Enclose D-Line Stations

D

DominusNovus

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2010
Messages
1,080
Reaction score
192
What would be the costs associated with building enclosed stations for the D branch of the Green line, enabling at least that one branch of the line to save the hassle of tapping your card as you get on board, and putting the fare gates at the entrance?

To me, it would be a great convenience for the riders, and it would be a project that could be pursued incrementally; do one station at a time at whatever pace the T thinks is appropriate. Or just doe the stations the T thinks are worth enclosing.

The one that needs it the most and, appropriately, would be the easiest to enclose, is the Fenway T-stop, which has impromptu gates ready for every home Red Sox game. The stop itself is practically a canyon, so half the walls of an enclosed station are already there.

The stop that would be most difficult would probably be Brookline Village, as the stop itself is somewhat of a foot traffic shortcut between various parts of the surrounding neighborhood. Plus, there's little existing structure to build the station upon.

I'm sure this has come up before, so people have probably weighed all the pro's and con's.
 
Reservoir/Cleveland Circle is a whole lot of nothing and a couple of abandoned buildings. As a branch terminus, de facto C-D connector and rail yard for the Green Line, it probably needs a full station enclosure more than Fenway does, for the free transfer and attractiveness value.

I'd probably start by getting cost/benefit analyses going on all of the stations and selecting the best three for the initial conversion/enclosure. I'm thinking that's going to be Reservoir, Fenway and I want to say Woodland?
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
Reservoir/Cleveland Circle is a whole lot of nothing and a couple of abandoned buildings. As a branch terminus, de facto C-D connector and rail yard for the Green Line, it probably needs a full station enclosure more than Fenway does, for the free transfer and attractiveness value.

I'd probably start by getting cost/benefit analyses going on all of the stations and selecting the best three for the initial conversion/enclosure. I'm thinking that's going to be Reservoir, Fenway and I want to say Woodland?
Click to expand...

Reservoir's a perfect example. I'm not thinking anything as grand as a combined station for both lines (though that would be a good idea), just enclosing Reservoir as it is (which it almost completely is anyway. Though, crazy idea, what if the C line tracks hooked up with the D line there, so that they could continue on to Riverside? Would there be much use for that, other than the fact that it would be comparatively easy?

Who uses Woodland? Does it get a lot of traffic from the Hospital?
 
DominusNovus said:
Reservoir's a perfect example. I'm not thinking anything as grand as a combined station for both lines (though that would be a good idea), just enclosing Reservoir as it is (which it almost completely is anyway. Though, crazy idea, what if the C line tracks hooked up with the D line there, so that they could continue on to Riverside? Would there be much use for that, other than the fact that it would be comparatively easy?

Who uses Woodland? Does it get a lot of traffic from the Hospital?
Click to expand...

Rt. 16, from points west.
 
Pedestrians commonly cross through Longwood station to get to and from the Riverway park. I don't see how this one could ever be enclosed and gated.
 
Ron Newman said:
Pedestrians commonly cross through Longwood station to get to and from the Riverway park. I don't see how this one could ever be enclosed and gated.
Click to expand...

Sink the actual station platforms and build a mezzanine on top of them. Fare control at the top of the stairs, so you can cross the station without paying, and push the tracks out to accommodate an island platform instead of two sides for reversing direction.
 
Hugely expensive, probably not worthwhile.

My guess is $8-10 million a station to do this, average.
 
Matthew said:
Hugely expensive, probably not worthwhile.

My guess is $8-10 million a station to do this, average.
Click to expand...

The platform sinking? Absolutely, yes. It'd need to be packaged with the Green Line Heavy Rail if it was to be undertaken at all.

Conversely, Green Line Heavy Rail would require actual station infrastructure. The smart way of doing things would be start with the stations that benefit the most from fare control installation, then work down the list until you're only left with the big-ticket low-benefit stations like Longwood and Brookline Village. Those would be added into the cost of converting the line itself.
 
Enclosing a station doesn't have to be that expensive. Woodland, for instance, could easily have controlled access without changing the track or platform height by fencing it off. Most of the stations in pits, like Newton Highlands and Newton Center could be done in much the same way. I'm not sure there's ever a long enough line to get on and pay to make it worth it, though, except on Red Sox game days.

Reservoir's current arrangement is dumb. The C-Line trains should pull into the station proper and stop at the side platform where the D-Line trains dead-ended during the track rehab some years ago. Not to replace Cleveland Circle, but to augment it. There is demand for people to get from Newton to places along Beacon St, and the D-Line dives away pretty severely.
 
