HelloBostonHi
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Baker just had a press conference about accelerating MBTA investments, key takeaways from the Globe:
General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)
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https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2019/06/24/bus-lanes-faster-boston-commutes
MBTA showing dedicated bus lanes are making things run faster and more reliable.
MBTA showing dedicated bus lanes are making things run faster and more reliable.
What is your alternative? Continue to rebuild the crumbling system at the five year pace? They suggested looking into some 24/7 closures, but the WMATA model this is not.
Shocking.
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Why tho? Most workers in Kendall live relatively close to Kendall and especially aren't coming in from Worcester. West Station does have merit but GJ just seems like an excuse to spend money. It's planning based on what you think is cheap not what will be most effective.
F-Line to Dudley
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Yup. This smells like any one of umpteen BCEC hand-wavings at Track 61. The Grand Junction flat-out doesn't have the throughput as a railroad to provide useful enough frequencies to put any dent in Kendall's needs. The very existence of a Kendall intermediate stop on it pretty much slows it down enough from West to North Station that an Urban Rail -definition :15 bi-directional headway becomes impossible and a suburban Regional Rail -definition :30 bi-directional headway becomes aspirational. Not the sort of thing anyone who uses transit is going to find useful because it'll barely beat the Red Line on a lousy day, won't beat Red at all on a well-functioning day (much less Red with new cars + 3-min. headway signaling), and isn't going to beat the CT2 unless traffic is FUBAR'ed. But exactly the sort of thing heavies who've never set foot on anything less luxurious than an Acela will postulate the people 'need'.
As said a thousand times over here, taking the Grand Junction off the RR network and transferring it to the rapid transit network does not require NSRL as a prerequisite, only a common-sense investment in more north vs. south equipment independence that's more or less guaranteed by following the recommended initial RER buildout. I presume if these heavies want a West Station worth its salt that they're already behind the Rail Vision's full-RER Alternative. So they could actually advocate for a transit investment meaningful to Kendall by backing Urban Ring NW quadrant light rail, calling for a re-study to flesh out the details, and calling for it to be managed from Day 1 with the kind of rigorous cost control the de-crapified GLX got. They do have the influence to wield a stick to get some action done there...even if it's just the re-study, which is necessary because the last one is so old and flimsy in parts on detail that it has to be given a do-over to net any actionable decisions.
They could do that. They're not. Worse, they already know the GJ is on very unsure ground for making the cut on the Rail Vision recs, because the Vision presentations have said as much specifically about its capacity limitations. It's limp tokenism to name-drop the likeliest cut. Just like it was for all that Track 61 name-dropping down in the Seaport.
whighlander
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F-Line -- I don't think that the ref to Grand Junction was necessarily to take it as is -- only about the connectivity that something using its ROW could offer
The key was that the KSA Heavies are addressing the issue at this time -- specifically because one of them missed a meeting because of the JFK/UMass Derailment and aftermath
AND most importantly -- these folks are heavies -- who are accustomed to things happening not just Bureaucrats happy to schedule meetings and write reports
A sampling of the signers of the letter to Baker, De Leo and Spilka follows [the original list has been edited [without any prejudice I hope] to remove only some names of individuals or organizations not instantly recognizable to the AB forum] Note: [highlight] organizations are highlighted [/highlight]
A few of what KSA calls Transportation facts:
Oh I dunno, Kendall is one of the biggest employers of people who live in Newton/Weston/Wellesley/Natick/Framingham. And they are almost entirely driving. Whether you could convert them to taking CR+GJ is another story.
whighlander
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A few of what KSA calls [highlight]Transportation Facts [/highlight]:
If you look at the summary of Transportation Facts as quoted from, my previous post above -- you will see that 40% of Kendall people use public transit in their commute
Now -- as for the future -- I don't think KSA is thinking of the GJ as is - - i.e. a slow version of commuter rail
The KSA vision is most likely to use the GJ ROW to deliver a SilverLine like service using a combination of the existing limited access route behind most of MIT with possible extensions to Cambridge Crossing and on to North Station
The Goal is to connect people from West Station with Kendall and potentially North Station enabling people not on the Red Line easy access to Kendall from the West and also North Orange and Green GLX
These people in KSA are not inside the box thinkers -- they are leaders of the innovation Economy for the Planet
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JeffDowntown
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This is also a shot across the bow for election time. We, KSA, are the money that gets you re-elected. Do something about this situation!
bigpicture7
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Um, what about all the Kendall workers who live in Allston/Brighton who would directly benefit from from GJ? Kendall may have a lot of high-end work, but no economic ecosystem exists without entry level/early career workers, admin assistants, facilities workers, technicians - or even well-paid workers who (for whatever reason) have a slightly smaller housing budget? I am personally aware of almost a dozen people who commute to Kendall from that side of Boston. There is presently no rapid transit in the North Station <-> A/B crosstown direction.
