FWIW, I think this much green space means that in a very very speculative far-future world with proper zoning, a transit extension to Lexington has higher potential for TOD than Arlington. (I know, I know.)
Regardless, I think this discussion from both yourself and F-Line illustrated that engineering feasibility is definitely not a distinguishing factor between HRT and LRT for Lexington - political feasibility and ridership are. In other words, there's no world in which LRT to Lexington is feasible but HRT using the exact same design is not.
Doesn't the Green Space in Lexington suggest that a load-balanced branch option for the extension should be evaluated. Not sure where you could branch, given available right-of-way, but serving two endpoints rather than one might make the HRT capacity beyond Alewife more rational?
Red Line to Arlington Center definitely makes sense. Red to Arlington Heights maybe also makes sense -- F Line makes reasonable arguments from an ops perspective (ah, as I see he just summarized here). Red beyond Arlington does not make sense to me, and seems squarely in the realm of LRT to me.
Yes, and this points to a fair criticism of this particular fantasy map -- inconsistent timelines. To use your analogy in the linked thread, Lynn and Arlington would both be Phase 1A, with 1B coming later... but arguably I have other extensions on that map that are Phase 2 or even Phase 3. So that's tricky.
Ah yes, fair point.
Yeah I think we're largely in agreement about Arlington.
You know, you're right, there definitely are fewer grade crossings than I'd thought. In addition to F-Line's points about the trail, the other reason would be the ability to have smaller station footprints -- shorter platforms, and potentially with grade pedestrian crossings. Again, maybe I'm underestimating how much ridership there would be, but HRT just seems like overkill.
Idk. This much greenspace just seems at odds with heavy rail:
How much of that non-green space in Arlington is actually within the walk shed of a proposed station? I would argue to Lexington that if you want to preserve your green space long term (like, on a 50+ year time scale) then rail and a densified Lexington Center is your only real option. Otherwise housing demand and proximity to Boston will eventually win out and you'll sprawl the same way as Arlington.
How much of that non-green space in Arlington is actually within the walk shed of a proposed station? I would argue to Lexington that if you want to preserve your green space long term (like, on a 50+ year time scale) then rail and a densified Lexington Center is your only real option. Otherwise housing demand and proximity to Boston will eventually win out and you'll sprawl the same way as Arlington.
I used to work in Waltham, and we would often drive to Lexington Center for lunch. I just can't see the demand for rapid transit in Lexington. It's just not dense enough, and I don't see it changing any time soon. Arlington on the other hand is quite dense. In my opinion, a red line extension to Arlington Center and Arlington Heights makes sense. Maybe the alignment would run to Arlington Heights and then pick up the median of the Route 2 corridor out to 128? You could pick up a ton of workers within the office parks along 128 from Waltham to Burlington. However, I think Orange line extension to West Roxbury and Green line extension to Needham is more important and should be done first.
Doesn't the Green Space in Lexington suggest that a load-balanced branch option for the extension should be evaluated. Not sure where you could branch, given available right-of-way, but serving two endpoints rather than one might make the HRT capacity beyond Alewife more rational?
@The EGE has an interesting proposal of branching out the Red Line at Alewife, with a branch to Waltham, in place of the more common GLX to Waltham proposal.
In my opinion, a red line extension to Arlington Center and Arlington Heights makes sense. Maybe the alignment would run to Arlington Heights and then pick up the median of the Route 2 corridor out to 128? You could pick up a ton of workers within the office parks along 128 from Waltham to Burlington. However, I think Orange line extension to West Roxbury and Green line extension to Needham is more important and should be done first.
Aside from the question of how you can get from Arlington Heights to Route 2 as HRT in the first place, Route 2 seems to have even lower density than Lexington (though it may be bordering on North Waltham). So it's primarily a Route 128 P&R extension, at which point where you place it along 128 probably doesn't matter that much - in other words, those office parks (especially Burlington) will still benefit from a Lexington-to-128 extension.
Extending along Route 2 itself may have lower cost (mostly political) than along Lexington, but that may be offset by getting from Arlington Heights to Route 2. And an even more cost-effective approach would be to boost regional rail to Waltham, and perhaps Anderson/Woburn or Mishawum.
