With 3-car sets + type 10 + all-door boarding one stop could be plenty. And make the service more like HRT.
General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)
- Thread starter Waldorf
- Start date
With 3-car sets + type 10 + all-door boarding one stop could be plenty. And make the service more like HRT.
"Station A" haha. It's weird that they wouldn't just use the actual station name considering this rendering isn't a typical.
millerm277
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2013
- Messages
- 488
- Reaction score
- 544
BU East, Central, Allston St and Packard's Corner are all high ridership stops on the system.
Packard's Corner also functions as both short turn location and bus transfer point with 57 riders. And with Malvern St transit proposals with West Station, could gain additional importance.
Transit priority implemented well will/would make most of the crossings a non-issue, IMO. I'm not necessarily opposed to closing some (to cars, at least), but I also don't feel it's necessary.
-------
No major arguments on Chiswick, Englewood, Tappan, or Hawes.
Although I will note that Dean Rd is the lowest ridership of the Englewood-Dean-Tappan set of stops, so perhaps it's more sensible to close that and leave the other two.
Brandon Hall is a more sensible closure than Fairbanks with the way the street grid works. (or you can just consider it "combining" them).
Some additional proposals for closures, based on ridership counts + spacing:
Blandford St - Especially if the train protection program eliminates a need to stop at the top.
South Street - 214 passengers/day.
Fenwood Rd - 221 passengers/day
Back of the Hill - 35 passengers/day.
-------
Maybe. You've got physical platform space issues as well with how busy those stops can get, IMO.
Perhaps more importantly, neither AFC 2.0 or the GL Transformation were on the table/fleshed out when this set of stop consolidation was worked out.
And we're probably at least a decade from seeing all 3-car sets/type 10s everywhere, so while I agree that their introduction may drastically change things, I think you need to put them in service and then re-evaluate the system, rather than closing things today that will cause problems on the system we have today.
I think there's enough other obvious closure candidates that we don't need to try to get aggressive with consolidation of high usage stops right now, there's lower-hanging fruit.
I agree that Back of the Hill is useless as a stop, but I am reluctant to get rid of such a cool name.
JeffDowntown
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 28, 2007
- Messages
- 4,558
- Reaction score
- 3,189
One thing to keep in mind about delaying consolidation/closure, is many B and C stops need to be lengthened for Type 10's to be fully deployed.
So you really want to get the stop configurations right before spending all the money on stop expansion for Type 10's. It would be really wasteful to expand a stop, then decide to close it.
ceo
Active Member
- Joined
- May 4, 2009
- Messages
- 604
- Reaction score
- 760
Yup, not a lot of people know about that little sliver of Charlestown on the west side of I-93. I park near the station and have to be careful about which city I'm in.
I have a post in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread about this, though I was leaning towards scrapping BU Central rather BU East (in hindsight my consolidated station idea makes the most sense to me).
F-Line to Dudley
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 9,197
- Reaction score
- 9,004
What makes most sense is if MassHighway stops dicking around about whether it's going to reconfigure the BU Bridge/Mountfort/Carlton intersection clusterfuck, now that the Comm Ave. bridge replacement is done.
If that gets re-done as a single-point intersection with left-turn lanes they can close the Carlton grade crossing and move BU Central to BU Bridge, squared up with that intersection. As it stands there's going to be a longish station gap between Central and the first combo stop west of the bridge. This relocation would make the distribution pretty much spot-on.
Closable grade crossings are Cummington and Blandford (probably needed for that platform lengthening)...not Granby, since that's the only outlet from the end of Bay State Rd. All they need to do is recalibrate where the U-turns are and that whole stretch from Blandford portal to BU Bridge can probably live on 2 signalized grade crossings.
F-Line to Dudley
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 9,197
- Reaction score
- 9,004
Agree. Although Allston St. is so awkwardly placed vs. Warren that something has to give. I think if Comm Ave. Phase III reconstruction stops wasting time kicking the can and actually commits to redoing the roadway with a center reservation and unified carriageways, the layout can go something like this:
- Packards (stet)
- Harvard Ave. (stet)
- Harvard Ave. turnback yard (i.e. Blandford Yard-like setup). Whack Griggs.
- Long Ave./Redford St. Reanimate old stop location as a block-shifted Allston St. + Griggs replacement. Shift Griggs median curb cut here as grade crossing, offset platforms around crossing.
- Warren St. (stet). Try to make platforms offset if curvature allows.
Brandon Hall is #1 above all else elimination candidate on the C. Both for spacing, and because its staircase from Beacon St. WB is much more dangerous than the traffic light-protected one at Fairbanks.
Dean Rd. suffers from over-proximity to both the adjacent Englewood and Tappen stops as well as Beaconsfield on the D. If you whacked it and simply put some good wayfinding signage at the intersection for Beaconsfield you'd have it covered. But you do need to keep Englewood and Tappen if Dean goes. Tappen's not bad because there's a bit of a hill after Washington Sq., and Englewood being in Brookline vs. Cleveland Circle being in Boston means there's a more divergent audience split re: the associated side streets.
Hawes is another one where putting wayfinding signage to nearby Longwood on the D makes it pretty expendable, moreso than Kent.
Too busy, and Kenmore violates the fire code on a Sox game day if Blandford isn't there to take some of the hit. If you closed the grade crossing for the platform extension, you could put this stop + Blandford Yard under the subway signal system and not need to give way to street signaling until the Granby St. crossing. That's a nifty win for dispatching sanity into Kenmore if they can get it.
