General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Ah, one of my favorite files. I've been looking everywhere for it.


As for OL to Needham... you could still short-turn half the the runs at Forest Hills. And then you're also set up to eventually give Needham full blown service if they take advantage of the OL and add on to their dense main road along the line.

It isn't even close to worth the cost of going that far for the fewer boardings and the cost of the grade separation in Needham. The very fact that you would have to short-turn half your runs to keep 6 cars from being nearly empty off-peak is the proof that the idea fails bad on the HRT mode.

LRT branch to Junction is one of the very cheapest extensions they can do because of the minimal modification (right down to recycling the low platforms), and the one where service and seating levels can be easily controlled to match the all-hours walkup.

OL to Rozzie is slam-dunk and works now. OL to W. Rox is slam-dunk if it comes in tandem with the GL replacement. Crossing Cutler Park to 128 probably isn't worth considering until a later phase IF they can prove with real numbers that the all-day ridership will be there. And I'm not sure they can. OL-GL transfer at Junction will never ever be considered because of the overkill. And total OL displacement with total cost-sink corridor makeover to Heights will never be considered ever...and will do more harm than good because of the off-peak farebox recovery far below what'll float HRT.


This has been studied almost continuously for 70 years, and intensively 30 years ago. They have a pretty solid handle on what ridership is there and what mode is best to handle it. If they never once put out a plan permutation that sent Orange to the other side of 128, it's safe to say there's good reasons why.

 

[Digital_Islandboy]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

No. Because there's nothing to prepare other than making sure the thin strip of storefronts that go on Dot Ave. afterwards don't become a strip of ridiculously tall but thin office towers with pilings deep in the earth (rather unlikely). The Link station would be so far underground at this point that it'll bore straight under small building foundations and so far offset from the rest of the station that it'll straddle Dot Ave. to steer away from existing pilings and slot between other underground tunnels. They only have one trajectory that'll work with how crowded it is down there, and that's it. The approach tunnels merge way back in Cabot Yard and burrow under existing tracks to get there from the portals. There probably will be few surface impacts at all at the station given the depth, with most of the visible activity occurring near Cabot where the underground lead tunnels merge.


They have more to prepare for with SS if this mythical recurring tower-on-air-rights idea ever comes to a fruition and covers the existing terminal with deep piling bores. But even that wouldn't do anything to the Link because it's on the opposite side.

I thought one of the big dig's agendas was to have concrete walls of the current big dig extend all the way down to bedrock so that in the event a rail tunnel was needed, all they'd have to do is excavate the soil between those walls and they'll have an open cavity underneath the current highway? Since then, I haven't been able to find any sources that confirm whether or not that was fully carried out. If it was that would shave quite a bit off the cost of finding a foot print no?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I thought one of the big dig's agendas was to have concrete walls of the current big dig extend all the way down to bedrock so that in the event a rail tunnel was needed, all they'd have to do is excavate the soil between those walls and they'll have an open cavity underneath the current highway? Since then, I haven't been able to find any sources that confirm whether or not that was fully carried out. If it was that would shave quite a bit off the cost of finding a foot print no?

Yes. That was done. But that section of 93 is north of the Dewey Sq. tunnel. Everything near SS would be all-new construction, and the Link tunnel wouldn't join this pre-cleared cavity until roughly Seaport Blvd./Northern Ave. It straddles Dot Ave. and the Ft. Point Channel everywhere south until the track split at roughly where the Pike ventilation building is.

 

[omaja]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

BTW, I met MBTA GM Beverly Scott today. She thinks the #1 priority is... South Station expansion. Now, I think it's important primarily for intercity purposes, but making it your top priority? Yeesh. I'm happy to report, however, she rolls her eyes at South Coast Snail! She doesn't think anyone is going to be willing to put forward $2billion in funding for it, even if it's 50/50 state/feds. That said, she thinks it is important, and that the South Coast will suffer greatly without eventual service. She believes they should start with bus service, as a part of phasing in better service. Once bus ridership reaches a certain point, it is time to push rail in, making it more cost effective from the get-go.

