Crazy Transit Pitches

[Tallguy]

And not sure what Harvard has to do with GJ GL. Thats more of a MIT thing

 

[Tallguy]

CR will never, ever happen on the GJ. The Cambridge government and NIMBYs are absolutely against it, and when Cambridge is against something, it ain't happening. On the other hand, light rail is politically doable.

Exactly!

 

[Tallguy]

And unfortunately, Harvard isnt telling any one what they want.

 

[NoShJFK]

Not sure where this goes but …

What is confusing to me is this state is obviously a ”Safe” blue state - albeit with a willingness to elect Republicans far more often than most “Safe” states are willing to elect members of the opposite party.

With that said you would think it would translate into a very pro-mass transit state. And most of our politicans always seem to run and profess themselves to be decisively pro-MBTA. And always seem to endorse improving it and expanding it.

Yet - hardly ever do many of these major projects get built. What would be the cost of 4 or 5 of the bigger projects being built? $35B in total?

If the state budget is $45B - What is stoping something like a 12 year plan from being passed that costs around $2.9B or something.

It seems do-able. I just don’t get why it never ends up being a priority

 

[jklo]

And not sure what Harvard has to do with GJ GL. Thats more of a MIT thing

Because the Allston project is what's driving this. And what's driving the Allston project is Harvard's desire to make a ton of money on real estate.

CR will never, ever happen on the GJ. The Cambridge government and NIMBYs are absolutely against it, and when Cambridge is against something, it ain't happening. On the other hand, light rail is politically doable.

IMO Cambridge wants the tracks gone completely. I don't think they will get that. I could see them putting up a stink but the end result would be status quo. So far all of the renders have shown CR.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Because the Allston project is what's driving this. And what's driving the Allston project is Harvard's desire to make a ton of money on real estate.

The Grand Junction does not touch one acre of Harvard property.

IMO Cambridge wants the tracks gone completely. I don't think they will get that. I could see them putting up a stink but the end result would be status quo.

[CITATION!]

You are flinging an awful lot of personal opinion cloaked as gospel in this thread. There is no evidence they want the tracks "gone". Start substantiating these whoppers, please!

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

CR will never, ever happen on the GJ. The Cambridge government and NIMBYs are absolutely against it, and when Cambridge is against something, it ain't happening. On the other hand, light rail is politically doable.

The opposition gets overstated to an absurd degree. Cambridge reacted negatively to the Worcester-North Station proposal because ex-Lt. Gov. Tim Murray had a particularly bad foot-in-mouth moment where he announced the plan as advancing ahead of the release of the scoping study, when in fact it was not. The City and MIT were angry that the Administration bypassed any local input, and got defensive in a hurry. At no point were any of the sticking points substantive...because they hadn't even seen the (middling) study results yet. It was all a reaction to the political faux pax of some big ego bypassing the established chain of command. Any municipality would react similarly to such a cold shoulder. It doesn't mean a pitchfork-wielding mob was ready to block the tracks at the first mention.

In the actual study the City had open-ended concerns about the considerable traffic impacts at the crossings. MIT had some concerns about vibrations around their labs. Neither rose to the level of "absolutely against". Indeed, we haven't even well quantified how strong the opposition actually is because the study got no further development (and indeed no follow-up at all when Gov. Patrick made his hot-air Olympics-baiting dinky plan for the GJ). There's probably some...but we haven't even discussed what the potential scope is.


"Absolutely against" gets brought up time and again on these threads as a self-evident shutdown without a shred of evidence substantiating it. Please stop doing that, and cite any instances of opposition specifically instead of in blanket form.

 

[Charlie_mta]

The opposition gets overstated to an absurd degree. Cambridge reacted negatively to the Worcester-North Station proposal because ex-Lt. Gov. Tim Murray had a particularly bad foot-in-mouth moment where he announced the plan as advancing ahead of the release of the scoping study, when in fact it was not. The City and MIT were angry that the Administration bypassed any local input, and got defensive in a hurry. At no point were any of the sticking points substantive...because they hadn't even seen the (middling) study results yet. It was all a reaction to the political faux pax of some big ego bypassing the established chain of command. Any municipality would react similarly to such a cold shoulder. It doesn't mean a pitchfork-wielding mob was ready to block the tracks at the first mention.

