Crazy Transit Pitches

[F-Line to Dudley]

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)

The only reason there wasn't a stop in the first place was because the Braintree Branch was intended as a long-haul replacement for commuter and RR tracks that were expected to be outright abandoned. That is not the case anymore. Now, I agree that this shouldn't be done until the Red Line is resignaled for tighter headways and to fix the flow problems downtown. But once that's done an infill works and works well. An immediate influx of +2000 minimum daily boardings is a significant spike and significant amount of new revenue that in turn cascades throughout the system when those same folks pay again for the return trip.


Of course, I'm not going to convince you of this because you had your mind made up about the transit worthiness of a middling-income, residential-only neighborhood well before you looked at a single data point. As evidenced by your first comment about TOD "redevelopment" for millionaire developers being the only compelling reason to make a new investment in transit nodes. And applying the same logic to the worthiness of the existing Ashmont Branch neighborhood stops while on the other hand grouping the Braintree Branch's smallest-ridership and far-and-away least dense stop, Wollaston, in the "worthy" category. Don't take this criticism the wrong way because I'm not trying to be mean-spirited here. But you telegraphed your value judgement about the qualitative worthiness of Dorchester's demographics on first post. Heat maps and density data points are not relevant to an argument rooted in demographic profiles and constituencies. Those are circuitous semantics that don't speak to the crux of the point you're arguing: which is not about density.

I would argue that's overly simplistic and also not-very-intelligent way of looking at transit. Because every neighborhood and every station citing has has unique and nuanced needs. That's a different, and wholly legitimate, thread altogether. But...please...clean up your argument a little bit. Is it about the raw density? Or is it about emphasizing transit around mixed development and redevelopment opportunities and de-emphasizing it around built-up places with a unilateral development skew? Cite supporting facts accordingly, but don't transpose one argument's set for the other's.

 

[belmont square]

An immediate influx of +2000 minimum daily boardings is a significant spike and significant amount of new revenue that in turn cascades throughout the system when those same folks pay again for the return trip.

That would be $8,000/day, assuming
a) 2,000 riders (unlikely)
b) all users of the station are not finding their way to Fields Corner or Ashmont today ("I'd take the T, but its 3/4 mile away, so I'm going drive downtown and pay $30 to park")
c) all users would be paying per trip and not using a LinkPass

That new revenue, coupled with the modest travel time savings for station users (<10 minutes travel time savings vs existing transit and walk options) must be measured against the 32,000 minutes (at least) of lost time for everyone already on board the vehicle at this point.

As evidenced by your first comment about TOD "redevelopment" for millionaire developers being the only compelling reason to make a new investment in transit nodes.

In my first post I said there wasn't sufficient existing density w/in a half mile, AND that a station for redevelopment purposes wasn't necessary given the untapped opportunities at other stations on the line. If you don't build a new station to serve existing density or to facilitate new redevelopment, then why the hell would you do it?

But you telegraphed your value judgement about the qualitative worthiness of Dorchester's demographics on first post. Heat maps and density data points are not relevant to an argument rooted in demographic profiles and constituencies. Those are circuitous semantics that don't speak to the crux of the point you're arguing: which is not about density.

So by arguing that rapid transit might not be necessary in the least dense, whitest, highest income, and most ravaged by auto infrastructure subset of Dorchester, I'm telegraphing what value judgement? Common sense?

I would argue that's overly simplistic and also not-very-intelligent way of looking at transit. Because every neighborhood and every station citing has has unique and nuanced needs.

Unique and nuanced needs that seem to always call for new rapid transit in your posts.

Is it about the raw density? Or is it about emphasizing transit around mixed development and redevelopment opportunities?

Both, and an infill station in the middle of a highway interchange in Neponset fails on both counts.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

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.

(Cross-posted from similar post in the Casino thread). . .

