General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[F-Line to Dudley]

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

*NOW* isn't realistic. There is heavy-duty design work to complete before first shovel can go in ground, and it's not tasks that private involvement can hurry along all that much.

The ancient first UR study affirmed the ridership and mission statement with nice exclamation points, but was unfortunately way too vague about actual build items. So there's major need for a comprehensive re-study. For example, nothing was said before about how a busway is going to get up from the BU Bridge onto Mountfort St. for the jog into Kenmore with the giant hillside, Pike, railroad, and bridge structures all standing in the way. And there's nothing yet said about how a busway is going to get around spaghetti junction at Brickbottom without making time-costly on-road detours. Those are utmost-importance design decisions that have to be drafted, because the Ring operates as quadrants anchored to nodes. So Kenmore is where the NW (Kendall) and SW (Longwood) quadrants tie together, and Lechmere/Brickbottom is where NW and NE (Sullivan-Airport) quadrants tie. It won't work if you half-ass it as a busway fragment that skirts the BU-side dilemmas by just dumping out at Waverly St. then spending a half-hour in bridge/rotary traffic like the godforsaken 47 does.

With LRT it's the things they waved the placeholder wand at the first time around. Things like extending the subway from Blandford to BU Bridge to square the level difference with the Grand Junction bridge, and accommodating the B with a new underground junction + new portal in the BU West area. Straightforward, yes, but needs to be firmed up with things including how much of a tunneling discount they'll net from digging under the utility-few B reservation. Also need to factor things like sitings for 1-2 power substations in Cambridge to chain between the B/subway ext., Red Line @ Kendall, GLX @ Brickbottom interconnects on the rest of the route...and which existing substations on the interconnecting lines might need a boost.

Then there's the things universal to either modes. Like design of an overpass of Mass Ave. w/ elevated station to zap the problematic grade crossing. Prior study didn't do anything there, but years of Mass Ave. traffic counts scream "Problem!"...so they've got to spell that piece out. There's work to do on how traffic signal preemption at the remaining crossings (Main + Broadway are un-eliminable) will work. There's decisions on whether Kendall should have 1 station on the mid-block between Main-Broadway or 2 flanking stations--1 @ Main under the air rights overhang and 1 @ Binney St.--to cover the spread of the area and ensure that one of the stops (Main) is in direct eyesight of the Red Line entrance for wayfinding. There's scheduling of the actual service patterns, which are intended to be mixed (e.g. alternating downtown vs. quadrant-to-quadrant slots if it's LRT) but have never been fleshed-out before for either mode by prior studies.

It's a whole ton of busywork before turning a shovel. Much of it important enough not to try to cut corners on before the crucial details are spelled out and benchmarked, because once this thing gets built out into full NE, SW, and SE quadrants + the Allston & JFK spurs it's going to become its own living beast needing good decade-in/decade-out bloodflow. Unintended consequences are going to sting if the implications of UR-as-developing-system aren't fully thought out beforehand.

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

Railbuses *were* a thing. Unfortunately they are hilariously, cosmically unsafe in crossing collisions--front and sides--because most makes are no stronger than a city bus. They're illegal here outside of rail museums. The T evaluated one in 1980 and SEPTA shopped around the same model a couple years later. Both agencies were too skittish of the crashworthiness to give it second thought...and those were pretty much the last times they were ever considered here.

The Brits have the largest installed base in the world and still use out in the hinterlands on marginal branchlines far away from electrification where the biggest collision risk is a herd of sheep on the tracks. But they're on rapid phase-out there in favor of more rugged DMU's and probably will be wholly extinct in the Western world within another 5-7 years.

Because of the daily freight switching right in the gut of North Station at Boston Sand & Gravel, there's no way of buying any non-FRA compliant DMU for the Purple Line. The waivered "DLRV's" like the NJ Transit RiverLINE uses are still too light. And unfortunately the market for FRA-compliants has (temporarily) collapsed with Nippon-Sharyo's retreat due to internal turmoil. It'll take 3-4 years for that pump to re-prime, so there's nothing physically available right now for instant gratification deployment.

 

[jklo]

They don't have to stick their necks out for the GJ as padding.

They don't have to do anything, but Harvard wants the GJ being used they will have to use their clout to get it done. I still think if they don't, the end result will be the Junction being dismantled.