Ugh. What about any one of the rapid transit lines that sees more riders than the entire commuter rail network combined? You'd think 'quick wins' like Blue to Charles/MGH, Blue to Lynn, Orange to West Roxbury might be up there. Or, you know, replacing the aging/obsolete rolling stock, general station maintenance, etc.

 

[Shepard]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

South Station expansion done right could be the precursor for DMU service at rapid transit frequencies - Fairmount and Worcester lines (e.g. out to New Balance) for example. It may not be a quick win but it's the best bet for new rapid transit services with minimal new trackage, tunnels, or other infrastructure besides rolling stock and new maintenance requirements.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The T really doesn't need that many more extensions. The biggest issue is upgrading what it has for more trains and more efficient service. DMU service is perfect for the inner suburbs with short run service from 128 to North/South Stations.

I'd reconfigure the Green Line but that is a fantasy ATM.

 

[Shepard]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I wish that GL could be expanded as a light rail or streetcar rather than as a proto-subway. One reason the GLX is taking so long is because they are so intent on overbuilding it. Asphalt with a painted yellow line works fine for stations on the D line, so why does Somerville need full-amenity stations at excessive cost and trouble?

Accepting the GL for what it is would be the first step in further expansions, whether to Chelsea, or Dudley, or a spur to Brighton Center, or even to South Station (as I've argued for an Essex Street streetcar surface option which nobody seems to like because, well, it's a streetcar).

Some first signs of a changing attitude along these lines with the talk of a South Huntington extension a few blocks beyond Heath St. It's a start.

TL;DR ... The GL's lightrailishness is as much an asset as a liability and should be embraced.

 

[omaja]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The T really doesn't need that many more extensions. The biggest issue is upgrading what it has for more trains and more efficient service. DMU service is perfect for the inner suburbs with short run service from 128 to North/South Stations.

I'd reconfigure the Green Line but that is a fantasy ATM.

Need is such a subjective concept. The T could definitely stand to significantly beef up its network, mostly by adding entirely new lines. The fact that there are no rapid crosstown routes to avoid the saturated GC-Park-DTX-State hub is really not acceptable long term.

Increasing the T's inner network density would allow the commuter network to eliminate most stations within 128, running express to/from BOS/BON/BBY and cutting down on travel times from outside 128.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Have to separate out the bona fide ops problems solved by SS expansion from the mission-creep problem risked by the 'monument building' part of SS expansion.


The project is needed because the half-terminal we are left with since its partial demolition has major chokepoints with conflicting movements in/out of the platforms. SS as originally built used to be more or less symmetrical and could distribute trains from west (NEC/B&A), south (Old Colony, Fairmount), and yards (Southampton/Widett Circle) to any platform without a single conflicting movement. More than 10 trains could be in transit from platform to crossovers at one time without a single wait: http://www.shorpy.com/node/7451?size=_original#caption. It was an extremely fluid operation.

Today, you can't have that. There's half the tracks, and many more conflicts through switches the way the Post Office scrunches all the track infrastructure to the Atlantic Ave. side. And NEC/B&A-originating traffic, the lion's share, has to fan out across all those switches on most movements. So the only platforms that are all that conflict-free are the lower-use ones on the very ends, and the middle platforms have to become de facto layovers because the NEC vs. Widett Circle conflicts prevent fewer yard moves. Capacity ends up being well less than the number of available platforms because you can only move about a third as many trains as there are platform. And because the exploding NEC traffic growth hits that middle conflict area hardest, the terminal's dispatching difficulties accelerate precipitously under load.