First thing to do is just take the GLX yard tracks and extend to Sullivan. It's less than 3000 ft. and only requires a duck-under (similar to the Wellington OL tunnel) under the freight wye. Otherwise the ROW is there on those two never-used freight storage tracks and grafting an island platform onto that side of the Sullivan bunker is cheap and easy. You've already built two-thirds of this extension as a GLX dependency with that carhouse. Just make sure the design for it and the flyover junction where the Union, Medford, and carhouse tracks diverge has adequate provisioning for 2 mainline tracks peeling off to the east. And that the carhouse switch layouts can be easily reconfigured so those lead tracks can be made thru-running.

I bet you could do this for a cut-rate $50M if it didn't include some garish rebuild of the Sullivan bunker (yeah, that needs to be done...but it's outside this project's scope and should be its own independent thing). Do that and you've got a useful head start that only requires a walk to the busway to pick up a casino shuttle van running all day that takes you door-to-door.



Actually getting across the river is a megaproject that needs to be considered within the scope of that entire leg of the Urban Ring. With each component requiring involved planning and lots of details to square.

-- The river crossing is going to be expensive. The LRT/BRT line has to run on the north/west side of the Eastern Route in Everett because of the freight access, so the options are to either built an adjacent northerly span that packs a lot of dirt to build abutments on the marshy shores (and thus is a tough EIS), or to build a new RR bridge a few feet south recycling the previous drawbridge's earthen abutments then shifting the RR onto the new bridge and trolleys on the old. That's a study unto itself.

-- Building all-new stations (LRT or by pushing the Chelsea Silver Line) is going to be expensive. Figuring out whether and how to route it around Assembly for a transfer (stick on the bridge trajectory and have a long walkway to the OL station, or build a bridge much further north by the locks) is a study unto itself, with direct bridge dependencies.

-- BRT, if they're married to it, is going to be expensive requiring a wider bridge. It requires wider duck-unders around 2nd Ave. where the rapid transit ROW has to switch sides of the Eastern Route tracks from north in Everett by the terminal to south in Chelsea. They have to have a decision on what mode they're going to do up-front the whole length of Everett before they pour this concrete. There's few places in all of Chelsea where busway vs. rail ROW seriously alters the construction (unless they care enough about busway speed that they're compelled to grab every extra inch of width they can around the bridges). So the decision about these duck-unders also affects any talk about pushing the Silver Line anywhere west of Mystic Mall; tacking that onto the current SL project bogs that timetable down in more complexity and time-consuming decision-making.


Time and money. Lots of both. So for that reason it's probably better to defer talk of what's on the other side of the river until they're ready for a more substantial Urban Ring conversation and just grab the easy start to Sullivan that can be done for pocket change in only a couple years. If the casino gets approved they might even be able to factor this into the still-undesigned, still partially unfunded, and very much-delayed carhouse build and get it done within a year or two after the casino's grand opening. Let all Green destinations join in on the door-to-door Sullivan casino shuttle by extending the C here or something. And let getting within 3 blocks of the Mystic jump-start the greater Urban Ring conversation about crossing the river.

 

[cbrett]

Unless you're headed across the river, then there's no point in extending the Green Line past the yard in the first place. With easy transfers to the OL possible at North Station and Haymarket it's a waste of money regardless of how cheap/easy it would be to extend it there.

 

[Ron Newman]

I don't see the point of extending the Green Line to Sullivan when the Orange Line is already there. The real problem is getting people from Sullivan (or Assembly or Wellington) to the ex-Monsanto site (whether it becomes a casino or some other kind of dense development).

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

That would be $8,000/day, assuming
a) 2,000 riders (unlikely)
b) all users of the station are not finding their way to Fields Corner or Ashmont today ("I'd take the T, but its 3/4 mile away, so I'm going drive downtown and pay $30 to park")
c) all users would be paying per trip and not using a LinkPass

That new revenue, coupled with the modest travel time savings for station users (<10 minutes travel time savings vs existing transit and walk options) must be measured against the 32,000 minutes (at least) of lost time for everyone already on board the vehicle at this point.

