General Infrastructure

Not sure if this is the right thread for it, but one thing I would like to see in the future are signs in/before the Zakim tunnel that say "Please use lights in the tunnel". Who would I talk to about something like this?

Also, another poster had an amazing idea a few months ago about repainting the lines on Route 3N in Burlington, in order to eliminate the merge from 95/128. Right now the highway "originates" from the 95N exit, with 2 lanes. Then it merges with the 95S exiting traffic while concurrently creating a new 3rd lane on the left. So, repaint those lines and you have suddenly eliminated a merge at an extremely busy traffic area. Sounds like an easy, common sense fix right? Well, WHO do we have to get in front of to pass this type of initiative? There's more office buildings and a Wegmans coming to already overcrowded Burlington. These types of easy fixes are incredibly important and necessary!

Thanks.
 
DZH22 said:
Not sure if this is the right thread for it, but one thing I would like to see in the future are signs in/before the Zakim tunnel that say "Please use lights in the tunnel". Who would I talk to about something like this?

Also, another poster had an amazing idea a few months ago about repainting the lines on Route 3N in Burlington, in order to eliminate the merge from 95/128. Right now the highway "originates" from the 95N exit, with 2 lanes. Then it merges with the 95S exiting traffic while concurrently creating a new 3rd lane on the left. So, repaint those lines and you have suddenly eliminated a merge at an extremely busy traffic area. Sounds like an easy, common sense fix right? Well, WHO do we have to get in front of to pass this type of initiative? There's more office buildings and a Wegmans coming to already overcrowded Burlington. These types of easy fixes are incredibly important and necessary!

Thanks.
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I'm pretty sure the overhead signage boards actually say "TURN ON HEADLIGHTS"
 
IMG_20140914_180412.jpg


I think this might be my new go-to picture for beg buttons...

...although in this case it seems that they took out the button and replaced it with automatic pedestrian phase, so that's a plus.
 
If y'all have any free time this evening, the Charles River Conservancy and Miguel Rosales are holding a public meeting/question and answer session on the Harvard Bridge Lighting.

6-8pm at Shriner's Hospital for Children (51 Blossom Street, Boston)
 
I don't know where exactly this belongs, but there's now a petition to put in some level of signalization at the Memorial Drive crosswalk just west of Ames Street. It's been making the rounds at MIT after one of the staff members at the sailing pavilion got hit by a car a few weeks ago. Perhaps DCR will do something here since it actually involves roadwork, but in any case the "Memorial Drive sucks" band continues to play.
 
Crossing Memorial is always fun... the cars never see you for some reason :rolleyes:
 
Report offers ideas for a Boston beset by rising seas
Envisions canals, fortifications

The Urban Land Institute, a national real estate association, held brainstorming sessions over the last several months involving more than 70 engineers, architects, and development and insurance specialists, among others, to examine how rising sea levels would affect four representative areas: the Back Bay, the Innovation District in South Boston, Revere Beach, and the Alewife section of Cambridge.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...umJ9GK2VnI/story.html?p1=Article_FeatureStrip

The article has some fun visuals of Clarendon Street as a canal.
 
Probably not even worth the keyboard strokes to write this, but, Berkeley Street would be more likely, since the canal could then link up through the South End with Fort Point Channel.
 
Dartmouth is double width, so you could have a canal + frontage road.

All in all though, if were doing some kind of crazy transformative project I'd like it to be an inner harbor barrier like the Dutch.
 
DZH22 said:
Also, another poster had an amazing idea a few months ago about repainting the lines on Route 3N in Burlington, in order to eliminate the merge from 95/128. Right now the highway "originates" from the 95N exit, with 2 lanes. Then it merges with the 95S exiting traffic while concurrently creating a new 3rd lane on the left. So, repaint those lines and you have suddenly eliminated a merge at an extremely busy traffic area. Sounds like an easy, common sense fix right? Well, WHO do we have to get in front of to pass this type of initiative? There's more office buildings and a Wegmans coming to already overcrowded Burlington. These types of easy fixes are incredibly important and necessary!