Horrible location...BUT, stop spacing between Chestnut Hill Ave. and BC is far too wide to leave without a spacer. And there's a little bit of hill to climb, so it's an accessibility issue as well. Much better would be to relocate the stop to Foster St., relocate the grade crossing from South to Foster, and do offset platforms around the crossing.
Dear God yes. Also, put it this way:
In the unlikely event that the City would be willing to trade Mission Park Apartments front parking spaces for a Huntington Ave. widening, you could make the reservation reappear at the Mission Park stop for full ADA platforms. The roadway would be exactly as wide--for 1 block only--as the reservation section, and trains would only have to span a short street-running distance from Brigham between stops. With Fenwood and BotH whacked, that means Riverway is the very last street-exiting non-ADA stop left to brainstorm a solution for.
Eh, I don't think it'd be a huge deal if traffic coming from Granby/BSR has to U-turn at St. Mary's, and closing Blandford will prevent any possibility of turning left out of Cummington/Blandford (but that should be low priority unless BU's funding things).
Somewhat related question: what are the rules regarding ped x-ings on the green line? Is there a lower speed limit around them?
F-Line to Dudley
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 9,197
- Reaction score
- 9,004
Rules of the road when it comes to crossings of the reservation. Every time I've been on the B in Allston the train's always blown at full speed through the Fordham Rd. crossing and others. Maybe caution gets warranted when sightlines are restricted, but they don't have any special rule.
Woodland Golf Club ped crossings on the D might have an ease-up from otherwise max-speed territory, but that's a different case because it's out in subway signalized territory.
Equilibria
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 6, 2007
- Messages
- 6,959
- Reaction score
- 8,036
There aren't any crossings at grade in the Woodland GC. The only at-grade ped crossing on the D is at Hammond Pond.
KentXie
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 25, 2006
- Messages
- 4,192
- Reaction score
- 756
Honestly the problem with the B line isn't over congested platforms. The green line runs the B train frequently enough to handle picking up passengers before it becomes overcrowded. The problem is the excess number of stations lining Commonwealth Ave, including the BU portion and the number of intersections it passes through which results in too many stoppage, for example, train stopping at a station and then sitting at the station for 3 additional minute because it has to wait for the next green light. This clogs the whole section, fucking up the headway between each train, and resulting in trains going express frequently.
I think I remember them saying that they are working on TSP for this section. There's still too many stations, but if that comes on line, it would help with the delays due to traffic signals at least.
Sitting on the packed 155 to Worcester train right now which has several single deck cars. Which moron at the MBTA decides on the consists to run that day? They really need to stop using the old cars on the busy lines.
I didnt realize Cubic, the tech geniuses that will save the MBTA with AFC 2.0 also did PATH.
They had 5 days without being able to accept credit or debit cards. That would be a complete disaster if every transaction was debit/credit
https://twitter.com/PATHTrain/status/1131998996623499264
They had 5 days without being able to accept credit or debit cards. That would be a complete disaster if every transaction was debit/credit
https://twitter.com/PATHTrain/status/1131998996623499264
JumboBuc
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2013
- Messages
- 2,646
- Reaction score
- 1,515
Could you imagine, say, the Starbuck app not accepting credit or debit payments for ten days in one month? IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!
It's 2019; processing debit/credit/digital payments isn't hard, folks. I'll never understand why everything instantly gets so much harder as soon as it involves transit.
I'd wager its because low bids win. Companies/consultants put the lower-skilled/lower-paid workers on the transit jobs, as compared to private sector work where there's more money to be made.
However, the MBTA has recently caught on that choosing the lowest bidder's usually not the best choice, so whether the private industry is still more lucrative than a smarter MBTA, I'd need to see more concrete figures to make that guess.
Regarding your point though, I agree that it is very aggravating that public projects always seem to break down/have issues that could easily be avoided.
stick n move
Superstar
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2009
- Messages
- 11,118
- Reaction score
- 15,014
Whoa....
“Senate wants an outside review of MBTA Retirement Fund”
“The measure, which senators passed, 38-1, on Thursday as part of their $42.7 billion budget bill, would require the MBTA to hire an outside auditor or actuary to perform an analysis of the $1.5 billion fund’s “sustainability.”
The pension system is carrying a $1.4 billion unfunded liability and has relied on ever-increasing payments from the MBTA itself, which T officials say could rise from $103 million this year to as much as $137 million within three years, depending on how the fund performs.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/05/24/senate-wants-outside-review-mbta-retirement-fund/nbZXcUxRUNd3YH1rfSX1OJ/story.html%3foutputType=amp
“Senate wants an outside review of MBTA Retirement Fund”
“The measure, which senators passed, 38-1, on Thursday as part of their $42.7 billion budget bill, would require the MBTA to hire an outside auditor or actuary to perform an analysis of the $1.5 billion fund’s “sustainability.”
The pension system is carrying a $1.4 billion unfunded liability and has relied on ever-increasing payments from the MBTA itself, which T officials say could rise from $103 million this year to as much as $137 million within three years, depending on how the fund performs.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/05/24/senate-wants-outside-review-mbta-retirement-fund/nbZXcUxRUNd3YH1rfSX1OJ/story.html%3foutputType=amp