In the actual study the City had open-ended concerns about the considerable traffic impacts at the crossings. MIT had some concerns about vibrations around their labs. Neither rose to the level of "absolutely against". Indeed, we haven't even well quantified how strong the opposition actually is because the study got no further development (and indeed no follow-up at all when Gov. Patrick made his hot-air Olympics-baiting dinky plan for the GJ). There's probably some...but we haven't even discussed what the potential scope is.

"Absolutely against" gets brought up time and again on these threads as a self-evident shutdown without a shred of evidence substantiating it. Please stop doing that, and cite any instances of opposition specifically instead of in blanket form.

Okay, so maybe somehow Cambridge can be convinced to okay CR going through MIT, but I don't think so. I grew up in Cambridge and have seen multiple instances of any kind of substantive transportation project being blocked (the one exception being the Red line to Alewife, which made it because of favorite son Tip O'Neill fully backing it, but even that was scaled back to have a one way road to the Concord Turnpike at Alewife instead of the intended two-way road).

The first project blocked by Cambridge was the 1963 proposed at-grade Mass Pike along the Boston side of the Charles, which would have filled in a sliver of the Charles River to shift SFR over a bit. That was blocked by Cambridge, even though Boston was okay with it, and so the viaduct was built instead. The next one was, of course, the Inner Belt in the late 60s. The entire project along with the connecting NW Expressway to Alewife was shot down. Even a double-decked version of the Inner Belt directly above the GJ proposed by the City of Cambridge, was blocked when MIT voiced concerns about vibrations, the same concerns they voiced about CR on the GJ. A more recent project blocked was in the 90s when MassDOT wanted to widen and improve the Alewife intersection of Routes 2 and 16, plus Alewife Brook Parkway itself a bit in the Rindge Ave area. In the annals of NIMBYism and stopping projects, Cambridge is legendary, and I've seen few urban areas in the US more intransigent and successful in their opposition to transportation projects than Cambridge.

 

[bigpicture7]

Okay, so maybe somehow Cambridge can be convinced to okay CR going through MIT, but I don't think so. I grew up in Cambridge and have seen multiple instances of any kind of substantive transportation project being blocked (the one exception being the Red line to Alewife, which made it because of favorite son Tip O'Neill fully backing it, but even that was scaled back to have a one way road to the Concord Turnpike at Alewife instead of the intended two-way road).

The first project blocked by Cambridge was the 1963 proposed at-grade Mass Pike along the Boston side of the Charles, which would have filled in a sliver of the Charles River to shift SFR over a bit. That was blocked by Cambridge, even though Boston was okay with it, and so the viaduct was built instead. The next one was, of course, the Inner Belt in the late 60s. The entire project along with the connecting NW Expressway to Alewife was shot down. Even a double-decked version of the Inner Belt directly above the GJ proposed by the City of Cambridge, was blocked when MIT voiced concerns about vibrations, the same concerns they voiced about CR on the GJ. A more recent project blocked was in the 90s when MassDOT wanted to widen and improve the Alewife intersection of Routes 2 and 16, plus Alewife Brook Parkway itself a bit in the Rindge Ave area. In the annals of NIMBYism and stopping projects, Cambridge is legendary, and I've seen few urban areas in the US more intransigent and successful in their opposition to transportation projects than Cambridge.

Charlie, I always appreciate the rich historic perspectives you share, particularly about Cambridge. I just want to point out one potential (somewhat) recent attitude shift, which is MIT's public recognition that Kendall/campus lacks the requisite commuter infrastructure to sustain the campus going forward. They've since been strongly incentivizing employees to take the T (full T pass reimbursement, deeply discounted CR, various measures to dissuade driving/parking). They are also a sponsor of the GJ walking/biking path. In full fairness, I have not heard (to my recollection) them offer any sort of official endorsement of GJ LRT/etc, but endorsing such would seem highly congruent with other recent activity/stances. Cambridge as a whole may still offer resistance, but I wouldn't be surprised to see MIT emerge as a supporter.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Charlie, I always appreciate the rich historic perspectives you share, particularly about Cambridge. I just want to point out one potential (somewhat) recent attitude shift, which is MIT's public recognition that Kendall/campus lacks the requisite commuter infrastructure to sustain the campus going forward. They've since been strongly incentivizing employees to take the T (full T pass reimbursement, deeply discounted CR, various measures to dissuade driving/parking). They are also a sponsor of the GJ walking/biking path. In full fairness, I have not heard (to my recollection) them offer any sort of official endorsement of GJ LRT/etc, but endorsing such would seem highly congruent with other recent activity/stances. Cambridge as a whole may still offer resistance, but I wouldn't be surprised to see MIT emerge as a supporter.