In short, +1 trip doesn't merely make SS +1 difficulty points harder to run...it's more like a calculus equation involving limits to infinity. It may seem like those 13 platforms aren't utilized to full efficiency compared to other major terminals vs. their # of platforms, but keep in mind that traffic through SS's 'high-conflict' zone is sitting very close to the threshold where exponential decay starts kicking in with additional trips. There are only a few schedule slots left to give before further increases start extracting an OTP-reliability penalty that hits the NEC routes first. As much as DMU'ing up a couple routes on-the-cheap seems like a nice net-value use of infrastructure, it brings the current terminal district that much closer to making inside-128 being the place where Providence and Amtrak on-time schedules go to die. There aren't any gimmicks or short-term fixes that'll stave this problem off for much longer.


The halved station suited traffic levels in the 70's and 80's when all revenue traffic went out only one direction to NEC/B&A and they were assuming that for future growth the Red Line would permanently keep the Old Colony from ever coming back and the SW Expressway would shift the NEC to the Fairmount Line creating a 'new' terminal symmetry. But you know how that went. It was less than 20 years after the wrecking ball (i.e. > 20 years ago) before the Old Colony and Fairmount improvements got inked into formal Transit Commitments, high-speed upgrades to the NEC got funded, and the terminal teardown looked like a really short-sighted idea.

Unfortunately, you can't just massage the lead tracks around to redistribute more symmetrically to the 13 existing platforms. The Big Dig tunnels, South Bay interchange, and re-routing of Ft. Point Channel have physically altered the geography too much to do any meaningful conflict elimination through the current setup. The only way to do is by adding the extra platforms and getting brute-force symmetry: shove the Old Colony and Fairmount/Widett movements to the Dot. Ave. side, give what's now the middle conflict zone to the NEC, dispatch it all so you can move 6 or 7 trains at any given time with distribution of conflict-free paths weighted to the heaviest-load lines, and ration the switch conflicts dispatch can absorb to scooting stuff in/out of the yard to eliminate most of the on-platform layovers.

That's it. Read the ops and track charts portions of the project docs. The extra platforms aren't leading this by the nose...the extra platforms are the only way to undo the crippled flow of traffic through the junction. It solves the problem nicely. But there aren't any better or more creative ways of solving the problem at same or lesser expense. The BRA sinking its teeth into this and taking a pound of flesh from the T's coffers for a 40% over-budget jewel-encrusted headhouse isn't an avoidable expense if you're searching for some track-only better mousetrap they could build to achieve the same capacity while keeping the monument-builders out of it. They have to build platforms to make SS work for the growth it's handling. And I don't know how you go about building platforms in this day without the monument-builders perverting it to their own ends.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I wish that GL could be expanded as a light rail or streetcar rather than as a proto-subway. One reason the GLX is taking so long is because they are so intent on overbuilding it. Asphalt with a painted yellow line works fine for stations on the D line, so why does Somerville need full-amenity stations at excessive cost and trouble?

Accepting the GL for what it is would be the first step in further expansions, whether to Chelsea, or Dudley, or a spur to Brighton Center, or even to South Station (as I've argued for an Essex Street streetcar surface option which nobody seems to like because, well, it's a streetcar).

Some first signs of a changing attitude along these lines with the talk of a South Huntington extension a few blocks beyond Heath St. It's a start.

TL;DR ... The GL's lightrailishness is as much an asset as a liability and should be embraced.

Yeah. The GL is going to continue being a hybrid, but there's a lot of room for growth especially if additional street-car routes are considered.

A street-car to Dudley would be able to have its own reservation down Washington. Could potentially extend to Mattapan, it would need to street-run some ways down Warren St, but Blue Hill Ave is HUGE and easily could take a reservation.

Restore the A to Oak Square, if not to Watertown Yard. Restore the E as far as they will (why not Forest Hills?). Those are the three best street-car options for the Green.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Yeah. The GL is going to continue being a hybrid, but there's a lot of room for growth especially if additional street-car routes are considered.

A street-car to Dudley would be able to have its own reservation down Washington. Could potentially extend to Mattapan, it would need to street-run some ways down Warren St, but Blue Hill Ave is HUGE and easily could take a reservation.