Extending along Route 2 itself may have lower cost (mostly political) than along Lexington, but that may be offset by getting from Arlington Heights to Route 2. And an even more cost-effective approach would be to boost regional rail to Waltham, and perhaps Anderson/Woburn or Mishawum.
Totally agree about Regional Rail to Waltham instead. I wasn't advocating for a Red Line extension along Route 2. In a world where money doesn't matter, I just thought it might make more sense than going through Lexington Center. However, I'm still advocating Red Line to Arlington Center, Orange Line to West Roxbury, and Green Line to Needham Heights.
I used to work in Waltham, and we would often drive to Lexington Center for lunch. I just can't see the demand for rapid transit in Lexington. It's just not dense enough, and I don't see it changing any time soon. Arlington on the other hand is quite dense. In my opinion, a red line extension to Arlington Center and Arlington Heights makes sense. Maybe the alignment would run to Arlington Heights and then pick up the median of the Route 2 corridor out to 128? You could pick up a ton of workers within the office parks along 128 from Waltham to Burlington. However, I think Orange line extension to West Roxbury and Green line extension to Needham is more important and should be done first.
Absolutely agreed that Needham line replacement is much higher on the priority list than any red line north extension. I'd add Blue Line to Lynn, NSRL, GLX->porter, and better circumferential transit above it as well.
Because of that, it's hard to make a case for Lexington because there's so many actual pressing concerns. From a purely Lexington perspective, considering the project in a vacuum, I do think it would be prudent and proactive to get transit out there (along with zoning to accommodate density that would actually support it) before the growth happens. Waiting for the growth first all but guarantees the growth that comes will be auto-oriented, because that will be the most convenient option and will be what's demanded by the residents. Yes, Arlington could justify the service now with their level of density, but what I'm saying is if Lexington wants to preserve some amount of green space (what little hasn't been consumed by sprawl already) it would be better served by trying to encourage growth and transit in specific nodes.
But again, in actuality we don't really have the luxury of being prudent and proactive because there's so many areas that need high quality service a decade ago.
The one thing to remember about Lexington is that the town seems to be swinging towards densification. They were literally the first community to upzone to comply with MBTA Communities (back in March, I think?), a year and a half before their formal deadline and with a plan that went way, way beyond what they were required to do. We'll see what starts to happen as the development financing markets loosen up next year, but it's conceivable that the center and the area around Stop & Shop starts bulking out, followed by the town letting nearby single-family neighborhoods start to become more Arlington-like.
Waiting for the growth first all but guarantees the growth that comes will be auto-oriented, because that will be the most convenient option and will be what's demanded by the residents. Yes, Arlington could justify the service now with their level of density, but what I'm saying is if Lexington wants to preserve some amount of green space (what little hasn't been consumed by sprawl already) it would be better served by trying to encourage growth and transit in specific nodes.
This shows the unfortunate fact that we're not expanding our transit system quickly enough, not even close. Not only do obvious, well-established transit needs face backlogs (Lynn, Needham/West Roxbury, Arlington, Fairmount ROW, Watertown, Everett, Chelsea), but neighborhoods that could have been transit-oriented instead have their potential wasted in favor of car-centric development (Lexington, Reading ROW, Salem, Waltham, Dedham, and many other suburbs). Those developments, and people moving to the area, don't wait decades for transit to be extended there.
The same applies to regional rail and electrification.
Edit: For Lexington in particular, the most plausible solution in a reasonable time frame may be to build RLX to Arlington Heights, and run high-frequency buses from there to Lexington following or in conjunction with further development and densification there (if it happens).
The full list of changes from last time is below, here's what's new with this version specifically:
Extensions
New OL branch to Everett and East Malden, travellling under Broadway via C&C tunnel
Restored A branch to Oak Sq
Special event service to Fenway
Commuter Rail
Added Bedford Line
Moved Haverhill Line to use Lowell Line and Wildcat branch, stub renamed to Reading Line
Station Renamings/Arbitrary assignments:
Union Sq (Allston) renamed to Hester Sq after Rita Hester
Carrington station in Everett named for Walter Carrington
Other Things
Fixed missing OL blob at Oak Grove
Fixed "Charlestown" text missing white border
Fixed various other visual anomalies
New Lines
Yellow Line: City Point-Wonderland via Nubian, Longwood, Cambridge, Charlestown, and Chelsea
Pink Line: West Station to Community College via Grand Junction RR. All stations named after Nobel Laureates.