That could very well happen. I personally would be very supportive of CR on the Grand Junction. A light rail project on the Grand Junction is probably decades in the future, but CR on the Grand Junction would immediately provide direct transit service from the west metro area (and the forthcoming West Station) to the MIT and Kendall Sq area.

 

[luobo]

Just saying, putting electrified CR underneath the GJ would probably go down easier with the NIMBYs (and possibly reduce the vibration issue?). It's not as if Cambridge/MIT lacks money or engineering talent.

The Red Line is an issue, but it's cut and cover so it's not extremely deep. Maybe 50 feet? With 0.85 miles of room to the north and 1.2 miles to the south those don't seem like crazy grades.

Put an underground island platform between Mass Ave and Main St. Sacrifice the Albany St parking garage and the MIT visitor lot to make room for the dig sites/headhouses.

Tunneling under a natural gas plant will be lots of "fun" but it's not impossible (to play God Mode for a second, wield the local enviro-NIMBYs to your advantage and pressure MIT to relocate their air-polluting, fracking-funding fire hazard to a less populated area -- it's not as if the power plant needs to straddle the GJ anymore since it's not taking any coal deliveries anytime soon--the whole block could be redeveloped for lab/classroom/dorm space).

Tricky and pricey? Yes. But it will quell most of the concerns. But the throughput needs to be worth the price tag, which is why having both Worcester AND Providence/Northeast Corridor trains using it via NSRL makes more sense to me.

Regarding future Boston-Chicago HSR: of course it's speculative, but the idea that it isn't feasible because airplanes are faster just ignores a ton of precedent around the world. Shanghai to Beijing is technically faster by air, but that corridor is one of the busiest HSR corridors in the world because of the intermediate stops and the relative comfort, convenience, frequency, and delay-resistance of HSR compared to air travel.

It's not just a Boston-Chicago HSR line. It's a Boston - Worcester - Springfield - Albany - Syracuse - Buffalo - Erie - Cleveland - Toledo - South Bend - Chicago HSR line! That's not something you can replicate with an airplane.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Just saying, putting electrified CR underneath the GJ would probably go down easier with the NIMBYs (and possibly reduce the vibration issue?). It's not as if Cambridge/MIT lacks money or engineering talent.

The process of actually doing the dig is going to be a BIG issue with the NIMBY's. That's painful amounts of construction.

The Red Line is an issue, but it's cut and cover so it's not extremely deep. Maybe 50 feet? With 0.85 miles of room to the north and 1.2 miles to the south those don't seem like crazy grades.

That's a HUMONGOUS amount of tunneling to do at no more than 2% allowable grade, especially when the curve is considered as the descent can't be mid-curve. And as you were told in previous replies, it's a MASSIVE waterproofing effort because of how big a drain spigot those grades create inside the Charles Basin floodplain. Billion-dollar project at minimum.

Put an underground island platform between Mass Ave and Main St. Sacrifice the Albany St parking garage and the MIT visitor lot to make room for the dig sites/headhouses.

You're worried about NIMBY's, but now you're nuking MIT property to do it? In what universe does that logic wash?

Tunneling under a natural gas plant will be lots of "fun" but it's not impossible (to play God Mode for a second, wield the local enviro-NIMBYs to your advantage and pressure MIT to relocate their air-polluting, fracking-funding fire hazard to a less populated area -- it's not as if the power plant needs to straddle the GJ anymore since it's not taking any coal deliveries anytime soon--the whole block could be redeveloped for lab/classroom/dorm space).

