Enclose D-Line Stations

bbfen said:
I don't understand what will prevent someone from walking on the tracks into the front of this "station" like at St. Mary's? Please tell me this station design wouldn't require drivers to stop at a specified point for fancy door openers that have to match up?
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Doesn't have to be every station. Stations like Fenway and Longwood can work. St. Mary I guess would not so much. That would require a person actually there to watch the track side (and give "customer service").
 
Longwood is possibly the least feasible of all stations for this, given its use as a pedestrian entrance to Riverway park.
 
Longwood and Brookline Village couldn't possibly be converted to such stations without substantial cost. I think the rest of the D-Line could be converted with low cost station construction. But then again, I'm probably not thinking clearly about elevators and other ADA requirements that might hit quite a few of them were any construction to take place.

This seems like a solution to a problem that could more easily be fixed through other means.
 
HenryAlan said:
Longwood and Brookline Village couldn't possibly be converted to such stations without substantial cost. I think the rest of the D-Line could be converted with low cost station construction. But then again, I'm probably not thinking clearly about elevators and other ADA requirements that might hit quite a few of them were any construction to take place.

This seems like a solution to a problem that could more easily be fixed through other means.
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...like onboard PoP. If there's a crying need for enclosed stations after they do what they promised they'd do when Charlie was rolled out, then we'll talk.
 
Just curious... Does the D-line have dead/useless PoP kiosks like the E-line too? Or did they just test it on the E?
 
what is a PoP kiosk? I think all D Line stations have Charlie machines.
 
Ron Newman said:
what is a PoP kiosk? I think all D Line stations have Charlie machines.
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I'm aware that they all have FVMs, but they can't actually validate tickets and cards.

The idea was to validate your tickets and cards before getting on the train so they could use all doors to board. The kiosks run Windows CE and have a RFID tap spot, a ticket reader, 3 buttons (labeled 1 2 3), and a headphone jack. When getting to the station, you would either insert your CharlieTicket or tap your CharlieCard to validate it and then you could just use any door.

I'm pretty sure this is the promise F-Line is referring to when they rolled out the CharlieCard.
 
datadyne007 said:
Just curious... Does the D-line have dead/useless PoP kiosks like the E-line too? Or did they just test it on the E?
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They have them, but the larger question -- does anybody know about this or understand how to use them? And in fact, I guess we can't use them, given new boarding policies.

@Ron: Some surface GL stations are equipped with Charlie validation boxes where you can tap the card. You are then eligible to board in the back without tapping, and in theory a roving inspector might check your card to see whether or not it was tapped. I have never once seen anybody use this system.
 
datadyne007 said:
I'm aware that they all have FVMs, but they can't actually validate tickets and cards.

The idea was to validate your tickets and cards before getting on the train so they could use all doors to board. The kiosks run Windows CE and have a RFID tap spot, a ticket reader, 3 buttons (labeled 1 2 3), and a headphone jack. When getting to the station, you would either insert your CharlieTicket or tap your CharlieCard to validate it and then you could just use any door.

I'm pretty sure this is the promise F-Line is referring to when they rolled out the CharlieCard.
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They may have wanted to do that at stations like on the D where there are permanent station structures and room to install the equipment. But for the smaller surface stops they were actually going to put a Charlie tap reader on the back doors of the trolleys. The Type 8's have a mounting compartment next to the rear doors where the tap surface would go. Type 7's got the firmware to support the same when they were retrofitted to trainline with the 8's, and would've had a similar thing added (possibly on the wall by the stairs...not sure if it would've been inside or outside). And today, of course, it's dirt cheap to put the onboard fisheye cams with equipment costs falling fast and tons of Homeland Security money circulating around for those installs.

The new Blue Line cars are also equipped for this. They have pushbutton door requests on the car exterior for off-peak hours at the outdoor stations and similar empty mounting compartments for the tap reader. They have no plans at all (for obvious reasons) to implement it on heavy rail lines...but, yes, it is possible to do if they want to leave lighter-use stations unstaffed off-peak at some future date. It's future-proofed. So will the new Orange and Red cars if they ever get around to placing those orders. I could certainly see this making a big fricking difference on the commuter rail too, and for damn sure the buses. It's not just trolleys where institutional resistance makes fare collection/dwell times/crowd control harder than it needs to be.