 

[whighlander]

They don't have to do anything, but Harvard wants the GJ being used they will have to use their clout to get it done. I still think if they don't, the end result will be the Junction being dismantled.

With all due respect to Harvard and the rest what happens to the GJ ROW ....is all up to MIT -- the Grand Junction ROW bisects [well perhaps only an approx bisector] the MIT Campus

A lot of MIT future growth [MIT academic & the MIT investment units properties] is North of the GJ where it parallels Vassar St or straddles it [highlight]]including the New MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing HQ building [/highlight] with a Vassar St. Address

the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing itself is a $1B commitment by / to MIT ----and---- like similar development spawned by with the Whitehead triggering and guiding the development of a major part of Kendall in the past two decades -- Schwarzman will engender tens of $B of further investment -- a lot of it next to the GJ ROW

from a recent MIT PR piece
http://news.mit.edu/2019/college-computing-working-report-0605
with my [highlight]Highlighting[/highlight]

Preliminary reports examine options for MIT Schwarzman College of Computing
Working groups identify key ideas for new college; period of community feedback continues.

Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office
June 5, 2019

......The Working Group on College Infrastructure was co-chaired by Benoit Forget, an associate professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Nicholas Roy, a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a member of CSAIL.

This working group took particularly in-depth look at MIT’s future needs in the area of computing infrastructure. The group suggested that MIT’s future computing infrastructure is unlikely to be optimized around a single model of computing access, given the diversity of research projects and needs on campus. [highlight]In general, the group suggested that support for a renewed computing infrastructure and improved data management should be a high priority for the college, and might include expanded student training and increased professional staffing in computing.][/highlight]

The way forward

Members of the MIT community are encouraged to examine the latest reports and offer input about the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.

“I invite you to review these preliminary reports and provide us with your feedback, Schmidt said in his letter to the community, adding: “I look forward to further opportunities for community involvement in the early phases and continuing development of our new college.”

He noted that community input will be collected until June 28, after which the final reports will be posted.

The official launch of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing will occur this fall, with the full development of the college occurring over a period of several years. [highlight]MIT aims to add 50 full-time faculty to the college and jointly with departments across MIT over a five-year period.][/highlight] The Institute has also identified the location for a new [highlight]building for the college, on the site of 44 Vassar Street, between Massachusetts Avenue and Main Street, and aims to open the new facility by late 2022.[/highlight]

In February, MIT announced the appointment of Dan Huttenlocher SM ’84 PhD ’88 as the first dean of the college. Huttenlocher will begin the new post this summer.

The MIT Schwarzman College of Computing is being[highlight] supported by a $1 billion commitment for new research and education in computing, the biggest investment of its kind by a U.S. academic institution.][/highlight] The core support for the new college comes from a $350 million foundational gift from Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chairman, [highlight]CEO, and co-founder of Blackstone, the global asset management and financial services firm.][/highlight]

 

[citylover94]

I believe MIT has help develop the planning documents that currently exist in regards to the Grand Junction RR so clearly they have had a say in what happens and some of those plans talked about rail service and light rail service so it is not like this is going to be a big surprise for them.

 

[whighlander]

I believe MIT has help develop the planning documents that currently exist in regards to the Grand Junction RR so clearly they have had a say in what happens and some of those plans talked about rail service and light rail service so it is not like this is going to be a big surprise for them.

Once Again -- not to over hammer this --- BUT


ALL of the Existing Plans are probably worth their weight in recycled paper

This is a new ERA in Kendall and general vicinity

Many more $B will be invested in the next decade than were anticipated even 2 years ago

 

[citylover94]

I fail to see why MIT having more money and plans to expand the Kendall area even more means they would want to block a rail line to provide better access to an expanded Kendall Square. You have not explained how you are making the leap from point A to point C. Yes I know the documents are not binding you made that point several years back, but that does not mean that MIT and Cambridge are not interested in the ideas presented in them. Unless you can show that there is a link between the new expected investment by MIT and not being able to use the Grand Junction all we really now is that these plans were created and they are still a potential future possibility for the Grand Junction.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Once Again -- not to over hammer this --- BUT