Aqua Line: Brandeis/Roberts to Harvard via Mt Auburn St and Watertown Branch RR
Indigo Line: Just the Fairmount Line but better
Needham Trolley: Connection between Needham and West Roxbury as well as a retirement home for the PCCs.
New 4 stop Green Line branch to Needham Junction via the Charles River Branch RR
New Green Line Branch to Mattapan via Washington St, Warren St, and Blue Hill Ave, replacing the 28 bus.
Logan Airport People Mover (In our hearts, it's pretty much impossible to show on the map)
Extensions
Red Line extended 2 stops from Ashmont to Mattapan, taking over the Mattapan Line.
Red Line extended 3 stops to Arlington Heights
Orange Line extended 5 stops from Forest Hills to VFW Parkway
Blue Line extended 1 stop to Charles/MGH
Blue Line extended 7 stops to Old Salem
Green Line B Branch extended 1 stop to new Terminus on the BC campus
Green Line D Branch extended 2 stops from Union Sq to Porter
Green Line E Branch extended 2 stops from Medford/Tufts to West Medford
The Green Line
Huntington Ave Subway extended south to Mission Park and connected to the Tremont St Subway via I90 and the Pleasant St Portal.
Silver Line Transitway and current SL2 branch converted to light rail. The Silver Line is then extended along the Huntington Ave Subway before surfacing after Mission Park and running along Centre/South Streets to Forest Hills
D branch trains rerouted along an extended Huntington Ave Subway, bypassing Longwood and Fenway.
E branch trains rerouted along the Highland Branch to the new Needham extension.
Infill Stations
River's Edge (OL Between Malden Center and Wellington)
Morrissey (RL between Savin Hill and North Quincy)
West Station (CR between Landsdowne and Boston Landing)
Columbia (IL between Uphams Corner and Four Corners/Geneva)
River St (IL between BHA and Fairmount)
Widett Circle (IL between Newmarket and South Station)
Station Renamings
Gilman Sq renamed to Winter Hill
Longwood Medical Area (GL/SL) renamed to MassArt/Wentworth
Stop Consolidation on the B/C branches as well as the current street running segment of the E branch
CR Service is electrified and fares make sense (Not visible)
"Providence/Stoughton Line" changed to "Providence/New Bedford/Fall River Lines"
Removed the Twitter handle from the legend
Added "All MBTA stations and services are accessible" to the legend
Things I've removed from the map:
Fenway/Longwood: Replaced by St Marys St and Longwood Medical Area (YL). Branch still used for special event service to Fenway.
Bowdoin: Axed as part of the Red-Blue connector.
SL1: Replaced with express bus
SL3: Downgraded to regular bus service and rerouted out of the Transitway. The Chelsea busway is opened up for other local bus services to use.
Hingham/Hull Ferries: These were never rapid transit why were they ever on the map?
Charlestown Ferry: Maybe still around, but more as a novelty/replacement service. It's never faster.
Bus routes: Many key bus routes are made obsolete by electrified CR service, the Indigo Line, the Yellow Line, and various extensions. The rest are removed because this is a rapid transit map, not a bus map.
The Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library on Tuesday posted a new MBTA map featuring a host of creative station names — and they’re not what you might expect.
www.bostonglobe.com
Some witty names on here. Seriously, though, they renamed Magoun Square to Winter Hill, shouldn’t Gilman Square get that name? Anyways, I think that would be a great name change for Gilman. FWIW, coming from someone who’s never lived in Somerville, I feel like Winter Hill is more descriptive of the area than Gilman
When I was a little kid, I used to call the old Sears and Roebuck store at Porter Square "Stairs and Robots", because of the shoppers going up and down the escalators in the store. That would be a good name for a T station.
The Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library on Tuesday posted a new MBTA map featuring a host of creative station names — and they’re not what you might expect.
www.bostonglobe.com
Some witty names on here. Seriously, though, they renamed Magoun Square to Winter Hill, shouldn’t Gilman Square get that name? Anyways, I think that would be a great name change for Gilman. FWIW, coming from someone who’s never lived in Somerville, I feel like Winter Hill is more descriptive of the area than Gilman
I've continued to iterate on my Transportation Dreams submission, to capture a few more ideas and experiment with some things.
In no particular order:
Chelsea: I'll probably write more about this at some point, but this map depicts an approach we've been tossing around a bit, wherein the LRT "Urban Ring" service terminates at Eastern Ave, while a BRT service (S3, here) radiating from South Station/Seaport/Airport traverses downtown Chelsea more directly, using a combination of bus lanes and brief mixed running, complementing the 111 BRT service (A) radiating from North Station/Downtown
Newton/Needham trolleys: short light rail shuttles, running primarily through small transit-friendly villages, at medium-low frequencies (arguably shouldn't use the same visual language as rapid transit services, but oh well for now), operating independently from the Gold Line to simplify scheduling and dispatching. The shuttle to Dover is based in part on my unserious MMMMM Line idea; perhaps a handful of trains in the peak direction through-run from Dover into Boston, but I wouldn't mark it on the map
"Infills": New Red Line infill at Tech Square ("Galileo") to provide direct transfer to Bronze and serve the western end of Kendall. Added a new station on the Pink Line between The Fens and Louis Pasteur at Brookline Ave ("Pilgrim") to provide transfers from bus services. Why is the station called "Pilgrim"? Because "Brookline Ave" is long to fit on a map (and I don't like it as a station name, see spoiler box below for fussy idiosyncratic thoughts), and because the station would be located at the intersection of Pilgrim Rd & Brookline Ave & Riverway/The Fenway, and because I like unusual subway station names
Regional Rail and the Purple Line:
This is the most significant addition to the map, and definitely the riskiest. I declined to include Regional Rail on my original submission because the map seemed busy enough as is. Also, I was scared of trying to figure out how to do the northeast corner of the map (the triangle formed by the Bronze Line, Blue Line, and Newburyport/Rockport Line).
I also felt I still had unanswered questions about the nuances of "Frequent Regional Rail" and how they would impact the visual language of the map. 4 tph is great, but I didn't want to show it with the same language as the subway. I also was skeptical about the achievability of perfect 15-min headways on all the "inner branches" that would all (theoretically) enjoy 4 tph; headways that alternate between 10 and 20 minutes are very different from reliable 15-min headways.
For this map, I attempted to create a 3-tier system:
"Purple Line": headways of 7-12 minutes created by at least 5 tph, available on the Fairmount Line and between South & West Stations; why these two? See spoiler box
Central Regional Rail: headways of 10-20 minutes; these will often be 4 tph, and may be evenly spaced every 15 min, but may have gaps or "lopsided" schedules that create longer waits
Outer Regional Rail: headways of 30-60 minutes; segments without cumulative headways, or where 30-minute spacing can't be guaranteed (see Frank/Fox Line example below)
This really should be a blog post (and probably will be), but, why do I feel (uniquely) good about putting the Fairmount Line and inner B&A into the Purple Line tier? It's about the number of underlying services. Fairmount can reach 12 minute headways by having 5 trains per hour evenly spaced, 4 of which continue on to Walpole; those 4 can then split into near-half-hourly services to Foxboro and Franklin (see example below). The outer branches get clock-facing headways (not perfectly spaced, but still on a regular cadence), the middle trunk through Norwood sees a train every 12-24 minutes, which is not quite turn-up-and-go, but is still very viable, and the inner section gets even 12-min freqs:
:00 - Franklin
:12 - Foxboro
:24 - Franklin
:36 - Foxboro
:48 - Readville
That's a simple enough schedule that it seems relatively feasible to manage.
