General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

This might be an easy fix;

Make several of THESE for the Mattapan Line, but have them painted in the same color scheme as the new Red Line Railcars! Nice & easy!

No new construction would be needed, except maybe to replace the rails. :cool:


https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/...S0tFjt_mSXBKf4r_QHH8YCxMT1H9SHdKBTBnYBzu4hE8A

They would need power upgrades, multiple bridges rebuilt/strengthened, and its questionable if those would fit around the existing loop, not to mention a major overhaul of the Mattapan Yard to be able to service these.
 
I'd understand if they wanted to keep them because they were a huge tourist attraction that ran in downtown to Fanuiel Hall. That's basically the type of route that it serves in San Fran. But in Dorchester/Mattapan (no offense to anyone who lives there) I don't see the point. I'm sure that most of the riders care more about reliability then having cool looking antique streetcars. No-one except for locals or the occasional transit geek is going to travel to the hood to ride those things.

Lol, yes, Lower Mills, Cedar Grove, and Milton are the hood :rolleyes:

Plus if you look at SF, a good chunk of the upkeep is privately funded by a non-profit from businesses and residents in the area who want to keep the historic vehicles in service. Plus it costs like 7 bucks to ride the cable cars. It's unfair to ask taxpayers in Massachusetts to spend tons of money trying to keep the antique vehicles in service. Plus in Mattapan no commuters are gonna pay 7 bucks each way to ride those things.

So I love when people point out SF when trying to save the trolleys. Yah SF can do it charging 7 bucks a trip.

Pave it over, put up a bus specific overhead wires and use the same fleet that you have in watertown. If BRT is good enough for the Seaport (it's not but that's another issue) then it's good enough for Mattapan/Milton. Heck this could be better then the Seaport, make it a guided bus lane that can go 40 mph and not the shitty tunnel that they have in the Seaport.

Its also unfair for taxpayer to subside commuter rail riders at more at almost 10x the rate of subway riders and over 4x the rate of light rail riders @ $5.75 a passenger. The rail line has been there almost a century and it would be a travesty to pave it over and permanently bustitute it. Sorry, just because the seaport got stuck with shitty faux-BRT doesn't mean it should be forced onto others. Plus, the cost of bustituting the line is going to be pretty high, and it wasn't that long ago that they redid/rebuilt the entire line. Do you have any actual cost figures/break down of the HSL costs vs other modes of transit?
 
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Slowly downgrading an dismantling the transit system sounds responsible to me. Has nothing to do with any subconscious biases against ~*~other~*~ peoples.
 
I don't think a well executed BRT system would provide service that is worse then the current streetcars. The current street cars are unreliable and a huge cost burden on the T. I'd say the same thing if they were using old streetcars on a route to Belmont. It's a waste of money to keep rebuilding the old cars using stuff that has to be specially ordered or made cause no one makes the parts anymore.

And true, I shouldn't have said the hood. The Milton and Central Ave stops serve nice neighborhoods. Still they serve neighborhoods and residential areas, they aren't anywhere near the freedom trail or the eyes of tourists.

And a green line light rail would be nice too. I was just pointing out the BRT cause it was done for much cheaper (in Cheslea) then light rail extensions in somewhere like Somerville. I know for the green line trains they would need to replace the tracks and many of the bridges, so it wouldn't be cheap or easy.

I definitively think it's vital for low income neighborhoods to get rapid transit. However I don't think that the old trolleys are the best option for the neighborhood. And I do find it bad that so many dense neighborhoods in Dorchester/Roxbury/Mattapan have to rely almost entirely on bus service (except for the red line in Dot and orange in Roxbury Crossing). Lynn is another dense area that should have had rapid transit a long time ago.
 
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They would need power upgrades, multiple bridges rebuilt/strengthened, and its questionable if those would fit around the existing loop, not to mention a major overhaul of the Mattapan Yard to be able to service these.