ALL of the Existing Plans are probably worth their weight in recycled paper

This is a new ERA in Kendall and general vicinity

Many more $B will be invested in the next decade than were anticipated even 2 years ago

That's not true at all. The previous studies were extremely comprehensive on mapping out the demand, destination pairs, and sources of growth that ID'd this as a high-priority corridor meriting rapid transit. The new growth happening now was predicted in terms of stop catchments and trip origins/destinations way back then, with the only unsolved variable being magnitudes. The MIT heavies don't have the compass to advocate for anything actionable without reliance on the previous studies. Their advocacy is an amalgamation of previous sources + their own institutional refinements of growth sources. They don't have survey teams on the ground counting CT2 boardings/alightings.

They ain't real disruptive innovators if they can't see the vale of sourcing. New era or not, you of all people know that.

 

[bigpicture7]

The previous studies...ID'd this as a high-priority corridor meriting rapid transit.

^Thank you; without ready access to such, my counterpoint to Van probably sounded like weak personal/anecdotal babble...

But it's important that people see this as the high-priority corridor that it is, not just some line between two points that transit fans want to throw money at.

...They don't have survey teams on the ground counting CT2 boardings/alightings.

Honest question: do these studies simply look at realized CT2 boardings, or do they attempt to account for increased boardings due to induced demand of the CT2 becoming more frequent/reliable/useful?

The CT2 is directly along my commute route - but I almost never take it. The headways suck; it doesn't run on weekends; it doesn't run late, etc etc.

If the CT2 had 10-12 min headways and wider operating hours, I'd be taking it all the time.

So it is hard for me to trust demand numbers simply based on observed boardings/alightings. In fact, my discounting of the CT2 is why I didn't even mention in in my rant about lack of cross-town service upthread...

That said, I appreciate the background you gave on prior reports/attention about crosstown service.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

^Thank you; without ready access to such, my counterpoint to Van probably sounded like weak personal/anecdotal babble...

But it's important that people see this as the high-priority corridor that it is, not just some line between two points that transit fans want to throw money at.



Honest question: do these studies simply look at realized CT2 boardings, or do they attempt to account for increased boardings due to induced demand of the CT2 becoming more frequent/reliable/useful?

The CT2 is directly along my commute route - but I almost never take it. The headways suck; it doesn't run on weekends; it doesn't run late, etc etc.

If the CT2 had 10-12 min headways and wider operating hours, I'd be taking it all the time.

So it is hard for me to trust demand numbers simply based on observed boardings/alightings. In fact, my discounting of the CT2 is why I didn't even mention in in my rant about lack of cross-town service upthread...

That said, I appreciate the background you gave on prior reports/attention about crosstown service.

No...that was the *entire* Ring study informing makeup of all 11 CTx routes in Phase I and travel patterns on all modes to/from the study areas. It was extraordinarily comprehensive and has informed bus policy for 20 years since even without further action on the Ring. It doesn't need a do-over, just an updated numbers plug within the same parameters. The re-study mainly has to tackle the areas the first covered way too thinly: Phase II mode choice, engineering plan, service plan (headway and plan for alternating the routings), and makeup of the Harvard spur which was very poorly defined the first time.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I fail to see why MIT having more money and plans to expand the Kendall area even more means they would want to block a rail line to provide better access to an expanded Kendall Square. You have not explained how you are making the leap from point A to point C. Yes I know the documents are not binding you made that point several years back, but that does not mean that MIT and Cambridge are not interested in the ideas presented in them. Unless you can show that there is a link between the new expected investment by MIT and not being able to use the Grand Junction all we really now is that these plans were created and they are still a potential future possibility for the Grand Junction.

Since it's an FRA railroad with MassDOT ownership and 3 operators (T, Amtrak, dormant CSX rights) federal preemtion prevents any third-party messing with its status without a 4-way supporting filing in front of the Surface Transportation Board.

Even with a mode change with Amtrak/CSX extinguishing rights, it gets slapped with a landbanking statute same as the Davis-Alewife Red Line upholding the RR charter and federal preemption. MIT is a partner in it all for sure, but the heaviest of heavies isn't heavy enough to overturn fed preemption and install themselves as decider of what can or can't happen on the corridor. This is bog-standard Constitutional interstate commerce regulation.