And here too, unilaterally nuking more MIT properties. This is a transportation project, not a campus master plan.

Tricky and pricey? Yes. But it will quell most of the concerns. But the throughput needs to be worth the price tag, which is why having both Worcester AND Providence/Northeast Corridor trains using it via NSRL makes more sense to me.

No it won't. You just spent several paragraphs describing how you're inviting more NIMBY opposition with property-takings. It INCREASES all such concerns tenfold.

 

[Riverside]

Grand Junction is much more valuable as a second/third trunk of the LRT network than as a commuter rail corridor. Commuters will get better access to Cambridge employment centers with an LRT line that runs Harvard-West Station-Cambridgeport-Kenmore-Sullivan than they will via a slow mainline service that can only afford one stop. A simple transfer at West Station gives you a reliable and speedy two-seat ride that also will have a stop closer to your final destination (i.e. less walking).

Diverting away from Back Bay (even if you do a looparound) significantly increases the time before riders can disembark to transfer to the Orange Line, it causes you to miss Lansdowne which significantly decreases access to Longwood, and it makes transfering to the Red Line a nightmare that can only be done with a full NSRL build or with a very lengthy walking transfer at Cambridge. And it seems unlikely that you will be able to divert all trains over the Grand Junction, so you'll end up with the usual problems with reverse branching, including reduced frequencies to both branches. You can a one-seat ride to Kendall, and lose good access to two-seat rides to a bunch of other places.

Until LRT conversion happens, would it be worth it to redirect one or two peak trains over the Grand Junction and place a temporary station along the single track amongst the MIT buildings between Mass and Main? Maybe. Maaaaaaaaaybe. But it shouldn't be seen as a long-term proposal. And frankly I think there's better places for us to spend our political advocacy.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Until LRT conversion happens, would it be worth it to redirect one or two peak trains over the Grand Junction and place a temporary station along the single track amongst the MIT buildings between Mass and Main? Maybe. Maaaaaaaaaybe. But it shouldn't be seen as a long-term proposal. And frankly I think there's better places for us to spend our political advocacy.

This is exactly what the Worcester-North Station study examined. They found adequate demand at a few peak-only slots when Orange out of BBY and Red out of SS were too overloaded to function properly under load. During off-peak, the trip along an (upgraded) GJ was still so slow that there were utterly inconsequential time savings over making the subway transfer, and it was found to be too much of a detriment to overall service to reverse-branch the Worcester Line away and vulture frequencies from the mainline to SS. More riders were lost by omitting Landsdowne+BBY+SS on some trips than were gained by adding Kendall+NS, so it got an outright "Not Recommended" for anything except those few peak trains.

What's fueling those peak trains that did spike up some genuine MetroWest demand? Mainly Red's and Orange's low levels of functioning under load. Chances are if you improved Red and Orange enough to run on-time under heaviest loads...things they are actively doing with the RLT/OLT frequency & reliability increases...the basis for even what they did find gets significantly weakened. In short: the need the studies highlight needs the most addressing is Red and Orange, not a kludgy diversion of commuter trains through Kendall. Fix the subway and there's basically no longer a Commuter Rail-moded purpose & need.

 

[Tallguy]

Grand Junction LRT would be cheap and the 3-4 stops on the route would be infinitely more valuable than the single CR stop. It should happen in the same time scale as the Allston Pike project. Otherwise, we'll have another Seaport on our hands, with transit problems 20 yrs later.

 

[Brattle Loop]

Regarding future Boston-Chicago HSR: of course it's speculative, but the idea that it isn't feasible because airplanes are faster just ignores a ton of precedent around the world. Shanghai to Beijing is technically faster by air, but that corridor is one of the busiest HSR corridors in the world because of the intermediate stops and the relative comfort, convenience, frequency, and delay-resistance of HSR compared to air travel.

And that corridor operates at an average speed that's a good 20 mph higher than the maximum speed the new Acelas are supposed to see in service. While the Acela is admittedly a slowpoke by global HSR standards, we're talking upgrading a mostly-freight-owned non-HSR corridor to world-best speeds and conditions just to make the route competitive with air travel, which has a massive incumbency advantage that doesn't require untold billions just to reach parity (and likely with a lot less density along the corridor). I'll buy the idea of HSR on BOS/NY-CHI being even theoretically something seriously advocated when I see the airlines operating A350s and B777s on schedules like current ones as indicators of a need for a new massive capacity option; until then, I don't think anyone sane would touch the idea with a 10-foot-pole given how woeful the cost-benefit analysis would probably turn out.