Then they should just think about putting non-articulating Silverline buses through there, or otherwise keep it closed & do a study on it to see just what might work best.
 
Besides, they need new vehicles that are ADA-accessible. Which the present ones don't provide!
 
Then they should just think about putting non-articulating Silverline buses through there, or otherwise keep it closed & do a study on it to see just what might work best.

They would need need to buy said buses, pave over the rails, probably fix the bridges, redo the loop, etc. And no - lets not just 'keep it closed' - I like getting to and from work everyday.

Besides, they need new vehicles that are ADA-accessible. Which the present ones don't provide!

??? The line is currently fully ADA compliant as-is, excluding Valley Road, which has an exception as it would be too costly to make an ADA compatible way of actually getting to the station itself.

I don't think a well executed BRT system would provide service that is worse then the current streetcars. The current street cars are unreliable and a huge cost burden on the T. I'd say the same thing if they were using old streetcars on a route to Belmont. It's a waste of money to keep rebuilding the old cars using stuff that has to be specially ordered or made cause no one makes the parts anymore.

I think buses/BRT is a huge step down on pretty much every level. Again, do you have a link showing the costs of the HSL vs others to prove that it is a 'huge cost burden'? Why not support a rebuild to a PCC-II like solution where everything is modernized like other agencies have done? The only viable options on the corridor are PCC-IIs, getting Type-7s/mode modern rolling stock on there, or a full red line conversion.

And true, I shouldn't have said the hood. The Milton and Central Ave stops serve nice neighborhoods. Still they serve neighborhoods and residential areas, they aren't anywhere near the freedom trail or the eyes of tourists.

As do the Butler, Cedar Grove and Valley St stops, and a lot of higher density TOD infill is popping up all along the route.

And a green line light rail would be nice too. I was just pointing out the BRT cause it was done for much cheaper (in Cheslea) then light rail extensions in somewhere like Somerville. I know for the green line trains they would need to replace the tracks and many of the bridges, so it wouldn't be cheap or easy.

Both of which are not comparable to the HSL in anyway - the HSL already has full working rail on it.

I definitively think it's vital for low income neighborhoods to get rapid transit. However I don't think that the old trolleys are the best option for the neighborhood. And I do find it bad that so many dense neighborhoods in Dorchester/Roxbury/Mattapan have to rely almost entirely on bus service (except for the red line in Dot and orange in Roxbury Crossing). Lynn is another dense area that should have had rapid transit a long time ago.

I mean - I can probably agree that the PCCs aren't the long term future, but, neither is ripping out the rails for buses, which seems to be pretty well echoed across all the neighborhoods (wealthy and low-income) currently serviced by the line.
 
I mean - I can probably agree that the PCCs aren't the long term future, but, neither is ripping out the rails for buses, which seems to be pretty well echoed across all the neighborhoods (wealthy and low-income) currently serviced by the line.
I'd hope that the Silver Line to Chelsea and all-door boarding can change people's minds on buses.

Buses would also be ideal to see the line extended one more stop westward to serve the Blue Hill Ave stop on the Fairmount Line.
 
Is there a manufacturer anywhere in the world that still builds streetcars that can fit the Ashmont Mattapan line? I'm just worried that getting new cars to fit the current infastracture would be prohibitively expensive as the T would only be procuring 6 or so units for the line. Also eventually museums will run out of spare parts to give to the t, and I honestly believe that building speciality made parts will put a financial burden on the rest of the system. The mbta needs to do something, not sit on their butts and let the current system deteriorate.
 
I'd hope that the Silver Line to Chelsea and all-door boarding can change people's minds on buses.

Buses would also be ideal to see the line extended one more stop westward to serve the Blue Hill Ave stop on the Fairmount Line.

I would agree - I think the BRT to Chelsea will be pretty cool, and it was much cheaper to do than rail. I don't see minds changing, though, that having existing rail replaced with buses is a net downgrade (vs. a completely new service where there was none before).

