Crazy Transit Pitches

[George_Apley]

That's why I was leaning more towards deep bore all the way through that segment, even when running directly under Dartmouth. Put it below the fill, has to get under the Green Line, Mass Pike, and Orange Line, anyway.

Any bored tunnels and stations on filled land would have to be 175'+ below ground level. That's where the bedrock is. Porter is 105' down.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Any bored tunnels and stations on filled land would have to be 175'+ below ground level. That's where the bedrock is. Porter is 105' down.

This is not true anymore. The tunnel boring experts (mostly European) are pretty accomplished at boring through loose glacial till and blue clay now.

The MWRA demonstrated this emphatically with the South Boston Combined Sewer Overflow Tunnel under Day Blvd. along Carson Beach. 2 miles of 17 ft. tunnel, bored pretty close to the surface in glacial till and clay, using TBM. Completed in 2011 under budget and ahead of schedule with minimal surface disruptions (which is why no one seems to know about the accomplishment!).

Yes, a subway tunnel needs more features for stations, but the concept holds. TBM can be used effectively in Boston's soft subsurface.

 

[KCasiglio]

This was actually my attempt at avoiding a circumferential routing. This is just supposed to be part of expanding the hub-and-spoke system into a grid, hitting job centers while adding a spoke on the north side of the harbor. A circumferential routing should be further out.

As a Quincy-Copely commuter, big fan. I like the orange alternative it builds in as well. On the northern end, I know you're not trying to be radial but why not terminal at a blue line connection?

 

[ulrichomega]

This was actually my attempt at avoiding a circumferential routing. This is just supposed to be part of expanding the hub-and-spoke system into a grid, hitting job centers while adding a spoke on the north side of the harbor. A circumferential routing should be further out.

Ah! Excellent, then. I agree that Boston will need something beyond the current downtown rectangle (sort of a pentagon?) of line crossings, and that seems a good place to go with it. Hitting Back Bay and Kendall, as well as JFK would be an excellent connection proposition. I still think that, functionally, it would be a bit of a circumferential route, giving people invery Back Bay a way to get up to Kendall without needing to go downtown (for example), but at that point I think we're just quibbling over what differentiates circumferential from just adding a new subway line.

Every time I've tried to put together a whole-cloth subway it's very hard to put together any sort of new routing that makes any sort of sense. It always feels like just stitching random roads together and calling it a day.

New Grid Route Spitballing - Google My Maps

New Grid Route Spitballing

drive.google.com

EDIT: Updated with more nonsense and the existing lines to get a sense of what it would take to get a proper grid of subway lines going. If we're looking far enough into the future that the MBTA is buying a TBM to drill a completely new tunnel from one end of town to the other, than I think we're far enough out that the existing employment centers without multiple lines are at a breaking point (Kendall, Longwood, the Seaport, etc.). So a new line would pretty much have to connect those centers to the other lines as well as the Commuter Rail and also go out far enough to be able to keep trains full-ish. So I think something like the Black Line or the Brown Line on the map would be the most likely candidates. They'd each be at least $10 billion projects, probably closer to $20 or $30 billion, putting them firmly outside the scope of this thread and into the scope of Fantasy T Maps.

Also, every route I can come up with ends up feeling circumferential because it inevitably ends up going around downtown.

 

[cats10000]

Not Sure if this is crazy or reasonable but my idea is to convert track 61 to a busway and run SL2 busses on it
I made a crude map here https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewe...&ll=42.34547885863129,-71.03361254999999&z=15
(First time using google my maps)

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Not Sure if this is crazy or reasonable but my idea is to convert track 61 to a busway and run SL2 busses on it
I made a crude map here https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&mid=18WJ6tMQf6GQqfopRP8AiGK9HDIv6AGUp&ll=42.34547885863129,-71.03361254999999&z=15
(First time using google my maps)

61 isn't wide enough to run a bus, being pinched to minimum-clearance single track most of the way. Now, Southie Haul Rd. is easily available paralleling that track the whole way to co-mingle transit buses with the restricted-use truck traffic. Legit proposals like Dudley-Seaport Urban Ring BRT would utilize that.