Restore the A to Oak Square, if not to Watertown Yard. Restore the E as far as they will (why not Forest Hills?). Those are the three best street-car options for the Green.

The only problem with the 28X streetcar is that it's such a freaking long way from the subway it would have to be run as a transfer service, which limits its usefulness and makes operations harder. It's way too long a branch to run one-seat down Washington and into downtown. It would make dispatching the B look trivial by comparison. But that's just on pure length...the corridor definitely has the properties to work well as a reservation line.

It's too bad they blew up the El. If they had done the OL relocation, preserved and rehabbed the Northampton-Dudley structure, demolished the rest in Chinatown and past Dudley, then hooked it to the Tremont tunnel they could've had an ultra-fast feeder and converted any number of Dudley bus lines to streetcar branches of appropriate length that would've totally worked. 28X. The 42 to Forest Hills as a streetcar on the remaining route. Urban Ring flanks in one direction to Brookline Village/Kenmore/wherever and the other to Southie/Transitway. Would've set the table absolutely perfectly for every radial circulator they want to build today but can't do in truly satisfying fashion.




Get real light rail to Dudley, real Red Line to Mattapan, and full realization of Fairmount headways though...I can definitely be convinced otherwise. Supercharging both ends of the that corridor with heavy-duty transfers would change the dynamic a lot. I just wonder whether the transfer sources need to be built out first before the route between nodes hits appropriate threshold to do something mega. 28X seemed premature for its cost when the end points were still a little half-baked. Express regular bus might've been a better bridge for the near-term than the total self-immolation officials pulled when they swung and whiffed and ramming BRT through without public comment.

 

[Riverside]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

It's too bad they blew up the El. If they had done the OL relocation, preserved and rehabbed the Northampton-Dudley structure, demolished the rest in Chinatown and past Dudley, then hooked it to the Tremont tunnel they could've had an ultra-fast feeder and converted any number of Dudley bus lines to streetcar branches of appropriate length that would've totally worked. 28X. The 42 to Forest Hills as a streetcar on the remaining route. Urban Ring flanks in one direction to Brookline Village/Kenmore/wherever and the other to Southie/Transitway. Would've set the table absolutely perfectly for every radial circulator they want to build today but can't do in truly satisfying fashion.

A single tear just slid down my cheek. Aside from the fact that "rehabbing" the El (don't you mean the Dover-Dudley?) would've basically meant rebuilding it, this would've been so elegant.

In terms of LRT in Dorchester, looking at which streets have medians, a nice cross-town corridor does present itself: JFK-UMass–Mattapan via Columbia Road and Blue Hill Avenue. Sorta as a local-service analogue to an upgraded Fairmount Line.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

A single tear just slid down my cheek. Aside from the fact that "rehabbing" the El (don't you mean the Dover-Dudley?) would've basically meant rebuilding it, this would've been so elegant.

In terms of LRT in Dorchester, looking at which streets have medians, a nice cross-town corridor does present itself: JFK-UMass–Mattapan via Columbia Road and Blue Hill Avenue. Sorta as a local-service analogue to an upgraded Fairmount Line.

As fun as that would be, the route is rendered redundant by a) upgraded Fairmount and b) extending the Red Line to Mattapan, which would be simpler than laying track down Columbia Rd.

 

[Riverside]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

As fun as that would be, the route is rendered redundant by a) upgraded Fairmount and b) extending the Red Line to Mattapan, which would be simpler than laying track down Columbia Rd.

Re a): the point was to locally service the neighborhood, forming a backbone to the community the way the C Line does for northern Brookline. However, looking again at the proposed stop density on the pseudo-Indigo Line, my proposal probably would have no more than double the stops (ie. stops at every Indigo Line station and then an additional stop between each of those), so it's probably not that useful.

Re b): really? I know we've been over this again and again, but my understanding is that upgrading the MHSL to HRT is very hard to swing. (Is it just because of the bridges?)