 

[bigpicture7]

No...that was the *entire* Ring study informing makeup of all 11 CTx routes in Phase I and travel patterns on all modes to/from the study areas. It was extraordinarily comprehensive and has informed bus policy for 20 years since even without further action on the Ring. It doesn't need a do-over, just an updated numbers plug within the same parameters. The re-study mainly has to tackle the areas the first covered way too thinly: Phase II mode choice, engineering plan, service plan (headway and plan for alternating the routings), and makeup of the Harvard spur which was very poorly defined the first time.

F-Line...due respect, but it was a struggle to understand your response. Here's what I gather:

1) No, induced demand in an improved GJ corridor wasn't directly accounted for in the original study...
2)...but, it was nonetheless a rigorous study that accounts for all modes, so general demands of movement can be ascertained by looking across modes
3)...the study is 20 years old
4)...but since it was done well and parametrically, an overhaul of the study isn't needed, rather, just an adjusting of parameters
5)...the original study can help understand requirements but not solutions; a re-study would cover solution development

Is this all correct?

A quick comment on my original statement: I did not mean to solely emphasize the CT2; I was using it as an example of a present-day (wholly incomplete, IMO) option that attempts to cover a substantive part of what GJ could cover...and to point out its limited attractiveness, prompting would-be users to seek other ways of commuting

Meanwhile: what about all the people that take the Green Line or commuter rail, then walk or blue-bike it to Kendall. I'd find it hard to believe the old study could account for that. Many people do this. Just observe the pedestrian/bikeshare traffic across the Longfellow, Mass Ave, BU bridges at rush hour due to lack of a better Cambridge-side cross-town option.

I don't dispute the rigor of the old study...but I find it hard to believe it can account for the 20-years-later latent demand that exist among those who do cross-town on the Boston side, then traverse the river by some means other than a CT bus.

 

[FK4]

Phase II mode choice, engineering plan, service plan (headway and plan for alternating the routings), and makeup of the Harvard spur which was very poorly defined the first time.

Other than here (and mostly from you), I've never seen any mention of the "Harvard spur", whereas it's named on here all the time as a "real" entity. I think I've asked this before, but do you know of any inside plans or even discussions about plans to actually extend LRT through Allston? The Harvard master plans I've seen mention a BRT corridor, at best. I think a GLX across Allston would be one of the very highest yield projects we could do in the whole region, but I've not once ever seen light rail discussed in any media article or plan for the area.

 

[KentXie]

Girlfriend taking the Red Line today. 30 minutes to get from North Quincy to JFK. Put on standby at JFK for 20 minutes. The T should start running fucking bus shuttles down the Red Line after Broadway because this is absolutely pathetic. It's unacceptable service (if they can even call this "service") and it's a waste of everyone's time to even run the trains.

 

[FK4]

Girlfriend taking the Red Line today. 30 minutes to get from North Quincy to JFK. Put on standby at JFK for 20 minutes. The T should start running fucking bus shuttles down the Red Line after Broadway because this is absolutely pathetic. It's unacceptable service (if they can even call this "service") and it's a waste of everyone's time to even run the trains.

Southbound service during rush hour was absolutely insane last week. I’ve been driving this week so I don’t know if it’s any better… But they were running southbound trains about once every 15 to 20 minutes. So ridiculous. The most disgusting aspect is the fact that they continue to charge full fare.

 

[KentXie]

They probably don't want to contract out coach buses to provide shuttle services because doing so means no passenger heading northbound from Braintree/Ashmont would have to pay any fare. Piece of crap organization.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Other than here (and mostly from you), I've never seen any mention of the "Harvard spur", whereas it's named on here all the time as a "real" entity. I think I've asked this before, but do you know of any inside plans or even discussions about plans to actually extend LRT through Allston? The Harvard master plans I've seen mention a BRT corridor, at best. I think a GLX across Allston would be one of the very highest yield projects we could do in the whole region, but I've not once ever seen light rail discussed in any media article or plan for the area.

It's not hard to find. Go to the Wikipedia page, and they've got the Web Archived reports (some individual links busted in the DEIR section, but IIRC there's some hand-edit URL games that'll get around that). This was the BRT-mode map. . .