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I 100% agree-- that entire interchange is a mess and should have been rebuilt as part of the add-a-lane project over 10 years ago. There is a terrible merge for the C/D for the 3S traffic and then again, another terrible one where the C/D connects up with 128N after the interchange. I have to wonder if it part of the project was scrapped as part of the statewide cost cutting to pay for the big dig.
 
Probably of more interest to rail fans than anything else, but this company is using my s/w from mine and I came across their website, curious if MBTA is working with them at all considering they're Boston based.

http://www.rail-pod.com/
 
Neat idea, not sure I quite trust the abilities of an engineer that hasn't figured out how to make decent renders.
 
Deetroyt said:
Probably of more interest to rail fans than anything else, but this company is using my s/w from mine and I came across their website, curious if MBTA is working with them at all considering they're Boston based.

http://www.rail-pod.com/
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If they have any interest, there'd be no way of knowing. They've done low-key experiments before. Mattapan Line got used as a test lab for GPS train tracking.

Right now they do regular periodic inspections on a rotating schedule that churns across the whole system, and as-needed inspections at conclusion of any new track work. And basic drive-thrus every morning before start of service on any lines that haven't seen a train in several hours to make sure no trees have fallen on the ROW on the overnight or stuff like that.

Rail defect detection gets done by Sperry Railcar out of Danbury, CT:
srs403.jpg


They are contracted to do a huge percentage of the U.S. rail network. They run a fleet of specialized DMU's (some of them 1930's antiques) that do an ultrasound of the rails, amongst other things, to detect any hidden flaws inside the rail. Makes a visit to the MBTA every couple of years. Unique thing about those is that the crew actually lives onboard the vehicle like a mobile home for weeks at a time when they're out on a 'tour'.


Track alignment and geometry gets done with an Amtrak inspection car that gets passed around all the Northeastern railroads on regular rotation. Has sensors that measure all things alignment-related. MassDOT uses it to inspect all the state-owned track, including Western MA. So if you ever see a short commuter rail train on the midday offpeak with an Amtrak Amfleet coach sandwiched oddly in the middle, running nonstop at a 35-40 MPH half-clip...that's what they're doing.

cc001.jpg



And everything else usually gets done from hi-rail trucks (pickup and flatbed trucks that have a set of steel wheels they can drop and ride on tracks) or little trackmobile things. Commuter rail work fleet HQ is at the Alewife maint shed on the Fitchburg Line; rapid transit work fleet (all 4 lines) HQ is Red Line Cabot Yard. Can easily see all the oddball stuff they've got parked at Alewife from the parkway overpass, and Red Line from the Broadway bridge.

6801369424_4d1bd6f006_m.jpg
5200662903_3e9afb5efc.jpg
 
The EGE said:
Neat idea, not sure I quite trust the abilities of an engineer that hasn't figured out how to make decent renders.
Click to expand...

I thought this too, though they are just a startup, so maybe they just haven't put any money/resources into website design yet, and have focused on product development. I'd say don't be fooled by their website. They won last year's MassChallenge grand prize and was recently named by MassTLC as the 2014 Startup to Watch.

I'll try to find the links to those two things.
 
I'll side with Deetroyt on this one. RailPod is legit. It makes little sense for startups that don't make consumer products to invest heavily in pretty graphics, websites, and renders. Seed stage startups like RailPod often have limited resources, so it's best they focus on the product.

That being said, RailPod netted $2.5 million in venture money in June, which is in addition to their winning MassChallenge's grand prize. They declined to name the investor, but here's the SEC filing: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1610559/000161055914000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml

I'd hope with the new money they could divert just a bit to marketing purposes.
 
For the record I was joking, I have no doubts about their actual engineering abilities. But PR-wise, better renders would be good. Most CAD programs make rendering very easy; the current version of Solidworks (and probably others as well) actually does a pretty nice render live as you're working.
 
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