Also, just realized that this is the Customer "Service" thread and not Crazy Transit Pitches. (Not kidding.)

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Re b): really? I know we've been over this again and again, but my understanding is that upgrading the MHSL to HRT is very hard to swing. (Is it just because of the bridges?)

Also, just realized that this is the Customer "Service" thread and not Crazy Transit Pitches. (Not kidding.)

No...it's not. The only outright ROW modification required is grade separating Central Ave. and Capen St. Neither of which is hard. The rest is just building a prepayment station combining Milton and Central Ave, partially modifying Mattapan into a high-platform stub (the current reconstruction gets it halfway there), and doing the in-place track and electrical conversion. It is far and away the cheapest HRT extension they can do. And that assumes the new Milton station is still going to be a typical glass-palace cost sink.


This has been proposed time and again and gotten broad-based support in Boston. Milton has always been the blocker. Residents around Butler, Capen, and Valley Rd. all shriek and shriek about losing their local stops...all 245 of them that board the line every day. The town backs them, and ex-Speaker Tom Finneran represented Milton-Mattapan in the House for 26 years so they had the locktight backing of the most powerful man in the Legislature. Stark numbers, unfortunately, never mattered when Valley Rd. had Mr. Speaker's ear first.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Need is such a subjective concept. The T could definitely stand to significantly beef up its network, mostly by adding entirely new lines. The fact that there are no rapid crosstown routes to avoid the saturated GC-Park-DTX-State hub is really not acceptable long term.

Increasing the T's inner network density would allow the commuter network to eliminate most stations within 128, running express to/from BOS/BON/BBY and cutting down on travel times from outside 128.

I would kill for a Mass Ave subway. Harvard - JFK/UMass crosstown? Yes please. Too bad it's probably too much of a financial and engineering nightmare to ever have its day in the sun.

Grand Junction Urban Ring is probably as good as we're going to get.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

This has been proposed time and again and gotten broad-based support in Boston. Milton has always been the blocker. Residents around Butler, Capen, and Valley Rd. all shriek and shriek about losing their local stops...all 245 of them that board the line every day. The town backs them, and ex-Speaker Tom Finneran represented Milton-Mattapan in the House for 26 years so they had the locktight backing of the most powerful man in the Legislature. Stark numbers, unfortunately, never mattered when Valley Rd. had Mr. Speaker's ear first.

Jeez, throw 'em a bus line once Milton doesn't have a rep in the leadership/governor's office. They already have to transfer at Ashmont anyway, ride the bus a few stops to Milton Station and get on the Red Line. Whiners...

 

[Matthew]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

A Mass Ave Red Line branch that shares any track with the existing Red Line implies cutting the maximum potential frequency of Red Line service at Park Street. Not going to happen.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Jeez, throw 'em a bus line once Milton doesn't have a rep in the leadership/governor's office. They already have to transfer at Ashmont anyway, ride the bus a few stops to Milton Station and get on the Red Line. Whiners...

Unfortunately, the T's most recent proposal for the line about 10 years was "why don't we just pave it and make it BRT!" Seriously. The 28X and a Dudley-Ashmont BRT line that then cannibalized the High Speed Line ROW were supposed to be two flanks of Mattapan's great Silver Line diesel-belching future. Guess how well that went over.


The track conversion to HRT, grade separation, and modifications to Mattapan station could probably be done for $125-150M. Unfortunately they'd probably spend exactly that much on a pointless glass palace for the Milton intermediate. But at least this is one that would pay back its capital investment.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

A Mass Ave Red Line branch that shares any track with the existing Red Line implies cutting the maximum potential frequency of Red Line service at Park Street. Not going to happen.

I know it's not going to happen. It won't happen for reasons far beyond Park Street headways. Many people transfer at Park Street to get to Back Bay/Fenway anyway, which a crosstown branch would funnel away from Park St straight to Hynes. It would quiet down Park Street considerably.