As shown, the Harvard routing is a bunch of gobbledygook until the University clarifies its Allston land use. They specced stops at West Station, North Harvard St. @ Cambridge St., Western Ave. @ N. Harvard, and Harvard Square. Community input had their list of requested stop adds and alterations, none of which have seen any further analysis. "Yawkey" was also unofficially amended to Kenmore after community input, but the maps were never updated to reflect.

LRT was covered in text, so no pretty pictures. It's exactly how we describe it: Grand Junction, GLX-Brickbottom for Lechmere or Sullivan, Eastern Route. The only real decision was the southern-half connection, which is of course dependent on whether there can even be LRT on the southern half. That decision informs whether the BU Bridge subway buries the B (the one to hedge on if LRT is only going to be for the north half for foreseeable future) or takes some modified path under Mountfort instead.

 

[Arlington]

Just saw Locomotive 1050: Lookin mighty fine back from rebuild to a F40PH-3C and all repainted. Here's somebody else's video of basically what I saw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMVbIkDgJsE

Does 3C mean it has Tier III emissions (and now is more similar to the HSP46 which MPI built ?)

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Just saw Locomotive 1050: Lookin mighty fine back from rebuild to a F40PH-3C and all repainted. Here's somebody else's video of basically what I saw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMVbIkDgJsE

Does 3C mean it has Tier III emissions (and now is more similar to the HSP46 which MPI built ?)

No. They've been upgraded to Tier 0+ emissions, microprocessor controls, LED light fixtures, and other minor touches. Basically, it's an upgrade that does minor optimizations to the existing platform where they can get it and ensures that all parts of dwindling availability are changed out for parts that will be readily available for a full 25-year life extension of the vehicle. For emissions, the 3000 HP EMD 645 prime mover can't be tarted up to any higher emissions standard than 0+ (which is considerably cleaner than the non-rebuilds in the fleet), and if you changed the prime mover to something newer-tech it stops being a rebuild loco and starts being a remanufactured loco...in which case you're now bound to the maximum Tier 4 emissions standard.

Metra, Metro North (west-of-Hudson), and the T all run F40PH-3's. They're not exactly identical (the T's have more LED bulbs than MNRR's earlier rehabs), but MPI is following Progress Rail's rebuild specs for the MNRR and Metra fleets pretty faithfully so they're all broadly third-generation at spec level. The "C" in -3C still stands for "Cummins" as it did for the -2C generation, since that is the make of the auxiliary generator providing HEP power to the coaches. Metra's fleet does without the generator (like the HSP-46's do) and runs the coach power straight off the main engine's alternator, so theirs are just -3's without the "C".

 

[FK4]

It's not hard to find. Go to the Wikipedia page, and they've got the Web Archived reports (some individual links busted in the DEIR section, but IIRC there's some hand-edit URL games that'll get around that). This was the BRT-mode map. . .

As shown, the Harvard routing is a bunch of gobbledygook until the University clarifies its Allston land use. They specced stops at West Station, North Harvard St. @ Cambridge St., Western Ave. @ N. Harvard, and Harvard Square. Community input had their list of requested stop adds and alterations, none of which have seen any further analysis. "Yawkey" was also unofficially amended to Kenmore after community input, but the maps were never updated to reflect.

LRT was covered in text, so no pretty pictures. It's exactly how we describe it: Grand Junction, GLX-Brickbottom for Lechmere or Sullivan, Eastern Route. The only real decision was the southern-half connection, which is of course dependent on whether there can even be LRT on the southern half. That decision informs whether the BU Bridge subway buries the B (the one to hedge on if LRT is only going to be for the north half for foreseeable future) or takes some modified path under Mountfort instead.

Yeah, I remember / am familiar with that map ... but even when they talked about LRT, my understanding is that was all predicated on what’s an essentially unbuildable Circle Line, rather than BRT / LRT mix... and certainly did not discuss the option of making the Allston portion a GLX spur.

Anyway... the question remains, given the fact that Beacon Yards is about to have massive development, why is it that Harvard’s master plan for the region barely mentions BRT and doesn’t really address the urban ring at all? Do you, or does anyone, have any inside information that the MBTA or Harvard is specifically contemplating the notion of a green line extension off the B for this area?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Yeah, I remember / am familiar with that map ... but even when they talked about LRT, my understanding is that was all predicated on what’s an essentially unbuildable Circle Line, rather than BRT / LRT mix... and certainly did not discuss the option of making the Allston portion a GLX spur.