Is there a manufacturer anywhere in the world that still builds streetcars that can fit the Ashmont Mattapan line? I'm just worried that getting new cars to fit the current infastracture would be prohibitively expensive as the T would only be procuring 6 or so units for the line. Also eventually museums will run out of spare parts to give to the t, and I honestly believe that building speciality made parts will put a financial burden on the rest of the system. The mbta needs to do something, not sit on their butts and let the current system deteriorate.

Excluding the modern-rebuild option I don't see it costing more to upgrade the line to support modern LRVs that it is to convert it all to buses.
 
The problem comes in with those onboard Charlie card machines. When commuters come on to pay their fares in cash, those damns machines take to long to register the fares because if & when coins are used to pay, the stupid machines make you put in one coin at a time.

Doesn't this atrociously slow down the board9ing process, making people wait for what seems like forever for the bus or trolley to get going & on its way?!!

I've seem this countless times in East Boston at Maverick Square Station. It's really annoying. :mad:
 
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Is there a manufacturer anywhere in the world that still builds streetcars that can fit the Ashmont Mattapan line? I'm just worried that getting new cars to fit the current infastracture would be prohibitively expensive as the T would only be procuring 6 or so units for the line. Also eventually museums will run out of spare parts to give to the t, and I honestly believe that building speciality made parts will put a financial burden on the rest of the system. The mbta needs to do something, not sit on their butts and let the current system deteriorate.

Not an ideal solution, but what about cars from Toronto? TTC is retiring that fleet, and if they haven't scrapped them all already it would be a good way to pick up a few cars on the cheep.

They seem to meet all the requirements, and I remember seeing a photo of a Toronto car on the yard leads in Watertown, so the track gauge isn't different.
 
Not an ideal solution, but what about cars from Toronto? TTC is retiring that fleet, and if they haven't scrapped them all already it would be a good way to pick up a few cars on the cheep.

They seem to meet all the requirements, and I remember seeing a photo of a Toronto car on the yard leads in Watertown, so the track gauge isn't different.


Yeah, it seems that there is no easy fix for this line.

You run into a problem no matter what. :eek:
 
So I love when people point out SF when trying to save the trolleys. Yah SF can do it charging 7 bucks a trip.

Having just returned from a quick trip to SF, this morning actually, I can say that this is not the case. The cable cars are $7 because they actually are just a tourist attraction. They are slow and don't really go far enough to be a reasonable commuting option for locals. Many buses run nearby that are much more reliable (and not bursting at the seams with tourists).

The historic trolleys that we're talking about here (E-Embarcadero and F-Market lines) are $2.50/$2.75 (same as bus and light rail).
 
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I think people get hung up on "The T must make some parts because you can't buy them anymore" issue. Does that necessarily mean that the vehicles are any more expensive to maintain? My understanding is that these old trolleys are mechanically quite simple, a lot moreso than more modern computerized vehicles. But also, the cost to change the line to anything other than these old trolleys is significant, for the reasons stated above. Newer does not always mean better.
 
I think people get hung up on "The T must make some parts because you can't buy them anymore" issue. Does that necessarily mean that the vehicles are any more expensive to maintain? My understanding is that these old trolleys are mechanically quite simple, a lot moreso than more modern computerized vehicles. But also, the cost to change the line to anything other than these old trolleys is significant, for the reasons stated above. Newer does not always mean better.

If you look in the presentation, you'll see that they rehab the PCCs at the Everett Shops, because I believe that a lot of the components are shared with buses(?) as opposed to newer light rail cars.
 
If you look in the presentation, you'll see that they rehab the PCCs at the Everett Shops, because I believe that a lot of the components are shared with buses(?) as opposed to newer light rail cars.

Everett is the heavy repair shop for the whole system, not just the buses.
 
Maybe we should start a thread on the Ashmont-Mattapan line, as discussion on this has already stretched onto a few pages.
 

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