As for the inner B&A: why doesn't the "Purple Line" designation extend all the way to Auburndale? I'm not convinced that all B&A trains will stop at the Newtons. That trunk will need to see services to Framingham/Marlboro, Worcester, plus whatever gets run to Springfield and beyond. Worcester trains may or may not stop at the Newtons, but the Springfield+'s definitely won't. Achieving 12-min-or-better headways with no gaps seems doable but not guaranteeable there. But, from West Station inward, all MBTA trains will serve all stations, and I'd wager that a CommPass (though not Amtrak) service would likely do the same. West Station is also the most likely to have an extra track to turn trains. So, running enough trains to guarantee "Purple Line" headways seems just slightly more likely there -- but enough that I think it tips the scales.
I don't love the "compression" of the Regional Rail labels, but I felt I needed some additional cue beyond the (slight) difference in width to show that these were a tier below the Purple Line services. (Also, it wouldn't have been feasible without a major rework within the existing frame of the map to space them out further.)
Smaller stuff in spoiler box.
Arlington: extension to Arlington Heights per the original plan. As F-Line pointed out, a terminal at heights gives space for a small layover, not available at Arlington Center, and needed to replace the layover tracks at Alewife
L becomes Pink: there are pros and cons to this, but I opted to shift the L service into the Pink Line, primarily for visual simplicity
Walking transfers: now indicated with a very thin grey line; there are several station pairs, including Galileo/Kendall and Spruce St/Mystic Mall, where I wouldn't want passengers to think they need to wait for a transfer in order to "double back", or where the stations are too far to show an actual transfer, but where their proximity might impact wayfinding (such as Courthouse/A St or Boylston/Chinatown); this became particularly necessary when I needed to add Lansdowne to the map, which is pretty much equally walkable from Kenmore, The Fens, and St. Mary's St, which would provide a usable transfer for some passengers, but would be unreasonable to show as a full transfer on the map
Station names: In general, I dislike the inclusion of markers such as "St", "Ave" or "Sq" in station names. For one, I think there is a strong enough precedent set by multiple old stations that it should be a style across the system (think "Boylston" and "Central"). Given that, "Brookline Ave" would become "Brookline"... which would be a problem since the stop isn't actually in Brookline. Hence the pithier name of "Pilgrim"; I'm a big believer that train stations can be placemaking devices themselves, such that it's not always vital to name the station after the biggest nearby street
Really interesting map here. I find a fantasy MBTA map funny when it does nothing to service southie, but I love the amount of connections here. Still would think some more current green line connections would really build out this map (as well as southie), but I'm biased
Really interesting map here. I find a fantasy MBTA map funny when it does nothing to service southie, but I love the amount of connections here. Still would think some more current green line connections would really build out this map (as well as southie), but I'm biased
The A Line is a BRT corridor with significant dedicated infrastructure, supporting dedicated A Line buses, but also serving routes such as the (T)7 and (T)111, so Southie is getting a piece of the pie too.
On a 100-year timespan, I would eventually convert and expand the A Line into a surface-running LRT network with branches to Southie, Charlestown, and Chelsea. On the more modest time-scale, I think core BRT infrastructure to augment surface routes is reasonable, given Southie's proximity to downtown.
Chelsea: I'll probably write more about this at some point, but this map depicts an approach we've been tossing around a bit, wherein the LRT "Urban Ring" service terminates at Eastern Ave, while a BRT service (S3, here) radiating from South Station/Seaport/Airport traverses downtown Chelsea more directly, using a combination of bus lanes and brief mixed running, complementing the 111 BRT service (A) radiating from North Station/Downtown
Newton/Needham trolleys: short light rail shuttles, running primarily through small transit-friendly villages, at medium-low frequencies (arguably shouldn't use the same visual language as rapid transit services, but oh well for now), operating independently from the Gold Line to simplify scheduling and dispatching. The shuttle to Dover is based in part on my unserious MMMMM Line idea; perhaps a handful of trains in the peak direction through-run from Dover into Boston, but I wouldn't mark it on the map
"Infills": New Red Line infill at Tech Square ("Galileo") to provide direct transfer to Bronze and serve the western end of Kendall. Added a new station on the Pink Line between The Fens and Louis Pasteur at Brookline Ave ("Pilgrim") to provide transfers from bus services. Why is the station called "Pilgrim"? Because "Brookline Ave" is long to fit on a map (and I don't like it as a station name, see spoiler box below for fussy idiosyncratic thoughts), and because the station would be located at the intersection of Pilgrim Rd & Brookline Ave & Riverway/The Fenway, and because I like unusual subway station names
Regional Rail and the Purple Line:
This is the most significant addition to the map, and definitely the riskiest. I declined to include Regional Rail on my original submission because the map seemed busy enough as is. Also, I was scared of trying to figure out how to do the northeast corner of the map (the triangle formed by the Bronze Line, Blue Line, and Newburyport/Rockport Line).