They don't need to enclose stations. What they need is to quit making excuses and finally implement all-doors proof-of-payment. This paranoia about fare evasion is totally counterproductive and not supported by evidence. Frankly, the new front-door-only policy smacks of some cynical ploy to ram through more service cuts next year by inducing new ridership-depressing inconvenience.

The trolleys are wired up to support this if they put a Charlie tap-sensor on the rear doors. They are trialing onboard security cams on the Orange Line right now...and you know it's a cinch that this is going system-wide in 3-5 years flat. So mount one of those fisheyes on the ceiling at every door pair. Random-sample the daily tapes. If there's a stretch of stops where people are fare-evading or time of day when that's more prevalent...plainclothes Transit Police riding along on the problem routes. Levy some punitive fines and people will learn in a hurry not to do that. This is a proven enforcement method nationwide. The T screaming "NO NO NO NO NO!!!" and whipping itself into a paranoid frenzy about restricting faregate access is stupid and self-defeating.

Frankly, I don't even think they should be doing enclosed stations on GLX with the cost bloat involved in enclosing vs. not enclosing. The extension would be a lot easier to pay for without those overbuilt glass palaces and invented staffing positions. It's not needed unless it's an extremely busy station or major transfer point. Proof of payment works. Most transit systems in the country are doing this with their new light rail lines. This is a problem invented by the T's own institutional stubbornness and corpulent overspending on station amenities. It doesn't have to be this way. We would have a LOT more efficient a Green Line if they did the dead obvious and implemented onboard PoP like they promised when they rolled out Charlie.
 
Aside from a few high traffic/easy to implement stations like Resevoir and Fenway, I can't see a case for doing this. Proof of payment is definitely the way to go for all above ground GL stops. I'd even extend this to GLX, but it seems they are determined to build elaborate stations for it. And granted, such stations are far easier in Somerville where the ROW is in a trench than they would be in Brookline or Newton.
 
No, the GLX should absolutely have full station infrastructure up and down the length of its existence. If those stations don't get built now, they never will be, and that's one more obstacle thrown in the way of a heavy rail conversion.

STEP is more than happy to fight for the stations if it's 'corpulent stations' or 'nothing', because they're making sure the state can't choose 'nothing.' I'm not so sure that fight is going to be there later when it's 'corpulent stations' or 'well, what's there now is working fine...' and the legal obligation of the state has already been fulfilled.

Conversely, enclosing at least some of the stations now is going to make it easier to convert later and harder to just cut all the branches of the Green Line down to feeder status instead of converting the D.
 
Heavy rail doesn't require fare gates. POP is independent of mode.
 
Matthew said:
Heavy rail doesn't require fare gates. POP is independent of mode.
Click to expand...

Heavy rail does require stations, however. That's independent of whether or not we should go system-wide proof of payment. (We should, since that means I can finally use my monthly pass on Zone 1A Commuter Rail and also means I can cross through stations like Harvard Square without paying.)
 
Two points:

  1. Stations whether they are for LRT or HRT need not be elaborate
  2. A POP based line could certainly have more spartan station construction than what is planned for GLX.
 
So what are we talking about here? Whether to have gates you need to go through with your card, swiping it before boarding the train or having fare boxes at each door of the train so that people can board at any door and swipe their card as they board?

Right?

Sure seems as though it would be a lot cheaper to put fare boxes on each train. Thing is, you'd have to have them on both sides of the cars since obviously sometimes the exits are to the left and sometimes to the right. So, they'd take up room.

Obviously, the problem with on-board paying is that there's still nothing to stop someone from stepping into the car from the back and pretending to swipe her card and then just boarding for free.

But, that happens now.

Well, except when they force everyone to enter and exit through the front. Which is flat out fucking stupid.
 
Does it has to be fully enclosed? A full building would be 8-10 million a station as Matthew said. Way too much for stopping fare evasion. Can't we just put up a few fences and some gates?

Granted, I remember those gates are freaking expensive (and I'm not sure they are waterproofed), but one or two or three hundred thousand for each station is affordable. Or we could just send a "CSA" person with one of those machines at every station or every highly populated station - though we know how hard those guys work.
 
Lechmere and Riverside are current examples of such semi-enclosed, gated stations.
 
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?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top