For purposes of SL2, the Massport track (it's no longer 61 ownership-wise after Pumphouse Rd.) is slicing through parking lots adjacent to building loading docks...and thus is really inappropriate for any transit use. You will have to remain on-street for the Drydock Ave./Black Falcon Ave. loop. However, at single BRT lane per each of those two streets comprising the loop you do have enough room to consider re-streetscaping options for partial grade-separated reservation. That'll probably end up accomplishing all of the job you'd want for optimized transit flow.

 

[Wash]

It's a bit sad that "New Heavy-rail Subway in Boston" is crazy but oh well here goes. Orange line-centric because reasons. God, all these terminal stations are just gonna suck.

1: Convert GLX to OLX

2: Finally build the Washington Street Subway, ending at Dudley Square.

3: Heavy-Rail-stitute the 66 bus, with optional non-revenue connections built between Red at Harvard Square and the new Orange line branch at Dudley Square.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

1. Branching OL clobbers headways from Sullivan-Malden. Not a good idea when two major bus hubs feel the pinch. I think a better HRT option is available for GLX-Medford now that the NSRL study has ID'd the (bad for NSRL, but potentially good for rapid transit) Congress St. alignment out of SS. NSRL absolutely needs to be built 4-track on the CA/T alignment, but if Congress is a viable (if expensive) dig for a 2-track tunnel you now have open path to build the "Red X" off the RL Cabot Yard leads. Figure this:

• run revenue service off Columbia Jct. via the Cabot leads.
• divert near Haul Road into the disused upper Broadway tunnel--stop at Broadway "Upper"--then up Dot Ave. to SS and conjoin to the existing Red/Silver fare lobby--stop at SS "Under". Depths of all tunnels would be different, but since the NSRL report states both the CA/T and Congress alignments are simultaneously buildable all would fit.
• up Congress. Stops at Post Office Square, State St. (offset by block from Orange/Blue, connected by fare lobby), Haymarket, North Station (upper berth above Orange).
• graft-on portal next to Orange by Community College. Possible slight-offset RL-CC station. Possible Phase I terminus and small turnback yard here to inaugurate service while planning further extension.
• shallow-cut duck under of Boston Sand & Gravel yard, BET commuter rail tracks. Get on alignment with Fitchburg Line, popping briefly above-ground by perimeter access road along BET/Northpoint property line. Probably not any room for a dedicated Northpoint/Cambridge Crossing station here, but the new staircase off Gilmore Bridge pretty much frame CC and Lechmere as their home stops anyway so stick where the frequencies are.
• quick duck under the GLX/Fitchburg spaghetti at Brickbottom, then on-alignment for Medford. Take over all stops from Washington to Route 16, then extend (Phase III) as necessary north to Winchester or Woburn. Northern GL branches become more duty-focused on the Urban Ring NW & NE quadrants + Union branch and further extensions to Porter, Watertown, etc.
• run service on the "X" in rotating fashion: Alewife-Ashmont, Alewife-Braintree, Medford-Ashmont, Medford-Braintree. All route combinations end up getting fullest 3-min. mainline headways for intra-route service, and no worse than 6-min. headways for every permutation of alternating service "X" leg to "X" leg. What this does is:
  • outright doubles Ashmont & Braintree branch service (big for exploding Quincy growth) while doing no harm to existing mainline service. This is huge if CBD growth is going to tap out by midcentury and surging south is the only way to go.
  • encourages further extension of Ashmont Branch past Mattapan to Hyde Park + Dedham Ctr. New service patterns end up with more headroom/resiliance for slight branch schedule length imbalances.
  • SERIOUSLY de-clogs Broadway-Park and saves existing line from always being at the edge of chaos (regardless of Red-Blue, etc. builds) from choking on its dwells in ped-constrained old stations.
  • substantially infills an alt-spine to most of the big transfer stations. Provided that Seaport-Downtown Green Line gets built, these stations would have THREE levels of rapid transit transfers: SS (existing Red, "lower" Red, Green/Silver Transitway), State (Red/Orange/Blue), Haymarket (Red/Orange/Green), NS (Red/Orange/Green). Plus both surface + NSRL Purple Line terminals covered in triplicate for RUR and Amtrak. These stops would all have two rapid transit transfers if other formal-proposed builds are complete: Broadway (existing Red, "upper" Red"), Tufts Med Ctr. (Orange/Green likely), Park (Red/Green + OL concourse stet), GC (Blue/Green stet), Charles MGH (Red/Blue), Community College (Red/Orange), Sullivan (Orange/Green-Urban Ring), Porter (Red/Green), Harvard (Red/Green-Urban Ring), Back Bay (Orange/Green if E relocated off Copley and reattached to Tufts/Boylston), Kenmore (Green/Blue if "Riverbank"/Storrow trade-in off Charles built), Logan Airport (Blue/Green-Urban Ring). Plus the outside- fare control Urban Ring Kendall stop a block away from the Red lobby. Holy distributed loads, Urban Planning Man!
  • downtown bus load-reshaper. Post Office Square routes (4, 92, 93) can get re-drawn or truncated more advantageously away from traffic. In conjunction with GL-Transitway you can probably deflect the 7 & 11 away from crossing through the Financial District, and obviously the surface Silver Line routes go away. You'd basically end up achieving BERy's original goal of a downtown CBD freed from slow surface transit.
  • In a world where Red-Blue, Transitway-Green, Urban Ring, and Green Line Transformation-inspired radial streamlining are already über-priorities the "Red X" recycling the surplus Congress St. alignment ends up contributing 6 more load-distributor transfers to the mix.