I also felt I still had unanswered questions about the nuances of "Frequent Regional Rail" and how they would impact the visual language of the map. 4 tph is great, but I didn't want to show it with the same language as the subway. I also was skeptical about the achievability of perfect 15-min headways on all the "inner branches" that would all (theoretically) enjoy 4 tph; headways that alternate between 10 and 20 minutes are very different from reliable 15-min headways.
For this map, I attempted to create a 3-tier system:
"Purple Line": headways of 7-12 minutes created by at least 5 tph, available on the Fairmount Line and between South & West Stations; why these two? See spoiler box
Central Regional Rail: headways of 10-20 minutes; these will often be 4 tph, and may be evenly spaced every 15 min, but may have gaps or "lopsided" schedules that create longer waits
Outer Regional Rail: headways of 30-60 minutes; segments without cumulative headways, or where 30-minute spacing can't be guaranteed (see Frank/Fox Line example below)
This really should be a blog post (and probably will be), but, why do I feel (uniquely) good about putting the Fairmount Line and inner B&A into the Purple Line tier? It's about the number of underlying services. Fairmount can reach 12 minute headways by having 5 trains per hour evenly spaced, 4 of which continue on to Walpole; those 4 can then split into near-half-hourly services to Foxboro and Franklin (see example below). The outer branches get clock-facing headways (not perfectly spaced, but still on a regular cadence), the middle trunk through Norwood sees a train every 12-24 minutes, which is not quite turn-up-and-go, but is still very viable, and the inner section gets even 12-min freqs:
:00 - Franklin
:12 - Foxboro
:24 - Franklin
:36 - Foxboro
:48 - Readville
That's a simple enough schedule that it seems relatively feasible to manage.
As for the inner B&A: why doesn't the "Purple Line" designation extend all the way to Auburndale? I'm not convinced that all B&A trains will stop at the Newtons. That trunk will need to see services to Framingham/Marlboro, Worcester, plus whatever gets run to Springfield and beyond. Worcester trains may or may not stop at the Newtons, but the Springfield+'s definitely won't. Achieving 12-min-or-better headways with no gaps seems doable but not guaranteeable there. But, from West Station inward, all MBTA trains will serve all stations, and I'd wager that a CommPass (though not Amtrak) service would likely do the same. West Station is also the most likely to have an extra track to turn trains. So, running enough trains to guarantee "Purple Line" headways seems just slightly more likely there -- but enough that I think it tips the scales.
I don't love the "compression" of the Regional Rail labels, but I felt I needed some additional cue beyond the (slight) difference in width to show that these were a tier below the Purple Line services. (Also, it wouldn't have been feasible without a major rework within the existing frame of the map to space them out further.)
Smaller stuff in spoiler box.
