Fantasy T maps

My spooky map

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Here are some C.R.A.Z.Y. ideas: MAP: Crazy Urban Ring and Cross Town Subway Ideas. All would require unfeasible amounts of tunneling. But it's just for fun.

Urban Ring ideas are divided into sectors:
  • Eastern Sector crosses the Harbor in a tunnel from the Seaport to East Boston; no stations
  • Northern Sector has two options:
    • Option 1 roughly follows the SL route from the Airport to the Eastern Route and continues around to Sullivan Square
      • Airport
      • Wood Island
      • East Chelsea
      • Chelsea
      • Mystic Mall
      • Sweetser Circle
      • Encore
      • Assembly
      • Sullivan
    • Option 2 tunnels under Eastie from the Airport to Central Square, then goes under the harbor to the Charlestown Navy Yard and runs along the periphery of Charlestown to tunnel past Sullivan
      • Airport
      • East Central
      • Navy Yard
      • Monument Street
      • Doherty Park
      • Sullivan
  • Northwestern Sector has two options:
    • Option 1 from Sullivan runs to the Grand Junction and follows it to the Charles River crossing
      • Sullivan
      • Inner Belt
      • Twin City
      • East Cambridge
      • Kendall
      • MIT
      • Cambridgeport
    • Option 2 tunnels from Sullivan through Union, Inman, and Harvard to cross the Charles to Allston and run through Beacon Yards to BU
      • Sullivan
      • East Somerville
      • Union
      • Inman
      • Mid-Cambridge
      • Harvard
      • Stadium
      • Western
      • Allston Yard
  • Southwestern sector has two options:
    • Option 1 runs from the BU Bridge to Park Drive, cosses under the Muddy River and the Fenway to Ruggles
      • Boston University
      • Audubon
      • Museum of Fine Arts
      • Ruggles
      • Dudley
    • Option 2 runs from BU West under St. Paul Street and Longwood Ave, then crosses under Wentworth and NU to Ruggles
      • BU West
      • Beacon / Coolidge East
      • Longwood West
      • Longwood East
      • Ruggles
      • Dudley
    • Both options skirt from Ruggles southeast to Dudley under various properties
  • Southeastern sector has two options:
    • Option 1 runs from Dudley under Washington Street to Traveler Street, under the rail yard to Broadway, then along or under the Haul Road to the Convention Center and east to Boston Design Center; then crosses the Harbor
      • Lenox
      • Blackstone
      • East Berkeley
      • Broadway
      • BCEC
      • Boston Design Center
    • Option 2 runs from Dudley under Melnea Cass and Southampton to Andrew and under Dorchester Street and the Reserved Channel to the Design Center; then crosses the Harbor
      • Roundhouse
      • Newmarket
      • Andrew
      • Dorchester Heights
      • East 1st
      • Boston Design Center
Crosstown concept has one main route and two branch options.
  • The main route runs under Mass Ave from Vassar Street to Edward Everett Square then under Columbia Road and Mt. Vernon Street to UMass Boston.
    • JFK/UMass
    • Columbia
    • Edward Everett
    • Newmarket
    • Melnea Cass
    • Washington
    • Symphony/Mass Ave
    • West Newbury
    • [Charlesgate]
    • MIT
  • The western branch continues up Mass Ave to Central Sq., underpinning the Red Line and then bearing west under Western Ave, crosses the Charles twice and follows Arsenal to Watertown Square and Galen St to Newton Corner
    • Central
    • Harvard Allston
    • Barry's Corner
    • Soldiers Field Road
    • Arsenal Yards
    • The Arsenal
    • Watertown Square
    • Newton Corner
  • The eastern branch turns from Mass Ave under the Grand Junction ROW to Twin City Plaza, then under Medford Street and McGrath to Washington Street in Somerville; then under Medford Street in Charlestown to the Mystic; crossing the Mystic's mouth to run under Broadway in Chelsea and Revere to Rumney Flats
    • Kendall
    • Twin City
    • East Somerville
    • Sullivan
    • Medford Street
    • Navy Yard
    • Winnisimmet
    • Bellingham Square
    • Webster Ave
    • Revere Center
    • Malden Street
    • Rumney Flats
The "eastern subway" concept would run from Mattapan under Blue Hill Ave and Warren Ave to Dudley, up Washington to Traveler to Haul to a Harbor Tunnel, follow the Eastern Route stub to Chelsea Creek and under Broadway to Rumney Flats
  • Mattapan
  • Walk Hill
  • Woodrow
  • Franklin Field
  • Franklin Park
  • Grove Hall
  • MLK Blvd
  • Dudley
  • Lenox
  • Blackstone
  • East Berkeley
  • Broadway
  • BCEC
  • Northern Ave
  • Airport
  • Wood Island
  • East Chelsea
  • North Chelsea
  • Revere Center
  • Malden Street
  • Rumney Flats
The "northside subway" concept would run from Watertown Yard under Galen, Washington, Cambridge through Allston-Brighton and River to Central Square; then under Prospect and Washington through Union to Sullivan, crossing the Mystic and under Broadway in Everett to the Saugus Branch and along that to Northgate / Route 1
  • Watertown Yard
  • Newton Corner
  • Oak Square
  • Brighton Center
  • St. Elizabeth's
  • Allston Village
  • North Harvard Street
  • Putnam
  • Central Sq
  • Inman Sq
  • Union Sq
  • East Somerville
  • Sullivan
  • Encore
  • Everett Sq
  • Galen Sq
  • Wehner Park
  • Eastern Ave
  • Linden Sq
  • Northgate/Rte 1
 