I wouldn't really call this high-priority with the project backlog we have to keep moving to keep Boston from choking on its own 2040 growth. But as the next encore post-2040 to assure we're a sustainable city for the whole second half of the century? This is a potentially big one for the doubling of capacity on existing trunks, contribution of half-dozen more load-spread transfers in the CBD, and 100% compatibility/0% risk to any existing RL service. Payback for the large up-front investment is self-evident in the exponential growth it affords through load-spreading, whether it costs a kajillion dollars or not. If the Congress alignment is as feasible as the NSRL study says it is, we already know this can be built. The only thing "Crazy" about it is how many decades sooner than the next guy do you predict we'll need it.

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2. Let's get the surface LRT spine first, since that can be done in only a few years at reasonable $$$. Washington burial is unfortunately going to be very "hard" tunneling compared to some easier ones like burying the B to BU Bridge to enable Urban Ring NW quadrant, burying the E to Brookline Village to "alt-spine" Kenmore-Downtown, or trading in the Storrow midsection's roadbed for an affordably shallow BL-Kenmore. Harder also than some genuine lower-priority stuff like RLX Mattapan-Hyde Park under River St. And, amongst kajillion-dollar efforts, certainly a lower ceiling benefits-wise than the two biggies: GL-Transitway and NSRL. LRT'ing Washington can be folded in with the GL-Transitway effort if a South End routing is determined favorable over all the structural underpinning problems that killed Silver Line Phase III's Essex St. alignment. In which case the 4-track Tremont St. tunnel can continue 4-track through the Tufts transfer station down Tremont to the corner of Marginal, then split 2 x 2 tunnel to SS vs. portal-up to Washington such that there's total traffic separation everywhere Boylston-outbound. Get the bus terminal properly fed with 6-min. headways flushing downtown, and then since the southern-half Urban Ring is probably going to have to be Kenmore-Dudley BRT + Dudley-Southie BRT from lack of rail ROW's the extra rapid transit spine works hand-in-hand with UR to strengthen the area. Figure also that if the E gets relocated off Copley through Back Bay station and plugs in at this same junction you're probably going to have an E-to-Seaport/Washington underground wye leg providing additionally attractive alternate service patterns later on.

Deep-future you obviously take your best shot at studying burial options, but I somewhat doubt it's ever going to get to the point of pulling the trigger. Construction disruption down Washington is simply too hard for what it's going to chew in mitigation cost, and surface LRT (including TBD patterns that can alt-circuit off the E to re-shape some bus loads) ends up "good enough" long enough that you'll be waiting to midcentury or beyond for any congestion threshold that merits pulling trigger on such a megaproject.