They're swimming against the trend in dozens of other transit systems in resisting this. And the access lockdown for combating fare evasion is bullshit on many levels. Finish rolling out Charlie. It costs them more money in day-to-day inefficiency and staffing the longer they cling to manual fare collection. Other systems do this because of the superior bang-for-buck and because the fare evasion concerns aren't borne out by reality.
 
Man, I've said "they should put tap spots on these rear doors, there's plenty of room" to myself so many times and dismissed the idea as being crazy. I guess I was onto something.
 
bbfen said:
I don't understand what will prevent someone from walking on the tracks into the front of this "station" like at St. Mary's? Please tell me this station design wouldn't require drivers to stop at a specified point for fancy door openers that have to match up?
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If those 'fancy door openers' you're referring to are Platform Edge Doors, I actually like those and think they're cool. :(

Stations like St. Mary's and the knee jerk fear of a new El are why I precluded the B and C branches from being converted.
 
Before a flight of fancy about a new El or digging pits for a true subway out to Riverside, how about the T implement signal priority?

Enclosing stations is an expensive solution in search of a problem.
 
Ron Newman said:
Lechmere and Riverside are current examples of such semi-enclosed, gated stations.
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Both have track access through bridges or viaducts. A little different than stations which are abutted by level grades.
 
HenryAlan said:
They have them, but the larger question -- does anybody know about this or understand how to use them? And in fact, I guess we can't use them, given new boarding policies.
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These have always confused me since before the new boarding policies, people would always just wave their Charlie Cards at the rear doors and the drivers didn't seem to care at all (this was at the Reservoir stop).
 
^ Presumably all of those CharlieCards were passes.

Does the MBTA realize how ASININE the new policy really is? Just when you think they'd try to save money and be more efficient, they go and do something like that. On second thought, makes perfect sense: more overtime = more money in their pockets!

There are many more economical ways to improve the branches before converting to access-controlled stations. Let's try those first.
 
Should any of the above-ground Green Line stations get enclosed with fare gates? Which stations need fare gates the most?
www.bostonglobe.com

It shouldn’t be so easy to ride for free on the Green Line - The Boston Globe

The T spent nearly $1 billion on fareboxes that make it easier than ever to avoid paying a fare at above-ground trolley stations.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
On a recent weekday, I camped out by a back door to observe, and tally, rider behavior on the D branch. Across five street-level stops, 44 people boarded. None paid. Finally one man got out his phone to pony up.
[...]
The new fare boxes, installed by the San Diego-based Cubic Corp., cost close to $1 billion, spread out over a decade due to ongoing operating costs. The contactless payments system was introduced to modernize the T, and the new fare boxes are successfully being used at station entrances.
But on the Green Line’s above-ground stops? “We’re probably worse off,” said Chris Dempsey, cofounder of the urban planning firm Speck Dempsey and a former assistant secretary of transportation in Massachusetts.
[...]
As the T battles chronic budget deficits, it can ill afford to let all that revenue slide on by. The T estimates that it historically loses between $25 million and $30 million a year due to fare evasion, but that the trend is moving in a positive direction, in part due to new fare gates for commuter rail passengers at South Station.
But designing outdoor physical fare gates for above-ground stops that could also withstand winter would be essentially impossible at a reasonable cost. So the T is left relying on the honor system for the Green Line.
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If there's zero fare enforcement, hardly anyone is going to pay. Try fare enforcement for a change before expensive-ass station enclosures that may not even be possible with the access conditions around a typical D stop and/or just giving up. Read this and other amazing finds in the next issue of. . .

norm-macdonald1.jpg


Somehow, some way most of the rest of the world manages to get along just fine with onboard Proof-of-Payment systems without having to resort to draconian measures like enclosing every open-air station on the network. Perhaps learn from and apply knowledge from peer agencies for once in your useless managerial lives instead of defaulting to new forms of bespokeness. :rolleyes:
 
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