Gov't Center Station Rebuild

Tombstoner said:
I don't know if that's entirely fair. My wheelchair-bound mom was visiting a while ago and we got everywhere on the T. Of course, things can be better and you may have a couple key gaps in mind, but accessibility was way better than any other city I've ever lived in (and lightyears ahead of what I've experienced in Europe and most of Asia). It's one of the few bright spots for which I think we need to pat ourselves on a back.
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Did she use the Green Line?
 
omaja said:
Maybe I am missing something, but Park Street-Aquarium is basically the same distance as South Station-Aquarium... why wouldn't you continue taking the D to Park and walk (or D to Park and C/E to Haymarket for a shorter walk), and save yourself at least $103 a month?
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What was once a very crowded commute home in the evening rush has turned absolutely unbearable with crush loads and frequent inability to board the D line at Park. You now have everyone who used to board the d line at govt center now boarding or trying to board at park st adding to what was already a very busy station to begin with. I used to board the green line at govt center and look out the window at all the frowning faces at park St of those who were unable to board. Now I'm one of those frowning faces. So the government center closure has had a significant impact on commuters like me. In my case, although I'm not happy about it, I'm coughing up the extra cash for the commuter rail option for mental sanity. 2 years is a long time to deal with the that type of situation at park st.
 
I don't normally use Park St at p.m. rush hour (thankfully) but I was there yesterday, and whoa. It's like a waterfall of people pouring down the stairs and through the fare gates. It took me a while to exit against the flow. I wasn't in a hurry so I didn't force the issue.

Trains were leaving Park St with a little standing room only, or near crush load.
 
The crush loads are only going to get worse as the tourists start to pour in during the summer months too.
 
datadyne007 said:
The crush loads are only going to get worse as the tourists start to pour in during the summer months too.
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No, you're not thinking about this as an Industrial Engineer. Crush loads happen at commuting times. During the summer, commuters leave (they become tourists elsewhere) and the tourists that "come here" don't crush in at commuter times. Details below:

Tourists, while numerous, move disproportionately by foot, taxi, or tourist bus, and further, when they do use transit, tend not to "commute" at crush-load times, and therefore contribute little to crush loading.

Evening baseball games are much worse as crush-loaders go when they overlay the "non-vacation" rush hours of April, May, and June.

Meanwhile, if 50% to 80% of "office" workers take a summer vacation averaging 1 week sometime during the 10-week summer peak "tourist" season (roughly late June to Labor Day) then each week when "tourists" are in town, we'd expect about 5% to 8% of commuters to "not be there".

Since the worst congestion is caused by "straws" that "break the camels back", de-congesting our rush-hour systems by 8% (or even 5%) makes a big difference.

Whether by road or transit, you'll definitely note that things move, in fact, very smoothly for your July and August commutes. Make a note, in particular, how smooth things run the first week in July. Jams on highways are shorter and less severe. Trains are delayed less by congestion and door-blockers. Commuting in August is a particular joy, but nobody's here to see it--they're all on vacation ;-)
 
And also trips towards Lechmere get better in the summer months because of the lack of Celtics/Bruins games once those seasons wind down. Not only because there are fewer of them, but also they are the worst T passengers imaginable. Just take one step in and stop.
 
One of my brothers told me yesterday that the other day, he and his wife were stuck at Park Street Station that day because of a baseball game at Fenway Park that afternoon.

Said that they had to wait for several trolleys to fill up before they could get onto one later. It was very crowded in the station that day, he said.
 
YES!!

These are the old tunnels to the demolished Adams Sq station. The new tunnels built at the time of Govt Center straightened out the route and bypassed the station (which was only northbound and lightly used).
 
For those unfamiliar with the pre Gov't Center rebuild routing, and because I love an excuse to post this one:
14261125439_fd44d666e4_o.jpg
 
davem said:
For those unfamiliar with the pre Gov't Center rebuild routing, and because I love an excuse to post this one:
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That map raises the question for me: Was there a point in time when the Green Line could have been extended to Bowdoin and the Blue to Lechmere? Think about how much better that would be now, with the Blue extended out to Medford and Union and the Green looping at Bowdoin, which has a spacing from GC that actually works for light rail?

During the era of renewal, they could even have pushed a tunnel under the Government Service Center to a North Station terminus.
 
Equilibria said:
That map raises the question for me: Was there a point in time when the Green Line could have been extended to Bowdoin and the Blue to Lechmere? Think about how much better that would be now, with the Blue extended out to Medford and Union and the Green looping at Bowdoin, which has a spacing from GC that actually works for light rail?

During the era of renewal, they could even have pushed a tunnel under the Government Service Center to a North Station terminus.
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F-line put together the best post ever on rr.net of links to all of the Annual Reports of the Boston Transit Commission.

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=60261&start=45#p666522

I forget which years they talk about it, but basically they built the east boston tunnel under the harbor and then had _no_clue_ what to do with it afterwards.

Also, sorry to the railfans. I probably just destroyed everyone productivity for the next month. Unfortunately a lot of the pull out maps weren't scanned, but its still an AMAZING read.
 
davem said:
F-line put together the best post ever on rr.net of links to all of the Annual Reports of the Boston Transit Commission.
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Wow, great resource. Thanks for the link. BTW, looks like Google lets you download them as PDFs. Awesome.

Looking at the 1918 one, I saw this neat diagram of Hynes from back when it had trolleys.

c8OIIIE.png


Is that showing the old passage that you referenced in the Abandoned T tunnels thread?
 
The old MTA system map is wonderful to look over. It's so sweet that a cartographer would draw the station forms. It's as if he was plotting a getaway in his own mind. I feel as if I could get lost in the details of this map as I view it. A stamp collector might understand the feeling. Also, I lament the fact that the Hynes station was previously named "Massachusetts" and Aquarium was named "Atlantic Ave", it just sounds more impressive to me.
 
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