Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

JeffDowntown said:
Certainly they can sand and repaint the beams.

I think the operational question is will they sand and repaint the beams, or will deferred maintenance rule.
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Certainly deferred maintenance will rule.

The beams will look like the majority of road bridges thruout the state in 20 years.
 
There may end up being enough graffiti that they'll HAVE to repaint them regularly anyway. .
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Pedestrian overpasses are bad city design. They're a symptom of a failed roadway system, and only serve to make cars go faster, deactivate the ground level, and make pedestrians feel less welcome. More pedestrians slowing down cars is okay. Same reason we should ditch pedestrian overpasses on Soldiers Field Rd and put in some real intersections.
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I disagree in the specific context of an elevated station. Making pedestrians cross the street always adds delay, which can mean missing a train. In this context, an overpass would simply bring the station closer to the mall and other destinations.

IE, no different than say Kenmore, where riders can exit on either side of the square, instead of just in the middle and then have to wait to cross.
 
jass said:
I disagree in the specific context of an elevated station. Making pedestrians cross the street always adds delay, which can mean missing a train. In this context, an overpass would simply bring the station closer to the mall and other destinations.

IE, no different than say Kenmore, where riders can exit on either side of the square, instead of just in the middle and then have to wait to cross.
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Lechmere might be hedgeable without because the roads are in for a serious lane diet at that spot (plus more of the outright growth in boardings/alightings is coming from Cambridge Crossing behind it). Sort of like how Charles Circle is a lot more navigable now than when pre-reno Charles/MGH had the ped skywalks going over screaming multi-lane traffic. The crosswalks at the new headhouse are dramatically traffic-calmed vs. before, such that I couldn't picture any return of the Charles skywalks being any net improvement in saving footsteps. Lechmere's road diet might not be quite that dramatic as the Charles compacting, but there's a lot of changes coming as all the multiples of protected turn lanes are going to be pruned back to singles with the median-separated spaghetti greatly simplified and much cleaner-angled intersection geometry reigning now that the overpassing Viaduct can come down.


Science Park, IMHO, has suffered on accessibility since the ped ramps were torn down 15 years ago. But that's mainly because you just can't traffic-calm MA 28 at its Embankment Rd. vs. O'Brien inflection point with the 93 ramps there. It's a 50 ft. unbroken dash to get over on those crosswalks, without so much as a center median providing a life raft if you get stuck between signal cycles. That's way more daunting than what the 25-30 ft. Charles crosswalks now are, and what Lechmere's will be after the turn-lane multiples get deleted. Plus SP is massed right up against the street unlike New Lechmere which is set back about 1/2 block, so there's more footsteps saved by skipping multiple cases of switchback stairs at the vertically massed station vs. the one that has more breathing room for ramping or installing single ground-to-mezzanine escalators. I'm still hoping the SP ramps someday come back once the accessibility contrast with the traffic-calmed Lechmere end of the block exposes that site as still leaving very much to be desired.
 
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ryblogs said:
"entryway" ramp to east Somerville station (behind Cataldo ambulance building). Man, I wish they would relocate this Cataldo building so they could put something more useful to a transit station here.

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Yea, completely agree.
All that effort and you have to use a back alley to access it.
And I think they only moved in to this building a couple of years ago. Very short sighed.
And now the city is building it's fire and police HQ just the other side of the new station.
There will be a heavy pedestrian area competing with ambulances, fire trucks and cop cars.
And most people working at these services will drive there anyway.
Dunno why they didn't pick somewhere like the star market site in Winter Hill.
There's a shocking contrast between what's planned for Leechmere/Union and whats planned for East Somerville.
So much potential being wasted.
Don't get me wrong, it's great that there's a new service coming, just a bit frustrated at the shortsightedness.
 
Down comes the wire. . .

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ryblogs said:
"entryway" ramp to east Somerville station (behind Cataldo ambulance building). Man, I wish they would relocate this Cataldo building so they could put something more useful to a transit station here.

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I believe the station is on the other side of Washington Street. This photo is taken on the north side, station is on the south side.
 
chmeeee said:
I believe the station is on the other side of Washington Street. This photo is taken on the north side, station is on the south side.
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Nah, this photo is on the south side looking north. The MSE wall is for the grade separation between the community path (above the wall) and the entrance to the community path (pictured), they'll meet farther south from where this photo was taken - which is also where an entry to the station itself will be.
 
jass said:
I disagree in the specific context of an elevated station. Making pedestrians cross the street always adds delay, which can mean missing a train. In this context, an overpass would simply bring the station closer to the mall and other destinations.

IE, no different than say Kenmore, where riders can exit on either side of the square, instead of just in the middle and then have to wait to cross.
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One consideration here is an elevated crossover would mean significantly more vertical travel, which is expensive and slow. The island platform would require an overpass raised above the GL envelope, crossing over the road at 30+ft, then descending on the other side for a total of 3+ floors of elevation change. Crossing the road at grade involves ~1 (the viaduct is quite low) so will likely be faster.
 
chmeeee said:
I believe the station is on the other side of Washington Street. This photo is taken on the north side, station is on the south side.
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nope, that photo is taken on the south side looking north.
Cataldo are on both sides of Washington st.

edit. What Jake said.
 
FitchburgLine said:
One consideration here is an elevated crossover would mean significantly more vertical travel, which is expensive and slow. The island platform would require an overpass raised above the GL envelope, crossing over the road at 30+ft, then descending on the other side for a total of 3+ floors of elevation change. Crossing the road at grade involves ~1 (the viaduct is quite low) so will likely be faster.
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Fair point that they would design it like this, as an additional level above the platform, and that would be a major PITA.

Personally, I would design it with a simple pedestrian grade crossing of the tracks, like Park Street or Fenway, but I'm not state bureaucrat.
 
Jake_Jarmel said:
Nah, this photo is on the south side looking north. The MSE wall is for the grade separation between the community path (above the wall) and the entrance to the community path (pictured), they'll meet farther south from where this photo was taken - which is also where an entry to the station itself will be.
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Just kidding. I was looking at the street view at the building in the pic looks like the one on the north side. I guess they're both just that ugly.
 
HenryAlan said:
I don't think we'll ever see any new station construction that requires pedestrians to cross the tracks.
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On commuter rail at least that's verboten for new construction per Mass Architectural Board's tougher-than-ADA accessibility standards. Absent a waiver even the newer Old Colony stations like Braintree, Brockton, Montello, Halifax, and Whitman wouldn't be able to be constructed with ped crossings today. It's only kosher when a station abuts a pre-existing public crossing...because technically that abutting crossing that acts as the primary means of changing platforms is not part of the station at all and is just following rules-of-the-road like a standard crosswalk. So, for example, all of the Reading Line low-platform stations can be rebuild full-high as-is without running afoul because the grade crossings are the means of switching sides...but Endicott's track crossing has to go when that stop is ADA'd and be compensated with equal-capability side access.


Light rail is squishy because the applications are way more hybridized. Prepayment stations and stations under total grade separation (i.e. pit/embankment like GLX) would definitely go strict-constructionist by M.A.B. fiat and forbid it. Street-running or reservation obviously couldn't, because rules-of-the-road apply with grade crossings and/or track crossings. And those that split the difference such as a grade-separated line under signal system control...but with grade crossings shared with traffic signaling...are purely situational and could grant exceptions (example: Urban Ring LRT in Cambridge and needing to retain the pre-existing Ft. Washington Park ped grade crossing of the Grand Junction baked into the would-be Cambridgeport Station egress a la the Emerald Necklace crossing of Longwood Station).
 
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