colony is pinched by all the Quincy underpasses and station air rights constructed for the Red Line. For that route you would have to blow up Quincy Ctr. and Quincy Adams stations and start over from scratch, amongst other things.

Economically that's not going to wash at all. Massport is pursuing hard its ship-to-rail transloading plan at Marine Terminal, and by 8 years from now CSX will be running on the graveyard shift out of Readville up the Fairmount and Track 61 to pick up 20+ shipping cubes to take back to Framingham and Worcester. With expansion room at that terminal and future potential to fork a track over Reserve Channel to hit larger Conley Terminal. There is no way the state can justify passing up that much future port revenue by taking the Fairmount Line off the RR network. In 20-25 years there might be 50+ cubes per night getting hauled home down the Fairmount, filled with all manner of consumer goods bound for the entire region.


The best you can do is eventually bring the Ashmont Branch through Mattapan, then tunnel under River St. to meet the Fairmount ROW (it's solid granite bedrock here with few structures taller than a triple-decker, so much easier to subway than anywhere downtown). South of Cummins Hwy. to Readville the Fairmount ROW is fully wide enough for 2 x 2 parallel tracks...and in fact is 4-track today for the last 2/3 mile into Readville. Hyde Park used to be nuthin' but freight sidings and elongated mini-yards along the banks of the Neponset. It's the only place you can do it; the ROW through the whole of Dorchester is too narrow to fit both, and the RR is off-limits because of the port revenue.



As for the rest...the Braintree Branch very much needs an infill station at Neponset Circle. That was omitted in the 60's because when the branch was designed it was assumed the entire commuter rail mode would die off, and that they needed the station spacing to extend past Braintee as a de facto CR line. That's no longer needed with commuter rail's revival and 128 being the practical dividing line between the rapid transit and CR districts. If the downtown RL got improved for better headways a neighborhood infill should be a high priority.


I don't think a Randolph Branch DMU is going to work. Even if you were able to solve for the single-track pinch in Dorchester around Columbia Jct. and Savin Hill, and/or at the JFK and Quincy Ctr. platforms...it is probably impossible to double-track the whole length of Quincy where it hugs Newport Ave. and Burgin Pkwy. There may not be enough space for track-shifting to buy a contiguous 4th track berth between Wollaston and QC or between QC and QA. The street grid is too tight and the building back alleys already too narrow to shave back any further. That may always have to be a 1-track pinch even if everything north of Wollaston can be full-double. Mind you, solving Dorchester and the QC-proper platforms buys a lifetime's worth of extra slots for the 3 existing branches. That is plenty good enough. But plenty good for regular CR schedules.

Introducing a 4th branch with full clock-facing DMU's, or putting clock-facing DMU's on all of them for sake of Weymouth, Brockton, etc. is probably a bridge too far. And not all that necessary with the Red Line covering all inside 128 and QC being a generally very good bus terminal. You also are never going to be able to extend the Red Line south to Randolph. The ROW pinches along Cedar Swamp and Route 37 and can't handle side-by-side modes. Nor can the Greenbush Line get pinched east to Weymouth with the Quincy Shipyard tanker freights being a mission-critical user of the space-constrained first 1-1/2 miles of that line. You are probably going to have to draw the line here and look at more robust connecting bus solutions to Holbrook/Randolph and Braintree combined with denser conventional CR headways achievable by fixing (first off) the JFK and QC platforms then (second) the Dorchester pinches.
 
As always, F-line, some great ideas to this layman's eyes.

I'm curious where, precisely, you'd put a Neponset Circle station?

Two possibilities jump to my mind:
- Around where Conley or Morrissey cross the RL
- Where Redfield crosses the RL

But either one of those has the problem for pedestrians of trying to cross Morrissey Blvd and possibly under I-93 as well. But then, Community College on the OL has pretty much the same problem, doesn't it?
 
I think that a Neponset Circle station should be put where the Red Line crosses over Morrissey Boulevard. That area has a better potential for redevelopment and while the island the station would be on isn't friendly to pedestrians, it does have a pedestrian bridge and bringing transit to the area leaves open the possibility of fixing those roads in the future.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
the Braintree Branch very much needs an infill station at Neponset Circle.
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By "very much needs an infill station at Neponset Circle" you mean in crazy transit land right? Because there's definitely not enough people living w/in 1/2 mile to support a rapid transit station (no matter where you sited it) and there's plenty of redevelopment opportunities around the downstream stations (Broadway, Andrew, JFK) and upstream stations (N Quincy, Wollaston, Quincy Ctr) that already exist.
 
belmont square said:
By "very much needs an infill station at Neponset Circle" you mean in crazy transit land right? Because there's definitely not enough people living w/in 1/2 mile to support a rapid transit station (no matter where you sited it) and there's plenty of redevelopment opportunities around the downstream stations (Broadway, Andrew, JFK) and upstream stations (N Quincy, Wollaston, Quincy Ctr) that already exist.
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You're joking, right? It's wall-to-wall residential density on the west side of Morrissey Blvd. Check the walking distances to nearest station west of Adams St. (Ashmont, Shawmut, Fields Corner) vs. east. If you live around Doucette Sq. where the former Old Colony station was you're 1.2 miles from Ashmont or North Quincy. Port Norfolk, Neponset, and Popes Hill are the heaviest concentration of residential in all of Dorchester. Wall-to-wall-to-wall triple deckers for blocks all around. Coinciding with the biggest rapid transit blind spot in all of Dorchester. Those folks have a longer walk to a station than anyone along the Fairmount Line. With the Braintree tracks right bleeping there to boot.