Are you arguing against a new station, or are you arguing against one more dime spent maintaining the Ashmont Branch stations? You're speaking as if this is a perjorative comparison, but you don't seem to want to explain what is so awful about it. Or how it relates to your original "redevelopment" point. Are you implying that residential neighborhoods that are built-out and thus can't make developers from outside the neighborhood money are not worth serving? That they can just go screw off because the stops where people uniformly spend deserve the spoils over the stops where people uniformly live?

Separate out your mixed messages and tell us what you ARE saying here.

In my first post I said there wasn't sufficient existing density w/in a half mile, AND that a station for redevelopment purposes wasn't necessary given the untapped opportunities at other stations on the line. If you don't build a new station to serve existing density or to facilitate new redevelopment, then why the hell would you do it?

No, that wasn't what you were doing. You were citing apples to back up an oranges argument. You posited that mixed-use redevelopment was the driver for new transit, but didn't offer any evidence as to how that redevelopment upside gets measured. You cited residential density stats vs. boarding counts per station distance instead, but said nothing about what the redevelopment relationship was to those stats. And that really fell apart when you cited Wollaston as a positive and the Ashmont Branch stops as negatives. The difference in redevelopment potential was not explained, and neither was the difference in the density data. What's the unsolved variable...your gut feeling?

Get your positions in your evidence in the same spreadsheet columns here. And yes, you CAN plausibly argue both points separately with separate contributing evidence. I never said there wasn't a valid point/counterpoint. But that's not what you were doing here.

So by arguing that rapid transit might not be necessary in the least dense, whitest, highest income, and most ravaged by auto infrastructure subset of Dorchester, I'm telegraphing what value judgement? Common sense?

So...your own gut feeling. Not evidence that matches up with your hypothesis.


Also...whitest? Whitest? Would you like to explain what race has to do with this, because I don't recall that being a key plank in this debate? What value judgment is that telegraphing? You flung it out there...now you explain it.

Unique and nuanced needs that seem to always call for new rapid transit in your posts.

You got a density heat map for that one, by chance? Or is your gut all the evidence you need to make a sweeping judgment?

I won't force you to re-read boring, verbose posts. But when I cite a need for rapid transit I stick pretty closely to the stuff that's been officially studied to death. Like this. Or this. Or a stripped-to-essentials, much slower-expanding version of this. And I'm generally sour on deviating much from those known-knowns into arbitrary lines on a map, needlessly overcomplicated force-fitting, or all-or-nothings so dauntingly large they can't be broken into practical bites or end up getting paralyzed and consumed by their own sheer scale.

But you knew that, and were just telegraphing that you're getting pissed off and don't want to have straight debate. Fine. It's the Crazy Transit Pitches thread, not life or death. I've got no quarrel with you as a poster, even if this sidebar got a little overheated.

Both, and an infill station in the middle of a highway interchange in Neponset fails on both counts.

See all I've written above. Then you need to support your redevelopment argument with redevelopment evidence and your density evidence with a density argument. Not throw it all in a heap and let some unsaid demographical innuendo about the people connect the dots.

 

[Arlington]

I don't see the point of extending the Green Line to Sullivan when the Orange Line is already there. The real problem is getting people from Sullivan (or Assembly or Wellington) to the ex-Monsanto site (whether it becomes a casino or some other kind of dense development).

I see your point, but think of this as a segment in the Urban Ring, with an easy option to go to Rte 99 and on around to Chelsea.

One day it might get an overlay of Porter-Union Sq-Sullivan-MonsantoWest-Rts99&16-Mystic Mall/Chelsea/Silver Line Gateway, which'd be pretty sweet.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I see your point, but think of this as a segment in the Urban Ring, with an easy option to go to Rte 99 and on around to Chelsea.

