General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

bigpicture7 said:
It is sad how people abuse and exploit legit societal critique for personal monetary gain. This person should not be credited with originality, though, I have seen the same "obsolete, old-fashioned, 50's-style, male dominated office lifestyle" image used in numerous places lately, some quite fittingly and deservedly, and some completely bonkers. Sadly, legit social advocacy tends to attract vultures who hitch their wagon to it for opportunistic purposes. Fortunately, this use case is so obviously fraudulent, I doubt it will catch on. If anything, rail and transit systems are prime vehicles for leveling the playing field across society.
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But surely such fantastical contraptions as the motor car and steam engine be only reserved for the finest gentlemen of the highest breeding and social standing. Indeed, the velociped was itself the exclusive mainstay of such elegant and well-groomed chaps of the school yard when it was first conceived. Imagine a dainty woman with the frame of a mobility device betwixt her legs! Now the back seat of a vehicle or indeed a locked kitchen, those are the proper home for the fairer sex!

I digress...

Not to be too brutal to this one guy (never go on the record saying dumb stuff!), but his biography on the MIT page is a word-salad of committees and white papers that basically looks like a journeyman auto engineer shilling for car companies with the veil of MIT as cover. I worry, especially as agencies are in flux, that such brilliant creative minds (or just their ideas) end up inside the dialog and manage to quite literally derail progress.
 
stick n move said:
Looking at this concept I actually think this is a pretty great idea. We SHOULD open up the commuter rail right of ways to more frequent service by running electric vehicles on them. We should in fact run multiple electric vehicles on them.

And in order to fit the maximum number of electric vehicles onto the right of ways they should be fairly long and have many of them attached together. They could be called electric multiple units or EMU’s for short.

Then in the center of every town along the way we can build new ingress/egress portals to and from these electric vehicles with level boarding for maximum convenience. They could run at 15 minute intervals because electric vehicles have good acceleration.

Finally right in the city center we can build one final large multiple electronic vehicle depot where all of the electric vehicles can park and allow people to easily walk to and from work or anywhere else. I think that with just a slight bit of tweaking this idea could actually work!
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Haha, just as long as the wheels still use rubber tires. So basically they want a autonomous electric trolleybus that runs on a dedicated ROW at rapid transit frequencies. Sounds like the silver line and we all know how blazing fast that thing is.
 
They dont even want that, they want some dumbass elon tech-bro tesla-tunnel-but-above-ground paved right of way for electric vehicles only… The thing is they already exist, theyre called fucking ROADS. The world is switching to electric vehicles as we speak, they will be much better served by the existing road infrastructure and highways that we already have vs trying to ram cars into a tiny commuter rail right of way. For some reason the tech bros are obsessed with this electric personal pod idea and wont let it die. Its because sharing trains with the riff raff scares rich ppl. My post was just showing that if you fully flesh out the electric pod concept to its most efficient form… you end up back at the train. Trains are a fully mature transit system that is proven to work across the world and is a known commodity with supply chains and skilled workers. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel for no reason.
 
stick n move said:
For some reason the tech bros are obsessed with this electric personal pod idea and wont let it die...
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Because TechBros are obsessed with the idea of selling instant personal gratification... (because they have seen TechBros that came before them get very rich selling that)
 
fatnoah said:
I can't read the article, as someone that commuted from Beacon Hill to Watertown Square, I would have loved a water shuttle for that route vs. getting hung up in traffic on one of the various bus routes.


Currently, I've eliminated the subway from the North Station to seaport leg of my commute. The MCCA ferry from Lovejoy Wharf to the Seaport is amazing.
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Charles is all a no wake zone. Travel time from the Charles River Dam to Watertown is over 1 hour by boat. (Not including any dwell time for stops). But sure, that's really fast. Travel across the harbor can be much faster.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Charles is all a no wake zone. Travel time from the Charles River Dam to Watertown is over 1 hour by boat. (Not including any dwell time for stops). But sure, that's really fast. Travel across the harbor can be much faster.
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For those of us who know nothing about boating, can you elaborate? Thanks.
 
bigeman312 said:
For those of us who know nothing about boating, can you elaborate? Thanks.
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Because of all the sail craft and crew shells on the Charles, power boats have severe speed restrictions throughout the Charles River Basin. This is in place to prevent them from making large wakes that can easily capsize the small sail and human powered craft.

"Power boaters should plan on a one hour run from Sunset Bay, home to Newton Yacht Club, Watertown Yacht Club, and the public launch ramp, to the locks leading to Boston Harbor. The speed limit is 6 mph above the BU Bridge, 10 mph between the BU Bridge and the old lock by the Science Museum."
 
sneijder said:
Haha, just as long as the wheels still use rubber tires. So basically they want a autonomous electric trolleybus that runs on a dedicated ROW at rapid transit frequencies. Sounds like the silver line and we all know how blazing fast that thing is.
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Maybe they're just advocating for the Montreal Metro. I'd take those trains, they're pretty nice.
 
Slightly off-topic, but this was in my YouTube feed today... No, I didn't make that comment either.

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Living right near the north quincy T station and having a direct view of the neponset bridge, I've noticed that subway trains going from Braintree to Alewife have been travelling a lot faster recently. Not sure if track work was completed recently here.
 
Spotted a 10 MPH speed limit sign at Govt Ctr. WB. Is this the slow zone?

The crowds are heavy at 12:30 on a Saturday and the trains are 12 - 13 minutes apart at Govt Ctr, yikes. Arrived with a 6 min wait time.

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