Electrifying the Dot/Rox Bus Network

[Commuting Boston Student]

What is your definition of grade separation? You can't access the fenced-off tracks by walking through the cemetery. The cemetery road is bridged over it instead of requiring a grade crossing. That's the dictionary definition of grade separation. It is.

My definition of grade separation is that, in the case of something like a cemetery where you expect a lot of people to be, a grade-separated ROW would be physically inaccessible (or, substantially difficult to access - like trying to walk up to the edge of the NEC tracks at Ruggles) as opposed to simply being fenced off. Something like having the trolley on a bridge over the cemetery or in a trench. Separate grades.

Yes, the cemetery WAS configured around the ROW: http://www.cedargrovecemetery.org/history/index.htm. 1 year after opening the cemetery they negotiated an easement with Old Colony RR through the middle of the then-empty land in exchange for putting a station (the current stop) there. Only the Milton St./Adams St. corner of the cemetery was even laid out at the time the deal was struck. The entire area the ROW bisects had to be drained of Neponset swamp and landscaped before a single body was buried there. They can thank the RR and Cedar Grove station for increasing the land value and the value of the burial plots enough to have the money to expand the cemetery.

The tracks predate the adjacent burial ground.
The tracks predate the adjacent burial ground.
The tracks predate the adjacent burial ground.

That is historical record. Ranting about it doesn't change the historical record. Find another cause because nothing was ever "desecrated".

It still feels totally wrong to me to have that trolley running through there, but I guess I have to concede that 'feels wrong' is not good enough to launch a megaproject.

I've said this before: one person's aesthetic OCD is no reason to build a megaproject.

Yes, you've been saying this to me a lot lately in fact! I'm actually starting to believe you!

I'm of half a mind to ask statler to change my user title from 'Senior Member' to 'Transit OCD Sufferer,' although that might be in poor taste.

 

[cden4]

I love trackless trolleys but I realize how expensive they are to build and maintain. I have found a better solution.

http://transportation.blog.state.ma.us/blog/2012/10/electric-buses-coming-to-worcester.html

Worcester is getting three of these. 100% electric buses that recharge in less than 10 minutes and can run up to 35 miles before recharging. They would be PERFECT for the MBTA. The only infrastructure needed is the charging stations at either end of the route.

 

[Matthew]

Got any more info on those? Probably shouldn't measure range in miles, but in hours, for city traffic and stop-and-go movement that buses do.

Power-weight ratio would also be interesting. The biggest advantage of trackless trolleys is that they do not need to carry an internal combustion engine or fuel, making them very light and nimble, as well as non-locally-polluting. And TTs are the kings of hill-climbing, with high power-weight and also rubber tires for grip. That's why SF uses them so extensively.

But I imagine a battery-driven model does not get this advantage.

 

[cden4]

Try this:

The bus itself
http://www.proterra.com/index.php/products/productDetail/C22/

The charging station
http://www.proterra.com/index.php/products/productDetail/C23/

Videos:
http://www.proterra.com/index.php/mediacenter

 

[davem]

It still feels totally wrong to me to have that trolley running through there, but I guess I have to concede that 'feels wrong' is not good enough to launch a megaproject.

What was wrong was the Boston Transit Commission ignoring people who said there were tons of bodies buried under the common and plowing the first subway in america through there anyway, then throwing our forefathers in a pit somewhere else when they were proven wrong. They_probably_missed_some: unlike through Cedar Grove it's quite likely you actually are riding on top of bodies between Boylston and Park St, and they are documented to having desecrated graves. Also, a ton of people died building it.

Meanwhile at Cedar Grove you have a negotiated agreement to run a rail line through a swamp (the cedar grove), the money from which was likely used to fill in the swamp and allow people to be buried. Every one laid to rest there knew the rail line was there. They probably chose the plots in the first place because of the ability for their loved ones to easily come see them. They wanted to be there. In fact, I would be pretty damned pissed if I went out of my way to be laid to rest in a place with a trolley line and then someone took it away for the reasons of aesthetics.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

What was wrong was the Boston Transit Commission ignoring people who said there were tons of bodies buried under the common and plowing the first subway in america through there anyway, then throwing our forefathers in a pit somewhere else when they were proven wrong. They_probably_missed_some: unlike through Cedar Grove it's quite likely you actually are riding on top of bodies between Boylston and Park St, and they are documented to having desecrated graves. Also, a ton of people died building it.

Meanwhile at Cedar Grove you have a negotiated agreement to run a rail line through a swamp (the cedar grove), the money from which was likely used to fill in the swamp and allow people to be buried. Every one laid to rest there knew the rail line was there. They probably chose the plots in the first place because of the ability for their loved ones to easily come see them. They wanted to be there. In fact, I would be pretty damned pissed if I went out of my way to be laid to rest in a place with a trolley line and then someone took it away for the reasons of aesthetics.

Could be worse. Look at what Silver Line Phase III was likely to do to the Common burial grounds when it ripped the everloving shit out of the Tremont-Charles block of Boylston for the bus loops. I almost wonder if that was some gigantic practical joke the T was playing at the expense of the historical impacts surveyors where nobody actually expected it would be approved in a billion years.

 

[Matthew]

To be fair, back then, graves were moved for any old flimsy reason. Want to widen a road? Move a cemetery. Boylston St and Market St were both widened this way.

In San Francisco it was even more radical: I think they moved every single grave out of the city to make room.

 

[Scalziand]

Here's another grade separation at the cemetery:
http://goo.gl/maps/y8kwV

I love trackless trolleys but I realize how expensive they are to build and maintain. I have found a better solution.

http://transportation.blog.state.ma.us/blog/2012/10/electric-buses-coming-to-worcester.html

Worcester is getting three of these. 100% electric buses that recharge in less than 10 minutes and can run up to 35 miles before recharging. They would be PERFECT for the MBTA. The only infrastructure needed is the charging stations at either end of the route.

Now if only WRTA would make the headways under an hour..

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Here's another grade separation at the cemetery:
http://goo.gl/maps/y8kwV

Milton Branch RR, fed from the Old Colony main just at the foot of the Boston side of the bridge. Abandoned 1990; used to serve some customers in the Central Ave. area: http://goo.gl/maps/Vlisd. When they converted the Shawmut and Mattapan branches to trolley they kept a segment of third track as RR and grade separated the former junction to continue serving freight out there. Track fizzed out a few hundred feet west of the Central Ave. grade crossing, which is why the new trail doesn't go any further than that.

 

[HenryAlan]

Yeah, that's a cemetery path bridged over the tracks, which are still running on top of the burial ground. That's not a grade separated ROW at all.

Yeah, maybe you should get over your fear of ghosts and ride it sometime. It is absolutely grade separated, regardless of whether you can tell on Google maps. Anybody who has ridden it can confirm this.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Yeah, maybe you should get over your fear of ghosts and ride it sometime. It is absolutely grade separated, regardless of whether you can tell on Google maps. Anybody who has ridden it can confirm this.

Graves or no graves, I don't have any reason to go out to Mattapan anyway.

Also, there are plenty of reasons other than the arbitrary and irrational fear of ghosts you just assigned me why I might not be cool with the idea of running the Red Line right through that cemetery, but don't let that stop you from dragging the corpse of a 3 month old thread in which I said something stupid back up to the top so that you can call me out on a post that I made!

You sure showed me!