One day it might get an overlay of Porter-Union Sq-Sullivan-MonsantoWest-Rts99&16-Mystic Mall/Chelsea/Silver Line Gateway, which'd be pretty sweet.

Yeah...that was sort of the angle I was going for.

The casino is akin to the BCEC in that the sheer quantity of developer money being moved around means they get listened to when they demand transit. Ergo, political expediency says "do something!" Even when that's a very little thing, like the Track 61 dinky. Everybody knows you gotta get either the Green Line fed straight into the Seaport or man up and complete SL Phase III as a permanent solution, but nobody will talk about that until the inertia gets broken by doing something small that helps.


Here...

The GLX carhouse is still an open funding item. And not even in final design. The act of constructing it brings Green Line tracks 40% of the way to Sullivan. There probably be an all-day casino shuttle running back and forth from the Sullivan bus loop. The state will be under pressure to pony up the rest of the GLX funding in a heap because this humongous destination so close to downtown and so close to Northpoint means time's of the essence to get their Somerville-inbound demand served. With other considerations like entertainment on one side of the Mystic begetting entertainment on the other side of the Mystic like that Innerbelt soccer stadium.

Alright...urgency on the carhouse. And amidst that urgency is the itty bitty door left ajar to shiv a Track 61-like project into the bundle at a few dozen $M's to pipe a whole lot more people from a whole lot more sources onto those shuttles.

No one has to walk through this door. But it's ajar now. And it does exactly what the BCEC's needling does and forces the conversation back to the table on restarting the megaprojects that were abandoned. In Seaport's case, SL Phase III. In this area's case, Urban Ring. Here...unlike with Track 61...the little throw-in build for political expediency and developer good faith is the actual-factual beginning leg of the ultimate UR build and not a band-aid that will go away in lieu of the real thing.

With SL Chelsea reaching partially around the other side, doing this cheap starter makes that pressure to finish that quadrant of the Ring intense. All that remains is the most expensive 2.5 mile river-crossing + Everett midsection to go for on planning, and final decisions on integrating the separate BRT and LRT ends into one mode. You have built the 1 mile springboard north out of Lechmere station by getting to the carhouse and Sullivan, and you have built the 2-1/4 mile springboard west out of Airport station by getting to Mystic Mall. Half the UR miles, half the would-be UR stations. All the pressure now cresting on connecting the two.


No one has to walk through that door. But I don't think the UR gets put back on the front-burner by passing up easy-reach momentum starters, however small. BCEC knew how to push those buttons. Wynn et al. could do a lot worse than try for a little of the same.

 

[Arlington]

Yeah...that was sort of the angle I was going for.

Alright...urgency on the carhouse. And amidst that urgency is the itty bitty door left ajar to shiv a Track 61-like project into the bundle at a few dozen $M's to pipe a whole lot more people from a whole lot more sources onto those shuttles.... But I don't think the UR gets put back on the front-burner by passing up easy-reach momentum starters, however small. BCEC knew how to push those buttons. Wynn et al. could do a lot worse than try for a little of the same.

Now you have me thinking that co-locating the carhouse for the GLX on the MBTA's bus facility in Everett might actually be cheaper (and a better place) that doing the takings required to put it along the Inner Belt. And still be a decent platform for TOD "above" it and toward Rt 99.

 

[belmont square]

See all I've written above. Then you need to support your redevelopment argument with redevelopment evidence and your density evidence with a density argument. Not throw it all in a heap and let some unsaid demographical innuendo about the people connect the dots.

I give up. Your distortions of what I've written keep multiplying with each post, to the point where it is no longer worth it to counter them. I now agree that the Braintree Line "very much needs an infill station in Neponset" where 1/3 of the market area is Atlantic Ocean, another third is highway infrastructure and auto dependent development (that you clearly don't want the millionaires to redevelop) and 1/3 moderately dense residential (much of which can access existing Red Line stations in a few extra minutes compared to your proposed station location).

