Fantasy T maps

[Riverside]

Did you watch it?

I did not watch it.

 

[Shepard]

Pretty sure that is the fantasy map that was posted to Reddit last year. Boy I hope the show gave the creator credit or royalties (though I doubt it).

It is a very pretty map. Some new ideas in there -- a fair number of the particulars are crazy (Green Line to North End, I'm looking at you) -- but I really like the overall vision. Am particularly keen on the way the Silver Line is envisioned -- basically as a proper class of BRT service, as opposed to a single/branching line.

Any fantasy map that doesn't include GL to Seaport in Piers Transitway Tunnel - one way or another - isn't "realistic" enough in my fantasy book.

I'm really partial to the idea of branding service to Framingham, Stoughton, Brockton and Lowell on the rapid transit map. Yes, there are a whole bunch of caveats here, but each of those cities is less than 25 miles away from downtown and would, under most proposals, have multiple trains an hour. There would need to be a marketing campaign to introduce this as a middle tier of service -- not quite walk-up rapid transit, but still worlds away from today's commuter rail, and a major convenience and access improvement. BART, for comparison, runs service as far as 30 miles out from downtown SF on 15-20 minute headways, which is not that far removed from what we are talking about here.

Or at least show the stations that receive frequent service. Which stations get fairly reliable 20-30 minute headways throughout the day?

 

[Riverside]

Any fantasy map that doesn't include GL to Seaport in Piers Transitway Tunnel - one way or another - isn't "realistic" enough in my fantasy book.

That's fair enough, though it is interesting how this map really proposes a de-emphasis on the Green Line, compared to most ideas we discuss here. The Urban Ring is totally segregated into an LRT Yellow Line and a BRT Silver Line. The Riverside Line is eaten by the Blue, and both the A and E are restored to their original destinations. It's much more of a streetcar-centered service (the reservations on Beacon, Commonwealth and Huntington notwithstanding).

 

[George_Apley]

I usually focus on "crazy in the realm of possibility", but I do have some outright crazy maps like the one from Reddit. No regard for costs, politics, or engineering...

Wacky MBTA

 

[stefal]

I usually focus on "crazy in the realm of possibility", but I do have some outright crazy maps like the one from Reddit. No regard for costs, politics, or engineering...

Wacky MBTA

Hmmm. Blue Line to Woburn? Indeed, "wacky," but I love it.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Hmmm. Blue Line to Woburn? Indeed, "wacky," but I love it.

In the "technically correct is the best kind of correct!" sense, it's a crazy pitch...but not an impossibly "wacky" one. Blue wrapping around itself in a boomerang to go to West Medford was the final study Alternative for the original GLX study from 15+ years ago. Basically little more than one of those placebo alts. they stick in studies to refine the numbers for the 'serious' alts., where they had no real-world intention of ever picking Blue for the job.

But if they did. . .the 1945 map had GLX eventually going to Woburn, so that could've been "almost-but-not-quite wacky" BLX's alternate-universe assignment. Strange nonintuitive boomerang alignment and all.

 

[Riverside]

I usually focus on "crazy in the realm of possibility", but I do have some outright crazy maps like the one from Reddit. No regard for costs, politics, or engineering...

Wacky MBTA

I see you like three-way interchanges -- what say you add a third leg to that wye at Kendall on the Blue Line, double up service on those branches by running some trains from Waltham to Woburn?

 

[George_Apley]

Yes, on my Blue Line map there's a note about how the Blue Line could bend north at Charles/MGH under Charles Street, tunnel under the Charles from Nashua Street to Paul Revere Park and buddy up with the Orange Line portal to Community College and then peel off to the GLX alignment in Somerville. That's the more realistic way to get Blue to the GLX route. The 'Red X' would do something vaguely similar, though it would come from North Station rather than the southwest.

My 'wacky map' doesn't show that, but rather shows a maxed-out version of Ari's Blue Line proposal to take advantage of the redev of Volpe to string Blue across the Charles and then utilize Grand Junction to go north or west. My wacky map has it do both.

 

[George_Apley]

I see you like three-way interchanges -- what say you add a third leg to that wye at Kendall on the Blue Line, double up service on those branches by running some trains from Waltham to Woburn?

The crazy Volpe site Kendall station isn't at the junction though, so putting platforms on the Grand Junction wouldn't be part of that complex. Inasmuch as I've thought out the Dudley three-way interchange superstation, it's a three platform, two level deal. We're in wacky territory though so choose your own adventure

 

[tysmith95]

The problem with extending the Blue up to Woburn, is that the ROW to Woburn Center doesn't exist anymore. You could bring it to Anderson, that'll serve more park and ride than walk up ridership. Also Winchester isn't dense enough for heavy rail rapid transit imo.