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3. Hard, hard tunneling over extremely hilly terrain, and awkward interfaces with whatever you hope to hook it into. Rather, I think you need to think in terms of what other builds do to transform this route and ease its congestion. Building Urban Ring LRT with the Harvard spur takes a substantial bite out of the 66 via diversions into Kenmore transfer where hopping across platforms or upstairs onto the UR SW quadrant BRT ends up completing the crosstown trip in two seats faster than it ever took on one 66 seat. This includes more diversions at Harvard Ave. to the B due to the major speedup of inbound schedules from the subway being extended to BU Bridge for the UR interface. The UR studies all saw substantial ridership diversions off the 66 as a result of those new radial gains. Similarly, West Station and Urban Rail-Riverside on the Worcester Line draws a bigger demarcation point in audience turnover at the midpoint of the route. Post-UR and post-West the 66 is going to serve significantly different function, one more easily dealt with in chunks transfer-to-transfer instead of end-to-end Harvard-Dudley. That ends up solving a lot of its issues by recasting most trips on the route to short-hops. It'll always be a radial in need of some BRT-like enhancements, but with other builds in place it doesn't have to act like a miscast singular corridor with intrinsically sucky travel times. Prying off large chunks of ridership to other services ends up accomplishing more than trying to single-task it harder than ever.

 

[Cortes]

Crazy transit pitches... How 'bout a Maglev station at Widett Circle. Figure 2060.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Crazy transit pitches... How 'bout a Maglev station at Widett Circle. Figure 2060.

From where. The mythical Washington-Baltimore maglev doesn't even have acquireable ROW...never mind trying to linchpin something around NYC. Conventional HSR is getting better enough technologically at a steady enough clip that an improved NEC + inland New Haven-Hartford-Providence bypass of the slow Shoreline specced in less stupid fashion than the NEC FUTURE study probably accomplishes 90%+ of the goal while sticking to the more adaptable and less land-hungry common carrier network.

Maglev adoption worldwide is always going to be several steps shy of critical mass for more substantial builds because of this. HSR is simply keeping up at too good a pace evolutionarily for much of a gap to open up that maglev can really take advantage of long-term.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Here's my idea for a Blue Line to Watertown via Charles, Kenmore and West Station. The dark blue line would be tunnel (mostly deep bore but some cut-and-cover under Cambridge Street). The light blue would be elevated on a single-pier aesthetically pleasing structure. Red markers are stations. It would greatly reduce traffic on the Green Line "Central Subway" and provide the long dreamed of heavy rail transit along an east-west corridor through Boston, restore rail transit to Watertown and allow for TOD along portions of the route. It could also eliminate the need for Storrow Drive west of Arlington Street, or at least downsize it to a narrower surface boulevard.

 

[stefal]

I'm as pro removing/downsizing Storrow as the next guy, but what's the rationale for the Blue Line Extension eliminating the need for Storrow? Much of the traffic is coming from/to 93, is it not? How does a BLX/green line alleviation remove the need for 2-4 lanes along the Charles?

 

[Equilibria]

I'm as pro removing/downsizing Storrow as the next guy, but what's the rationale for the Blue Line Extension eliminating the need for Storrow? Much of the traffic is coming from/to 93, is it not? How does a BLX/green line alleviation remove the need for 2-4 lanes along the Charles?

It doesn't. The argument is that it's the cheapest way to build a subway. F-Line and others have proposed building the Blue Line in the Storrow ROW.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Here's my idea for a Blue Line to Watertown via Charles, Kenmore and West Station. The dark blue line would be tunnel (mostly deep bore but some cut-and-cover under Cambridge Street). The light blue would be elevated on a single-pier aesthetically pleasing structure. Red markers are stations. It would greatly reduce traffic on the Green Line "Central Subway" and provide the long dreamed of heavy rail transit along an east-west corridor through Boston, restore rail transit to Watertown and allow for TOD along portions of the route. It could also eliminate the need for Storrow Drive west of Arlington Street, or at least downsize it to a narrower surface boulevard.