That said, I agree that simply throwing money at GJ won't solve it. The design has to be strategic and well thought out. West station needs to be well-connected to the B branch (pedestrian connector?) and 57 bus, among other things.
Further, with all the new housing going up around North Station, having GJ in place would make that housing much more viable for Kendall workers.
stevebikes
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I haven't seen much discussion of this so maybe I'm misreading, but in the Dorchester Reporter article about how long the Red Line will be slowed, there's this:
I asked Jennifer Smith and she confirmed that they are saying the brand new signal project has now been moved up a year. That's great news, right?
I asked Jennifer Smith and she confirmed that they are saying the brand new signal project has now been moved up a year. That's great news, right?
YOURE ALIVE????
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The problem with this argument is that you are finding two points which might not have all that much connection and drawing a line between them. I'm not saying there is NO transit viability in West/GJ but rather there is limited viability based on known travel patterns such that it would be wiser to invest the little money we have in other ways. As whighlander pointed out the KSA is looking at BRT which I dare say is probably the best option.
bigpicture7
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I wouldn't have a problem with the critique if it were indeed just two points...
But GJ is looking more and more like a corridor that not only spans several current/future office and residential nodes (cambridge crossing, east cambridge, kendall, cambridgeport, allston), but also is/can be fed at either end (north station, west station -- again, assuming the B, 57, etc, connections are made at West as I mentioned). Also, I am not the one drawing the line...it's a precious existing ROW that happens to cut through all these points...
I would honestly have no issue with BRT if it were well implemented with good headways. My argument is purely functional.
Right now, many of the above-mentioned areas in Cambridge and lower Allston require a travel-all-the-way-inbound//then-travel-back-outbound approach to go what should only be ~3 miles as the crow flies.
Again, I don't care what mode it ends up being (BRT, DMU, EMU, etc), but you can't tell me I've drawn an arbitrary line between two point loads...GJ is a legit corridor with loads/destinations across its length, and multiple feeds at its termini. All you need to look at is the slammed 1 Bus at rush hour between Hynes <-> Cambridge to get a sense for how many people are trying to go between the GL and cambridge.
F-Line to Dudley
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This isn't a mystery yet to be studied. CT2 is part of Urban Ring Phase I, which was supposed to comprise 11 CTx routes but was never implemented beyond the first 3. Some of those routes were just for express bus and future BRT-ization's sake, but close to half of them traced out arcs of the Ring corridor to be integrated later in Phase II.
- CT1 - Central Square (Cambridge) to Andrew Station via Massachusetts Avenue
- CT2 - Sullivan Square to Ruggles via Union Square (Somerville), Kendall Square and Boston University Bridge.
- Maps to: UR NW quadrant
- Maps to: UR SW quadrant
- Maps to: NW-NE quadrant crossover between Brickbottom-Sullivan
- CT3/171 - Longwood Medical Area to Airport Station and terminals via Ruggles, Boston Medical Center, and Ted Williams Tunnel
- CT4 - Ruggles Station to UMass Boston Campus via Dudley Square and Uphams Corner
- Maps to: UR SE quadrant's JFK spur
- CT5 - Logan Airport to Sullivan Square via Downtown Chelsea, Wellington, and Assembly Square
- Maps to: UR NE quadrant
- CT6 - Downtown Chelsea to Kendall/MIT via Community College and Lechmere
- Maps to: UR NE quadrant midpoint to NW quadrant midpoint w/downtown transfer access (roughly equivalent to going to/via Lechmere to pick up a quadrant routing)
- CT7 - Kendall/MIT to Franklin Park via Mass Ave Bridge, Kenmore, Longwood Medical Area, Ruggles, Dudley, and Grove Hall
- CT8 - Sullivan Square to Longwood Medical Area via Union Square Somerville, Central Square Cambridge, Cambridgeport, Boston University Bridge, and Fenway Station
- CT9 - Kenmore to Harvard Square via Commonwealth Ave and Allston
- Maps to: UR NW quadrant Harvard spur
- CT10 - Kenmore to JFK/UMass via Longwood Medical Area, Ruggles, and Boston Medical Center
- CT11 - Longwood Medical Area to Fields Corner via Ruggles, Boston Medical Center, and Uphams Corner
We pretty much know where the travel patterns are and high-demand destination pairs, because that has been very very well studied. The CT2 has more than 2 decades of data to base its corridor bona fides on. So the only question here is which mode.
We know that Purple Line is an extreme reach because of the Grand Junction's capacity limitations as a RR. Because it can't reach :15 bi-directional frequency for guarantee and :30 bi-directional frequency for maybe...it's not going to be a good choice. BRT would work well, except that crossing 2 modes' worth of the spaghetti junctions at Brickbottom is a near-impossibility and some ugly-hack/time-chewing street detouring may be necessary. There's also the question of how they're going to hook into the Kenmore end with the extreme elevation difference and blocking infrastructure on that side of BU Bridge. And there's question about how well they're going to do on-schedule through some of the minimum-width segments of minimal lane size and zero shoulder, since the squeeze has not served them well on the ground with existing BRT in the city nor in AutoCAD with unbuilt BRT design. So this may be the rare case where LRT is flat-out cheaper overall to build (even with the half-mile subway extension from Blandford to BU Bridge) because of the plug-and-play with all existing Brickbottom infrastructure and avoidance of any property-taking for proper width. It's also the only one that hooks into an existing network, so the ability to filet-route from downtown OR quadrant-to-quadrant along the radial is a killer feature. Doesn't rule out BRT having other compelling advantages, but LRT probably starts out at a most-favored position and RR is dead-on-arrival.