"Redevelopment" has nothing to do with it. It's developed...with gobs and of middle- and lower-class transit dependent riders to serve. Just because no billionaire with cronies at the BRA has an 'in' to build a signature project here doesn't mean this area is a barren wasteland or unworthy of adequate transit. That smacks of classism.



Elevated stop straddling the Morrissey Blvd. rotary on the overpass with enhanced footbridges would probably be the best place. That location captures the largest swath of ridership in a half-mile radius vs. the former RR station by the river, has more of the street grid feeding into it, and is about the same on bus access. Spanning out more footbridges radiating from the center provides good access, and it's as good an excuse as any to perform an exorcism on Morrissey Blvd. to cleanse the MDC speed trap evilness out of it and make it a real 4-lane parkway here instead of 6-lane interstate. And, yes, you can even have your own TOD and eat it too if it's an excuse to rip down the hideous 1950's anachronism strip mall and the car dealerships that eat up a gazillion acres of asphalt. Those parcels on Morrissey aren't the reason to put in a stop...the whole expanse of neighborhood around it is...but there's got to be a less pitiful land use they can muster than National Wholesale Liquidators.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
You're joking, right? It's wall-to-wall residential density on the west side of Morrissey Blvd. Port Norfolk, Neponset, and Popes Hill are the heaviest concentration of residential in all of Dorchester.

Elevated stop straddling the Morrissey Blvd. rotary on the overpass with enhanced footbridges would probably be the best place. .
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I'm not joking. One side of the right of way is either ocean or uninhabited wasteland. Since there would be little opportunity to have local buses feed a station at your proposed location, you're really looking at a walk-in market consisting of the area bound by Adams, Victory, Neponset and Ashmont. This map http://bostonography.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/density2.jpg would suggest that it is actually the LOWEST concentration of residential in all of Dorchester.

The best a station at this location could hope for would be numbers similar to other walk-in only stations like Shawmut or Savin Hill (+/- 2000 riders/day). But its doubtful it would attract even that many, as those existing stations don't rely on a market on only one side of the right of way. Since 32k riders are being pulled in from locations south of Neponset on the Red Line every day (many of them low and middle class transit riders themselves), I'd like to see more than 2,000 (optimistic) new passengers justifying adding a minute or so to tens of thousands of existing riders' commutes.
 
belmont square said:
I'm not joking. One side of the right of way is either ocean or uninhabited wasteland. Since there would be little opportunity to have local buses feed a station at your proposed location, you're really looking at a walk-in market consisting of the area bound by Adams, Victory, Neponset and Ashmont. This map http://bostonography.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/density2.jpg would suggest that it is actually the LOWEST concentration of residential in all of Dorchester.

The best a station at this location could hope for would be numbers similar to other walk-in only stations like Shawmut or Savin Hill (+/- 2000 riders/day). But its doubtful it would attract even that many, as those existing stations don't rely on a market on only one side of the right of way. Since 32k riders are being pulled in from locations south of Neponset on the Red Line every day (many of them low and middle class transit riders themselves), I'd like to see more than 2,000 (optimistic) new passengers justifying adding a minute or so to tens of thousands of existing riders' commutes.
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Are you sure you've had your eyes checked? Look at that deep, dark blue in the triangle between the Adams St. and Neponset Ave. convergence and Ashmont St. That's this station site's catchment. All that blue to the left of Adams is covered by THREE Red Line stops. This area is covered by zero within 1/2 mile, and would be 100% covered by a station at the Morrissey rotary.

You just inadvertently made the entire case for this stop citing those stats.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Are you sure you've had your eyes checked? Look at that deep, dark blue in the triangle between the Adams St. and Neponset Ave. convergence and Ashmont St. That's this station site's catchment. All that blue to the left of Adams is covered by THREE Red Line stops. This area is covered by zero within 1/2 mile, and would be 100% covered by a station at the Morrissey rotary.

You just inadvertently made the entire case for this stop citing those stats.
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The only deep, dark blue on the density map around Neponset and Adams is a block or two of Train Street and Agawam Street. That area is only about 1/10 mile closer to your proposed Neponset Station than it is to Fields Corner Station.

I don't think anyone would propose rapid transit here if there wasn't already a rail line running through it (for example, this idea comes up with some frequency even though Glendale Sq in Everett, to name one, is a much more dense, transit dependent, and transit ridership-generating neighborhood).

I don't think one should confuse the presence of a railroad right of way with the need for rapid transit service. Its an easy way to analyze the world, but not an intelligent one. (although with my poor eyesight, this view does remind me a little bit of Central Square Cambridge: http://goo.gl/maps/9MybN)
 
Figured this would belong better here than the casino thread. If Wynn does build in Everett, then it would be a good excuse to get some real transit to Chelsea and Everett.

Run a pair of through tracks through the GLX maintenance facility site, plunk them down on the north side of the freight tracks behind the CR maintenance facility. Run the line up the unused ROW next to the Orange Line tracks - it's two tracks wide from the Inner Belt until well past Mystic Ave. Bridge over the other lines, bridge over the Mystic, and plunk a station down serving the casino and Gateway Center.

From there, there's a couple possible options. Broadway in Everett is probably too narrow for street running, but the density might support a shallow cut-and-cover subway. Route 16 just begs for a median line. Or connect it to the Chelsea busway and run Green Line trains to Chelsea or even Airport station.

FnRGb3A.jpg
 
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