If you are going to tunnel like that, why not cross the Charles and connect up to the Grand Junction ROW (and surface then), providing more service to Kendall, MIT, Cambridge Port, then crossing again to West Station.

The Back Bay portion of the tunnel proposed is entirely redundant with GL service. Where as Kendall/MIT/Cambridge Port desperately need more service!

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'm as pro removing/downsizing Storrow as the next guy, but what's the rationale for the Blue Line Extension eliminating the need for Storrow? Much of the traffic is coming from/to 93, is it not? How does a BLX/green line alleviation remove the need for 2-4 lanes along the Charles?

Need to be specific about which section of Storrow.

• Public Gardens to 93 is the fastest route out of dead-center downtown to the north, and is the portion furthest from the Pike. This is why it's badged as the MA 28 mainline. That section of parkway is a necessity.
• Soldiers Field Rd. from the Pike to Kenmore + Emerald Necklace is the most direct interface to Kenmore and the Necklace parkways. The Pike doesn't intersect at favorable angles for pooling traffic, there's very few places WB where on/off ramps would work, and the Worcester Line blocks any EB attempts at local ramps. As much as folks hate how much this pinches the riverfront, there's no plausible substitute for this section.
• The midsection from Kenmore to Public Gardens is completely redundant to the Pike. Copley Square is adequately served, and there are plenty of opportunities for more WB ramps to infill. That redundant Pike portion is also not nearly as over-capacity as the Pike in Allston-Newton, so it can feasibly take more intracity traffic. Storrow on this midsection is known to have a high rate of induced-demand traffic using it as a thru route to 93 specifically to avoid the Allston tolls. If the Pike were free intracity between Allston and 93 it is assumed that there would be noticeable reduction in car counts on this Storrow midsection.

So, #1...the transit trade-in only bullseyes the redundant section with highest induced demand and most alternatives for traffic diversions. It's also the most impactful section in terms of noise/visual/access impacts to the crown-jewel stretch of Esplanade...which lost a lot of its luster when the parkway was plowed through in the late-30's. For all these reasons this is the parkway segment most oft-lamented and oft- talked about for a teardown. The transit angle comes in because once you've stripped away all the induced demand traffic that shouldn't be on that midsection to begin with, how many people left does that section serve and how can they be alternately moved? An HRT extension between Charles and Kenmore is the closest approximation to total # of people moved per day vs. the remaining 'natural' car traffic on that segment. Therefore, if there is desire to reclaim the riverfront there must be a transit offset that picks up enough remaining slack from what is lost.

That is the basic value proposition. Transit isn't the only reason to tear down the parkway midsection; city life factors like reclaiming the riverfront also loom large. It becomes an easier value proposition to take up because the Pike is capable of absorbing so much of the redundancy, the Blue Line is available at Charles for the load-bearing task, the tunneling techniques along the disused Storrow EB roadbed (described at length elsewhere) are huge cost-savers vs. any other pathway, the EB roadbed-recycling tunnel has added bonus (see previous posts) of doubling as reinforced flood wall for Back Bay, and surface-level tunnel is compatible with landscaping for a re-knit riverfront. What can exist for vehicular access post-teardown is a slow-speed 2-lane park access drive occupying the 3-lane WB carriageway.

There's lots of transit bona fides for extending Blue, including relieving Green @ Kenmore for Urban Ring and transfer duty. But mainly this is about the existential question of should we reclaim the riverfront from a surplus-to-requirement road of hideously poor design that has offsets elsewhere? And if so, a transit offset is probably going to be the terms of engagement for making sure similar number of non- induced demand trips are accommodated in the trade in. We haven't really begun hashing out the pros/cons of this as a city, but with us starting to seriously rationalize the excesses of the parkway network this is going to become a burning debate akin to "Tear Down the Bowker!" in the later 2020's and 2030's. Will it hit a consensus on Blue trade-in? I have no idea. But I am pretty sure we're going to be talking a LOT more about this one as a city over the next decade.