That's the only calculus involved. But the ridership patterns? We've known that for eons. The growth sources? We've got pretty good idea based on what's being built where those folks are coming from. There are very few who?/where? mysteries left to solve on the NE and especially NW quadrants. At this point it's all about re-studying to firm up the modal Alternatives with refactored ridership by-Alternative, picking a winner, hashing out a build method and fail-safes for budget overruns, and getting the Gov.+Speaker show under the Cap dome to not be mealy-mouthed about funding it.
whighlander
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F-line as has always been true -- You have all the details down to a T [pun??]
My point was to highlight the keys of the KSA letter -- this is a New Era:
10 + years ago when all the studying was being done about BRT and Urban Loops
- There was no KSA [its just turned 10].
- There was no prospect of Volpe clearing 10+ acres of some of the most valuable property in any city [its now even got an SOM design for the new building and a possible 500 foot tower in the midst of Kendall
- There was no Google to speak of -- Now we are getting a Google Tower
- There was no Broad Institute it was still just a Whitehead spin-off to come
- IBM was not partnering with MIT in AI on Rogers St
- Boeing was not on Main St.
- There was no Schwart
- etc.
- more changes beyond the above are in progress
Today Kendall Sq is as least as important to the Greater Boston economy as State Street and Federal Street were a generation ago. Within one mile of the Great Dome are at least 20 outposts of the most innovative and important companies on the Planet - including: Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Bayer, Pfizer, Schlumberger, Draper, Boeing, Sanofi, Novartis, Biogen, Amgen, Takeda, Eli Lilly and Company, Johnson & Johnson, Shell Oil, Philips, Broad, Whitehead
If BRT can be implemented to take advantage of the old Grand Junction ROW -- this is something not to ponder but to implement NOW with money coming not just thru the usual channels -- but Assembly or New Balance like
By the way -- and I'd expect you have the info -- there was once a concept called "Rail-Bus" which was multimodal -- perhaps with new materials and technologies -- perhaps such a concept should be revisited in combination of AC & Battery hybrid powering
:30 might be good enough for Harvard though, as a perk to New West Station residents. They can always take B or the Worcester Line if they need additional options. And if anything GJ ends up happening it's going to be because of them.
F-Line to Dudley
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Harvard really doesn't have anything in it for them with the Grand Junction. Worcester Line will already be doing :15 headways in/out of West with the Riverside short-turns. And their main flank will be strengthened by a better-functioning Red Line with signaling resiliency, enhanced 3-minute headways, possible diversionary relief for downtown dwells in the form of a Red-Blue Connector that might actually happen this time, and better OTP under load than today. They don't have any compelling claim to the GJ corridor until the Urban Ring gives them their spur route for rapid transiting the bulk of the 66 route and serves up 6 min. or lower headways to downtown direct from the Allston campus. I'm sure they'll be vociferous cheerleaders for RER, but urban rail on the Worcester Line gives them 90% of what they need for the big West kick-start.
They don't have to stick their necks out for the GJ as padding. And history foretells that Harvard pretty much never sticks its own neck out for a surplus-to-their-requirement. They'll lightly arm-twist or try to goad some pols, but they ain't spending a penny of their own money or lifting a single finger of their own over any asks that have a low return to them. As a RR, the GJ is really low return to them. Whereas they must have that Allston/Harvard Sq. spur (BRT or LRT) if any Urban Ring action heats up, and must make sure it's included in the core build and not relegated to some optional later tack-on.
Unfortunately, institutional gravitas are limited in scope to MIT/Kendall for pushing anything on the RR mode because the known frequency limitations make it a such a bit player in the West Station universe trawled by Harvard and BU. Whereas a rapid transit or well-executed BRT corridor on that same exact route would get all 3 U's singing in unison as well as a much wider swath of corridor heavies from Longwood all the way around to Assembly. And MIT knows this; they were kind of wishy-washy about it the last two times the RR mode prospect was raised (Grand Junction Transportation Study + the vaporware Boston 2024 "Indigoes" network). They know if there's to be a meaningful transit fix for growth in their campus environs that Harvard, BU, and the further-flung coalition of dependent parties need to be full-throated advocates for the same solution. 2 of the mode choices probably secure that forceful alliance handily; the third one almost certainly nets lukewarm interest outside of Kendall & MIT's immediate doorstep. Or continues to net lukewarm interest, since that's already been a struggle.