It is very much needed and, in fact, probable that the Braintree Line will be unable to survive much longer without it.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I give up. Your distortions of what I've written keep multiplying with each post, to the point where it is no longer worth it to counter them. I now agree that the Braintree Line "very much needs an infill station in Neponset" where 1/3 of the market area is Atlantic Ocean, another third is highway infrastructure and auto dependent development (that you clearly don't want the millionaires to redevelop) and 1/3 moderately dense residential (much of which can access existing Red Line stations in a few extra minutes compared to your proposed station location).

It is very much needed and, in fact, probable that the Braintree Line will be unable to survive much longer without it.

Very mature. Thank you for taking the first word in the thread title so literally.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Now you have me thinking that co-locating the carhouse for the GLX on the MBTA's bus facility in Everett might actually be cheaper (and a better place) that doing the takings required to put it along the Inner Belt. And still be a decent platform for TOD "above" it and toward Rt 99.

Already been long-decided decided what parcel they're taking. Debate was closed on the siting a few years ago after a protracted fight with Somerville over the alternatives. And they can't feed more than Union + Washington without the carhouse, so reopening the debate on where it goes pushes the paid-for GLX past the scope of this gee-whiz 2024 MassDOT map that just got released. That would be one hell of a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Somerville.


Everett doesn't have the acreage to fit an equivalent-size yard, much less one with enough slack space for service growth to feed this very extension across the Mystic. That brewery on the north fence of the property isn't going anywhere, all land to the south is the would-be casino's, and all the Broadway-facing crud is going to stay in private hands, get redeveloped, and gradually grow taller and more street-facing. Immediately adjacent to Santilli Circle on the other side of the brewery there's already a new 5-story condo building up and another small one across Charlton St. Only a matter of time before the rest of those parking lots and the blighted factory get remade with more of the same. That's the last of the open parcels. Everything else is Mystic wetlands and highway ramps. The built-up TOD is going to well predate the arrival of the station in this spot.

 

[jdrinboston]

And they can't feed more than Union + Washington without the carhouse.

F-Line, I've heard this statement a couple of times as part of the GLX planning/construction process. I don't doubt its accuracy, but I'm trying to figure out the logistics of why when having conversations with people about GLX. Is there an easy way to explain why the current carhouse storage facilities can accomodate trains to Union Square or Washington Street, but once you get to Gilman or Ball squares the whole thing falls apart?

Looking at the plans and timetables, it seems like the carhouse cost and location has a lot of potential to foul things up.

 

[belmont square]

And that really fell apart when you cited Wollaston as a positive and the Ashmont Branch stops as negatives. The difference in redevelopment potential was not explained, and neither was the difference in the density data. What's the unsolved variable...your gut feeling?

OK--its morning and I have a little more energy now.

My only statement on Wollaston was included in this point:
[/QUOTE]there's plenty of redevelopment opportunities around the downstream stations (Broadway, Andrew, JFK) and upstream stations (N Quincy, Wollaston, Quincy Ctr) that already exist. [/QUOTE]

So, my pointing out the obvious (that there is developable land around Wollaston station) is me citing a positive...

My comment comparing to Ashmont stations said this:
[/QUOTE]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). [/QUOTE]

So, referencing actual ridership stats for existing stations is me calling them a negative...

Instead of responding with several paragraphs of wild and unsupportable accusations, is it possible for you to write a response in less than 200 words that would enlighten us by answering these questions:

1) why do you think a Neponset Station would bring in more riders than Shawmut or Savin Hill?
2) assuming you don't, why do you think building an infill station that would rank 45th out of 50th for rapid transit station ridership is so important?
3) if part of the recipe for Neponset Station success is new housing or other development around the station, do you not think leveraging those opportunities at existing stations on the same line would be a more rational first step?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

F-Line, I've heard this statement a couple of times as part of the GLX planning/construction process. I don't doubt its accuracy, but I'm trying to figure out the logistics of why when having conversations with people about GLX. Is there an easy way to explain why the current carhouse storage facilities can accomodate trains to Union Square or Washington Street, but once you get to Gilman or Ball squares the whole thing falls apart?