 

[Charlie_mta]

If you are going to tunnel like that, why not cross the Charles and connect up to the Grand Junction ROW (and surface then), providing more service to Kendall, MIT, Cambridge Port, then crossing again to West Station.

The Back Bay portion of the tunnel proposed is entirely redundant with GL service. Where as Kendall/MIT/Cambridge Port desperately need more service!

I think a Green Line along the GJ (branching off the new GLX) would serve that function well. I would link it to West Station, where connections would be made with the new Blue Line and commuter rail.

 

[HenryAlan]

From the MBTA Transformation thread:

View attachment 2391

What about using the Tremont St tunnel south of Boylston to turn back GLX trains, and eliminate the Brattle Loop that way? Not only would the loop be eliminated, but the Red Line connection is maintained despite short turning downtown.

Credit to Van for the original map which I modified for clarity.

Made me wonder about the feasibility of a Tufts Medical super station using the existing Tremont St. tunnel. Looks like it gets pretty close to the Orange Line station. How hard would it be to excavate a platform and then a pedestrian tunnel to connect Green Line with Orange Line at that spot? It would only be able to serve the Medford and Union Square branches for now, but that might be a valuable service pattern.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

From the MBTA Transformation thread:



Made me wonder about the feasibility of a Tufts Medical super station using the existing Tremont St. tunnel. Looks like it gets pretty close to the Orange Line station. How hard would it be to excavate a platform and then a pedestrian tunnel to connect Green Line with Orange Line at that spot? It would only be able to serve the Medford and Union Square branches for now, but that might be a valuable service pattern.

There is open path to connect a Green fare lobby under Eliot Norton Park with the Orange fare lobby on the next block, and do it inside fare control. It would be a longish connector, not unlike the usually closed Berkeley St. connecting concourse to Arlington Station, but it is feasible.

Structurally, of course, the stations would be detached from each other as they're on separate street blocks. But there are available alleyways to trench the ped connection straightforwardly. No structural dependencies (including the 1976-fill parkland above) is the attractiveness of the Tremont/Tufts alignment over Silver Line Phase III's Chinatown transfer...which impaled its budget projections on needing to underpin the already complicated-layout 1909 Orange station with a bi-level lower BRT station for unwieldy TRI-level tunnel stacking. Tufts + lobby connector is several orders of magnitude cleaner and more affordable at little total difference vs. Chinatown in catchments served. That--plus the fact that it would be a higher-capacity quad-tracker--is the primary value proposition of the Tufts alignment.

 

[Equilibria]

From the MBTA Transformation thread:



Made me wonder about the feasibility of a Tufts Medical super station using the existing Tremont St. tunnel. Looks like it gets pretty close to the Orange Line station. How hard would it be to excavate a platform and then a pedestrian tunnel to connect Green Line with Orange Line at that spot? It would only be able to serve the Medford and Union Square branches for now, but that might be a valuable service pattern.

Notwithstanding F-Line's response, doesn't that only work from the north, since there's no ability to make the Boyston->Tremont turn?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Notwithstanding F-Line's response, doesn't that only work from the north, since there's no ability to make the Boyston->Tremont turn?

Yes. But deep-future you'll be thinking seriously about relocating the E off at-grade Copley Jct. Going from Prudential to Back Bay station then down Marginal Rd. in the urban renewal zone puts you at the corner of Tremont a block from Tufts.

You'll already have E-to-D surface connector by this point, so B and C are the only patterns that don't have an alt-routed shot into intetlining here. Urban Ring LRT out of Kenmore or Harvard/West will obviously have a way in via the bi-directional junctions at BU Bridge and Brickbottom.

So if you consider the Copley Jct. E fix as an eventual must-have follow on for Central Subway congestion management, the north-south orientation of the Tufts alignment covers the lion's share. E relocation enabling all that is probably easier in absolute costs than force-fitting a western orientation...which upended SL Phase III with more lethal cost blowouts under the Common & Public Gardens. So relatively speaking thinking two steps ahead to what fills out those 4 tracks of Tufts patterns ends up easier reach than a one-shot killshot megaproject.