No..."Alternatives A & B" in the Major Investment Study called for a Dudley-Sullivan via BU rail arc that was only a half Ring. They just chose the wrong quadrants for that half-Ring by going all-in on ridership, no-in on buildability. It had lots of fatal problems: Charles crossing to Kenmore from a bad insertion angle on the Grand Junction + excessive Brookline Ave. & Park Drive tunneling, or the I-695 alignment that missed Kenmore and also required a cross-Charles tunnel foregoing the existing bridge. And attempted those Herculean tunneling tasks while leaving the NE quadrant (now Encore-d) out of it...with confusing footnotes about just how out of it it really was. A re-study which, as previously mentioned, must bear down much heavier on engineering and logistics than the first ridership-centric one...is going to have to address those baffling choices. On-spec it looked like they were inventing the most self-defeating tunnels (any mode) to kill off the need for any meaningful grade separation. Maybe not surprising since the MIS was conducted during the peak of Silver Line Fever, when not-really-BRT BRT was the flavor of the month.

The Harvard spur, because of the wildly askew tunnel plans, had itself running on the Grand Junction to nearly Mass Ave. in Alt. A or Cambridgeport in Alt. B before interfacing with the mainline...and using the rail bridge. Any re-study's got to look at the extreme infrastructure duplication here, when re-use of the existing Grand Junction bridge puts a train right on-alignment to punch underneath Comm Ave. from the hillside and avoid the Pike by bending under the B reservation towards Kenmore. Disruptive as it may be, if they still want to reach Dudley that badly with a turn out of Longwood, it would be less disruptive than any of the MIS tunnel stupidity to just bury-B into Kenmore then knock some shit around inside the station to construct a B-to-D revenue loop. And this cleanup means the Harvard tie-in hops back over the river into Allston, where they have to peg it to a different station.

As for why the Harvard spur wasn't explicitly mentioned for LRT conversion: all of the Allston-Harvard routing was street-running in MIS with only partial bus lane stripes on N. Harvard. This is because the Beacon Park land swap had not yet happened; that was 3 years away at the time of the MIS's publication. The BRT default was left as-is because, while negotiations with CSX were hot, no one knew what the hell would be available for grade separation between West Station and the river without Beacon Park in-hand. Therefore they technically could not, in your words, "contemplate the notion of a Green Line extension off the B" in the MIS. The land wasn't available to make any of that so.

Now we more or less know there's options in-hand for getting between West Station and Western Ave. on a protected reservation by running somewhere approx. 2 blocks east of N. Harvard St. And it'll glom to that separation whether BRT or LRT; the MIS's street-running is now 100% obsolete. The only question is how diligent is Harvard going to be at setting aside that separated ROW they've claimed they'd set aside. The very existence of Beacon Park as Harvard property now forces a re-study of the (only scarcely studied) spur.

So between the major routing change in Allston, net gain of grade separation that didn't previously exist, and different mainline tie-in because of the tunnel simplification...the spur pretty much has to be studied all over again from the ground up. The old plans aren't all that useful except for some destination-pair demand numbers for trips not Beacon Park-related.

Anyway... the question remains, given the fact that Beacon Yards is about to have massive development, why is it that Harvard’s master plan for the region barely mentions BRT and doesn’t really address the urban ring at all? Do you, or does anyone, have any inside information that the MBTA or Harvard is specifically contemplating the notion of a green line extension off the B for this area?

Harvard has lots of institutional stuff about the need for the Ring + spur. A whole lot. I don't think they've ever not been solidly vociferous about the need. But they are infuriatingly vague on what precisely they're setting aside for a reservation, because the plans for Beacon Park keep changing and keep getting punted out. Though if there's a suspect motive here, I think it's that they're too content to sit on land and don't intend to build out as fast as people & pols think or hope. They've taken the slow lane with a lot of other Allston redev, so it's a little iffy to picture frenzied building starting up the second the Pike realignment project finishes. I fear the state building a perfectly good West Station but needing decades before it fires on all cylinders because Harvard wants to cadillac it on the adjacent land.