Looking at the plans and timetables, it seems like the carhouse cost and location has a lot of potential to foul things up.

Serving Union + Washington with the Lechmere yard gone requires some delicate tap-dancing. They have to use the Medford Branch mainline tracks behind the last Phase I station as stopgap storage. But without the crossovers between tracks like you have at Alewife or North Station to pull trains easily in or out, because those tracks are under active construction to continue further as the mainline. The E loses its only storage yard @ Lechmere, and they'll have to more gingerly balance an extra set stored at the second Heath loop at peak and on shift changes. They have to pack North Station Yard fuller, and send out more run-as-directeds out of there north or to the E to cover any runs where they're short a train in the limited end-of-line storage space...not real efficient, and passes up a lot of revenue to start an empty train mid-run. They have to use the Brattle Loop tracks between GC and Haymarket. Especially overnights to position stuff for start of service, and (depending on how many stations you try to open pre-carhouse) stuffing it full before a shift change from offpeak to onpeak. There are Sox games and Garden events to manage, where these storage tracks are already packed solid for gameday extras and where (for the Garden) the Brattle Loop is used for short-turn revenue service. And subzero or bad-weather winter days they already stuff every nook and cranny inside the subway--Kenmore Loop, the Boylston pocket track, Brattle Loop, NS Yard--to the gills so they have some climate-protected equipment to run at 5:00am not susceptible to cold-start problems in the outdoor yards.

Furious amount of tap-dancing. So they've determined that Union and Washington are safe, Gilman is the furthest they can push their luck, and anywhere further puts an undue strain on the system that degrades service across the board. It's a real limit. If you think the GL is unreliable now, try using it when College Ave. service at rush hour requires mad scrambling all the way from Riverside to keep headway after headway from getting blown.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Serving Union + Washington with the Lechmere yard gone requires some delicate tap-dancing.

Here's a thought: Build the GLX but leave the existing Lechmere yard in place until a replacement elsewhere is built in the future. The new Lechmere station could still be built.

This option would be an easy and cheap interim solution.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Here's a thought: Build the GLX but leave the existing Lechmere yard in place until a replacement elsewhere is built in the future. The new Lechmere station could still be built.

This option would be an easy and cheap interim solution.

Can't. Existing Lechmere has already been deeded to Pan Am in the land swap that acquired New Lechmere station + all the freight tracks being cannibalized for the Union Branch (current Track 3), the carhouse, and the area around the line split. Old station's parcel's getting bidded out to another Northpoint developer the second the opening date of New Lechmere gets finalized to < 1 year's accuracy, and they're going to move fast after the grand opening to demolish the old station and viaduct over O'Brien Hwy. Pan Am is paying to streetscape Lechmere Sq. as part of the deal for that parcel.


Not a bad thing in the slightest. Makes Lechmere Sq. a lot better a destination, and the state got a pretty favorable deal in all that GLX- and Northpoint-related horse trading with Pan Am. Assets that go way outside the Lechmere/Brickbottom area, too. State additionally picked up free lifetime trackage rights for commuter rail to Concord, Plaistow, Wachusett, and Worcester-Ayer in the deal. And picked up two long-abandoned freight yards in Lowell to flip for redevelopment (on the map that whole NW area bounded by the Lowell Line, Lundberg and Meadowcroft Streets, and Bleachery Jct...then SE bounded by Lundberg, the Lowell Line, Concord River, and those residences on Stromquist Ave.).

 

[c_combat]

 

[cbrett]

Really neat map, like the style of it but kinda hard to make out most of the detail

 

[c_combat]

Yea, I'm not sure how to upload bigger files and or better pictures. Once I know how I can post some better stuff.