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If Red Line is going to go to 128 (it should) then Burlington is a better terminal. Splitting the Red Line one more time is BAD. Blue Line along Pike is needlessly redundant. Both of these are best served with Regional Rail. Not totally sure the Orange Line can sustain a branch to Everett but I haven't looked at ridership OD data to know if it would be ok.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
If Red Line is going to go to 128 (it should) then Burlington is a better terminal. Splitting the Red Line one more time is BAD. Blue Line along Pike is needlessly redundant. Both of these are best served with Regional Rail. Not totally sure the Orange Line can sustain a branch to Everett but I haven't looked at ridership OD data to know if it would be ok.
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Branching Orange there is going to be bad for whacking headways to a major bus terminal @ Malden. Exponential effects to multimodal service are really lousy there...probably too much of a problem for further consideration of that Everett fork. That was a word-of-mouth proposal uttered by MassDOT in reference to Everett-specific transit improvements without a statement of systemwide benefits. And it's never been studied even at the sketchiest level, so I am extremely skeptical that this was the least bit thought-out. Note also the partial redundancy to Urban Ring NE quadrant, so there's some ham-fisting conflicting aims present too vs. a better-studied project that (while not reaching downtown Everett) does not end up tanking service levels on the incumbent cogs of the system it's plugging into.

Odds of that one getting forwarded so much as to a formal feasibility study: very very low.
 
Setting aside questions of ridership and headway impact, what is the ROW for an Orange Line Everett branch? Clearly it starts off following the Eastern Route, branching just before Assembly, but where does it go once past the casino? There's no ROW there, other than the one that goes to Chelsea. Do we tunnel somewhere? An El on Broadway? It's not clear to me that there's an easy build through that area, even though the population density would clearly support rapid transit.
 
HenryAlan said:
Setting aside questions of ridership and headway impact, what is the ROW for an Orange Line Everett branch? Clearly it starts off following the Eastern Route, branching just before Assembly, but where does it go once past the casino? There's no ROW there, other than the one that goes to Chelsea. Do we tunnel somewhere? An El on Broadway? It's not clear to me that there's an easy build through that area, even though the population density would clearly support rapid transit.
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Almost certainly you'd need to tunnel under Broadway / Rt 99. That seems unavoidable.
 
Could the Indian railways WAP-5 work in the United States?
 
Wash said:
Could the Indian railways WAP-5 work in the United States?
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Those are very similar to the retired Amtrak AEM-7 and NJ Transit ALP-44, sharing similar early-80's Euro-import lineage. So technologically we already have electric locos of that generation. But the 'Toasters' don't have much of a parts supply chain left they're so old, so no one except the scrappers are phoning up Amtrak and NJT for all the ones they still have malingering in dead storage years after last revenue run. Not really an option. You can buy a service-proven Siemens Sprinter or Bombardier ALP-46 brand new from a product catalogue and support it decades longer with spare parts than a refurbished old beater, so the Total Cost of Ownership ends up a total nonstarter for the beaters.
 
anthtucker312 said:
Some maps I made with varying degrees of realism
View attachment 2532
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While people are critical of another southern fork of Red, I appreciate your filling the existing rapid transit service gap in the area between the Orange and Red lines, and the Fairmount ROW would seem to make a lot of sense to utilize. Is there a particular reason why (i.e.) an EMU Fairmount out of the South Station surface lots appears to be the consensus, vs. taking over the ROW as a Red branch?

I had a similar idea a while back to bring service to this area, although using the Silver/Green line rather than Red. For a pilot, all of this could be done using SL buses, and then upgraded to light rail GL.
  1. Extend SL4/5 from Dudley Station down Warren St., reserving a bidirectional bus lane in the existing wide median.
    • Unfortunately, Warren narrows between Quincy St. and Blue Hill Ave., and in lieu of digging a tunnel or seizing the whole road (unfeasible with residential abutters), this would have to be a mixed-traffic segment.
  2. Coming to Blue Hill Ave., continue onto its wide median in a reserved bidirectional bus lane.
  3. Continue south to the northeast corner of Franklin Park, which I would conceptualize as a key station.
  4. Continue to intersect with the Fairmount Line near Woodhaven St., very close to the Blue Hill Ave station.
  5. Finally hitting Mattapan Sq., with buses pulling into the station to turn around.
  6. NEXT: A Green Line conversion of this whole route, extending from the Tremont St. Tunnel to Dudley Sq. (aka Silver Line Phase III+), then all the way to Mattapan.
    • This means that GL Type 10s could then absorb the Mattapan High Speed Line to Ashmont, reducing the number of transfers and variables in rolling stock needed.
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MjolnirMan said:
While people are critical of another southern fork of Red, I appreciate your filling the existing rapid transit service gap in the area between the Orange and Red lines, and the Fairmount ROW would seem to make a lot of sense to utilize. Is there a particular reason why (i.e.) an EMU Fairmount out of the South Station surface lots appears to be the consensus, vs. taking over the ROW as a Red branch?
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It's my understanding that there cannot be a mode change along that corridor because it's the alternate freight line into Boston, and there is not enough room in the RoW to lay parallel tracks.
 
KCasiglio said:
It's my understanding that there cannot be a mode change along that corridor because it's the alternate freight line into Boston, and there is not enough room in the RoW to lay parallel tracks.
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Correct. It's the last freight route into Port of South Boston from the major classification yard in Framingham ever since the SW Corridor tunnel build put the NEC off-limits, so rights were guaranteed to Conrail (and successor CSX) in perpetuity.

It is possible to parallel up well south of Blue Hill Ave. from Mattapan to Readville if you trenched Red under River St. from the Square. Southern end was ex-quad track. But there's absolutely no room in Dorchester on the ROW to side-by-side it.
 
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