 

[George_Apley]

The problem with extending the Blue up to Woburn, is that the ROW to Woburn Center doesn't exist anymore. You could bring it to Anderson, that'll serve more park and ride than walk up ridership. Also Winchester isn't dense enough for heavy rail rapid transit imo.

That's exactly where it goes on the wacky map. To Anderson. I don't think Winchester is dense enough for HRT either. That's why I only include it on a WACKY map.

 

[tysmith95]

That's exactly where it goes on the wacky map. To Anderson. I don't think Winchester is dense enough for HRT either. That's why I only include it on a WACKY map.

I think light rail transit would work in Winchester, although money would be better spent extending the Orange Line out to Melrose to the north or West Roxbury/Roslindale to the south.

 

[George_Apley]

I think light rail transit would work in Winchester, although money would be better spent extending the Orange Line out to Melrose to the north or West Roxbury/Roslindale to the south.

Winchester Center would be the theoretical GLX terminus at a full build, mostly because it's the only place the Commuter Rail can have a transfer to the trolley. Green would eat West Medford and Wedgemere. Maybe have an infill near Mystic Lakes.

Top extension priorities after Red-Blue and BLX-Lynn are probably OLX-West Roxbury and GLX-Transitway. Toss in RLX-Mattapan after that and then there's the whole Green Line-Urban Ring reimagining. OLX-WRox would need to be paired with GLX-Needham to replace the Needham Line Commuter Rail, which will have its headways challenged by increased NEC traffic.

OLX north of Oak Grove is probably best left to Urban Rail until scheduling tightening supports conversion of the whole Reading Line to Orange.

 

[davem]

A couple more, believe they're both from DaveM (is he still floating around on here? Haven't seen him in awhile.)

I do still lurk form time to time. Got a job as an Architectural Designer in Vermont right around when I stopped posting, moved up here and have a massive piece of land and falling apart house. With all that my time is 150% spoken for, I haven't logged in until now. But it rained all day today, and since I spent so much freaking time researching and planning and mapping these routes, and someone asked about them... here's whatever I could quickly dig up of my transifesto

Master Google Map



Rapid Transit, Existing:

Rapid Transit, Full Build Out:

Commuter + Regional Rail (never finished this one...)

Entirety of the Tremont St Subway / Boylston St Bypass / Silverline connection. The existing connector after Copley would be for service transfers and equipment storage, not revenue service.

Bay Village Superstation (inc. existing Tufts Medical)

Threading the needle to get to the Silverline tunnel:

Historic view showing where the Tremont St portal is in relationship to the roof of the OL tunnel:

Kenmore Reconfig (sorry, no satellite overlay, just the diagram). You'd have to tear up the mall between Kenmore St and Charlesgate W... which is the most useless part of the mall anyway...

A couple different ways to do Brookline Village, with varying degrees of insanity:

Stadium Way GL routing to Harvard: (the GL and bus share the same station+platforms)

Different ways to get across the Charles to Watertown:

Some kind of Cleveland Circle reconfiguration:

Crazy-pants idea to return service to the original Providence station, because the new location was stupidly, with no foresight positioned to not allow access to the College Hill tunnel:

And that's all I've got. Enjoy!

 

[Shepard]

Davem, great to hear from you! I love the idea of the regional CR maps. Interesting that you didn't include NSRL as part of it?

 

[cats10000]

There should be a wacky transit pitches or ultra crazy transit pitches thread.

 

[George_Apley]

There should be a wacky transit pitches or ultra crazy transit pitches thread.

Let's just use this one

 

[ulrichomega]

My contributions from the past few months of being able to post:

Heavy Rail to Everett - Two new heavy rail lines to Everett/Chelsea including an Orange Line branch under Broadway and a new line eating a deck of the Tobin and continuing under 1. Also new light-rail along the Saugus branch.
Commuter Rail from Salem to Logan and Maverick - Reverse-branching airport service. Only potentially feasible if we're including some sort of East-west link for service from other lines, and even then not really at all. My original proposal didn't include any sort of wye for service from North Station because I was going for ridiculous, but if we're ever in a situation where terminal capacity has been reached (either at the surface or in the tunnels) I think additional terminals wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Obviously still ridiculous though.
North-South Rail Link via Elevated over the Greenway. - What? Why?

I've previously linked these in posts across the forums with accompanying explanations. I would the first one in the "Potentially maybe someday" bucket, and the other two firmly in the realm of fantasy.

 

[themissinglink]

I was speaking with F-Line about an extension of the Franklin Line to Milford or Hopedale in the general discussion thread a few days ago. I decided to make a few little maps for the extension.

 

[George_Apley]

Oooh nice. Where did you pull the muni boundary map from?