It's not just a Boston-Chicago HSR line. It's a Boston - Worcester - Springfield - Albany - Syracuse - Buffalo - Erie - Cleveland - Toledo - South Bend - Chicago HSR line! That's not something you can replicate with an airplane.

So...stops? Lots of stops? All of which increase the travel time. Is it better for those intermediate cities, sure? But those aren't the load-bearing demand points, and if serving them all with HSR (as opposed to regional corridors) tanks the travel time (and the only way it doesn't is with some combination of reduced stops and higher speeds), then people will default to the faster/more convenient option.

 

[themissinglink]

And that corridor operates at an average speed that's a good 20 mph higher than the maximum speed the new Acelas are supposed to see in service. While the Acela is admittedly a slowpoke by global HSR standards, we're talking upgrading a mostly-freight-owned non-HSR corridor to world-best speeds and conditions just to make the route competitive with air travel, which has a massive incumbency advantage that doesn't require untold billions just to reach parity (and likely with a lot less density along the corridor). I'll buy the idea of HSR on BOS/NY-CHI being even theoretically something seriously advocated when I see the airlines operating A350s and B777s on schedules like current ones as indicators of a need for a new massive capacity option; until then, I don't think anyone sane would touch the idea with a 10-foot-pole given how woeful the cost-benefit analysis would probably turn out.



So...stops? Lots of stops? All of which increase the travel time. Is it better for those intermediate cities, sure? But those aren't the load-bearing demand points, and if serving them all with HSR (as opposed to regional corridors) tanks the travel time (and the only way it doesn't is with some combination of reduced stops and higher speeds), then people will default to the faster/more convenient option.

While I certainly agree that a true electrified HSR corridor between Boston and Chicago is a non-starter, I believe there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to travel time on the Lake Shore Limited. The trip takes like 22 hours and yet there are still people who choose to ride it, if the travel times were improved it would almost definitely attract more ridership. It doesn't necessarily need to be faster than or competitive with air travel for it to be a useful transportation asset.

 

[luobo]

For any GJ project (CR, LRT, or otherwise) the only NIMBY that really matters is MIT. This isn't the type of thing where the Smalltown Neighborhood Association is fighting against bulldozing Grandma Murphy's house and paving over the Local Historically Preserved Gas Station. You're dealing with a large, deep-pocketed institution with lots of technical know-how that plans investments in terms of decades and billions of dollars.

If MIT's primary concerns are about vibration and traffic back-ups from trains running at surface level, then it's not unthinkable (although perhaps it is "crazy," as that's what this thread is after all) that they would consider an option that avoids trains running at the surface level.

 

[Brattle Loop]

While I certainly agree that a true electrified HSR corridor between Boston and Chicago is a non-starter, I believe there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to travel time on the Lake Shore Limited. The trip takes like 22 hours and yet there are still people who choose to ride it, if the travel times were improved it would almost definitely attract more ridership. It doesn't necessarily need to be faster than or competitive with air travel for it to be a useful transportation asset.

Agreed, and I'd add that big chunks of that route are ideal or at least decent candidates for much-improved corridor service as well (i.e. NY's Empire Corridor upgrades, MA's East-West service, probably more on the Chicago end though I'm less familiar), which would go hand-in-hand with some of the Late for Sure Limited's needed upgrades as well.

 

[Brattle Loop]

If MIT's primary concerns are about vibration and traffic back-ups from trains running at surface level, then it's not unthinkable (although perhaps it is "crazy," as that's what this thread is after all) that they would consider an option that avoids trains running at the surface level.

Well, their concerns might well suddenly become less, well, concerning when they realize how much money waterproofing a tunnel would cost compared to some vibration-proofing on some of their buildings (and LRT avoids most of the worst traffic impacts), so it might be less "surface or buried" and more "surface or no transit".