Arlington: extension to Arlington Heights per the original plan. As F-Line pointed out, a terminal at heights gives space for a small layover, not available at Arlington Center, and needed to replace the layover tracks at Alewife
L becomes Pink: there are pros and cons to this, but I opted to shift the L service into the Pink Line, primarily for visual simplicity
Walking transfers: now indicated with a very thin grey line; there are several station pairs, including Galileo/Kendall and Spruce St/Mystic Mall, where I wouldn't want passengers to think they need to wait for a transfer in order to "double back", or where the stations are too far to show an actual transfer, but where their proximity might impact wayfinding (such as Courthouse/A St or Boylston/Chinatown); this became particularly necessary when I needed to add Lansdowne to the map, which is pretty much equally walkable from Kenmore, The Fens, and St. Mary's St, which would provide a usable transfer for some passengers, but would be unreasonable to show as a full transfer on the map
Station names: In general, I dislike the inclusion of markers such as "St", "Ave" or "Sq" in station names. For one, I think there is a strong enough precedent set by multiple old stations that it should be a style across the system (think "Boylston" and "Central"). Given that, "Brookline Ave" would become "Brookline"... which would be a problem since the stop isn't actually in Brookline. Hence the pithier name of "Pilgrim"; I'm a big believer that train stations can be placemaking devices themselves, such that it's not always vital to name the station after the biggest nearby street
What I did for naming the stops along the Grand Junction was use the last names of Nobel Laureates from MIT, I think I makes for better and more identifiable station names overall. And then for a little easter egg that I don't think anyone has caught from my map yet, you can call Tech Square "Friedman" after Jerome Friedman, who won a prize with Henry Way Kendall, who was also from MIT. (No relation between this Kendall and the Kendalls the square is named after, as far as I can tell.)
Since you have multiple stops in LMAA, having a stop on Huntington Called LMA and another stop would be a bit confusing. I picked MassArt/Wentworth when I did my map but there's no shortage of people or institutions you could name it after.
If there's a major transfer hub at Boston University station, maybe BU East should be renamed to Granby St or something?
I think Ruggles and Lechmere are both better kept as is. Lechmere has a pretty long name history, complete with defunct department store, and Ruggles is just fun to say.
What I did for naming the stops along the Grand Junction was use the last names of Nobel Laureates from MIT, I think I makes for better and more identifiable station names overall. And then for a little easter egg that I don't think anyone has caught from my map yet, you can call Tech Square "Friedman" after Jerome Friedman, who won a prize with Henry Way Kendall, who was also from MIT. (No relation between this Kendall and the Kendalls the square is named after, as far as I can tell.)
This was quite possibly my favorite thing about your map, and I actually made a remark to my partner the day before I posted this, saying that I really liked the concept and would love to eventually implement it. I think it’s a wonderful delightful idea.
Part of why I didn’t is that the diagram is not super geographically accurate, and some station locations would be ambiguous with brand-new names. (Part of why I felt okay renaming Ruggles, Lechmere, and Maverick was because it would be totally clear what the station was still, since they are existing stations and have unmistakable locations in the network. Getting so creative with brand new stations is a little different.)
Since you have multiple stops in LMAA, having a stop on Huntington Called LMA and another stop would be a bit confusing. I picked MassArt/Wentworth when I did my map but there's no shortage of people or institutions you could name it after.
I see what you’re saying, though it seems like it wouldn’t be much more confusing than it is today? But yes, I saw MassArt/Wentworth on your map and thought it was a good idea.
Since this map started as a GLR map, I wanted to make minimal changes to Huntington to provide an obvious point of familiarity, to contextualize the rest of the map. That said, potentially the station locations themselves need to be reworked here, as the stop spacing is definitely on the close side. So that would present a whole new challenge from a mapmaking and station-naming perspective.
Good thought! Yes, the asymmetry there annoyed me (no BU West, “BU” vs “Boston University”, etc). Ultimately the reasoning was the same as above — when proposing significant changes, be mindful of things you can keep the same, to make it easier to understand for others.
I think Ruggles and Lechmere are both better kept as is. Lechmere has a pretty long name history, complete with defunct department store, and Ruggles is just fun to say.
Yeah — I wasn’t necessarily super-invested in these station name changes in particular (though I maintain that Maverick is significantly worse), it was more that they provided relatively straightforward examples of a larger approach/principle to renaming: it doesn’t have to be punitive; we can find things named after people who aren’t super important to us (such as Ruggles) and rename them to celebrate people who are super important to us.
(That said, the original Maverick seems to be known solely for being the region’s first slave owner, one seen as cruel and sexually abusive even by his contemporaries. That name seems particularly grotesque. It is true that the square/neighborhood itself now has given that name a separate history and perhaps that is enough to justify keeping it. I think this situation is different than Ruggles or Lechmere, and I do think it’s worth having a conversation about. Not right now though — probably best to wait until the T is less broken.)
www.bostonglobe.com
www.leventhalmap.org
