Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[ra84970]

Seen at Ruggles

View attachment 12029View attachment 12028

E branch to Tufts and D branch to Union Square.

I'm a bit annoyed that the downtown segment of the GL doesn't show the C/D/E between Gov't Center and North Station.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'm a bit annoyed that the downtown segment of the GL doesn't show the C/D/E between Gov't Center and North Station.

The number of trains forced to cut out and loop early because of blown schedules makes that somewhat less than a moneyback guarantee.

 

[Equilibria]

Nice find.

I wonder if consolidating the BU stops will allow them to make the B line shorter. I hate how it looks so much longer than the D

I think they did it already on this map, but didn't they use the name Amory Street, not St Paul? Did they change it again, or did they mess up the map?

 

[HelloBostonHi]

View attachment 12028

I think they did it already on this map, but didn't they use the name Amory Street, not St Paul? Did they change it again, or did they mess up the map?

Now you mention it yeah they made a weird decision to remove the two stops on the B line but didn't rename Amory or mark them as accessible. I guess its a halfway through construction snapshot (that we will likely see at Ruggles for the next 40 years if the other maps at Ruggles are any indication)

Other things to note, it shows the new Chelsea Commuter Rail station next to SL3 which the current maps don't.

I'm a bit annoyed that the downtown segment of the GL doesn't show the C/D/E between Gov't Center and North Station.

With the D branch now going past N Station I wouldn't be too surprised if the C branch is cut back to Govt Center which is what this map shows. So B to Park, C to Govt Center, D to Union Sq, and E to Medford/Tufts.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

With the D branch now going past N Station I wouldn't be too surprised if the C branch is cut back to Govt Center which is what this map shows. So B to Park, C to Govt Center, D to Union Sq, and E to Medford/Tufts.

Unlikely. Cleveland Circle would have to crank up the number of Reservoir equipment swaps interacting with traffic in the square if loss of North Station Yard left them unable to subsist most of the time on middle-of-street turnbacks on the Cleveland Circle tail tracks.

Improving B schedule reliability enough to bring it back to GC Loop on permanent basis is the better outcome, and the one GLT direct-targets with stuff like the inbound Park crossover and surface signal priority.

The downtown turnbacks have often changed throughout history, which was the original rationale for not putting them on spider maps with a shelf life of multiple decades. It's pretty unlikely as it is that the full thrust of not-yet-finalized GLT improvements is going to leave all of the turnbacks (not to mention other stop consolidations) completely and utterly unchanged such that we won't have map versioning issues galore to stamp out in the wild. D to Union is already a last-minute change from the GLX ops plan of only a year ago which had it going Medford instead.

 

[devnull]

In the bottom-left corner of HelloBostonHi's map at Ruggles, it now says:

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

In the bottom-left corner of HelloBostonHi's map at Ruggles, it now says:

View attachment 12031

Wishful thinking at best since the B needs the Park crossover to *reliably* return to GC (i.e. without having to be aborted early @ Park every nth trip like the bad old days of the last time it called on GC). And that project won't be bid out before GLX opens.

So, yeah...stickered over every 2 years until the map becomes unreadable and no two maps being the same vintage sounds about par for the course.

 

[RandomWalk]

I could have sworn that D was going to go to Tufts, and E to Union. Was I hallucinating?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I could have sworn that D was going to go to Tufts, and E to Union. Was I hallucinating?

No hallucinate. That was the service plan all along until now.

Though I suspected all along that it would be a dispatching nightmare to thread a trolley schedule across 6 municipalities in one piece without liberal run-as-directed assistance at peak hours to dampen the chaos effects, so the last-minute flip isn't all that surprising.

But this is illustrative that termini pair-matching has never been ascribed all that much permanence over long periods of time, so may be wishful thinking to spray all over system maps that still have dozens of installations still showing the "temporarily" suspended Arborway stops.

 

[jass]

I think they did it already on this map, but didn't they use the name Amory Street, not St Paul? Did they change it again, or did they mess up the map?

Youre right, thats disappointing. I hate how geographically inaccurate that side of the map is.

I also just noticed it says December 2020 v.35

I like that they added the date. The "version" number seems unnecessary.

But that just adds confusion as to why theyre showing future service on a 2020 map? Unless this was printed in 2007.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Youre right, thats disappointing. I hate how geographically inaccurate that side of the map is.

I also just noticed it says December 2020 v.35

I like that they added the date. The "version" number seems unnecessary.

But that just adds confusion as to why theyre showing future service on a 2020 map? Unless this was printed in 2007.

The version numbers are sequential from when they started doing new-style rapid transit spider maps around '02-03 (whichever the first iteration showing the Silver Line was).

So...yes. Somewhere in the wild you can probably collect most of all of those 35 versions at this point.

 

[ra84970]

Unlikely. Cleveland Circle would have to crank up the number of Reservoir equipment swaps interacting with traffic in the square if loss of North Station Yard left them unable to subsist most of the time on middle-of-street turnbacks on the Cleveland Circle tail tracks.

Improving B schedule reliability enough to bring it back to GC Loop on permanent basis is the better outcome, and the one GLT direct-targets with stuff like the inbound Park crossover and surface signal priority.

The downtown turnbacks have often changed throughout history, which was the original rationale for not putting them on spider maps with a shelf life of multiple decades. It's pretty unlikely as it is that the full thrust of not-yet-finalized GLT improvements is going to leave all of the turnbacks (not to mention other stop consolidations) completely and utterly unchanged such that we won't have map versioning issues galore to stamp out in the wild. D to Union is already a last-minute change from the GLX ops plan of only a year ago which had it going Medford instead.

Those extra 20something CAF type 9s aren't going to provide enough peak hour support that there won't be some wonky B to Government Center except sometimes Park? Or even better having the C turn at Government Center just a few minutes before a couple of late Northside commuter rail trains disgorge passengers into the Green and Orange line superstation?

 

[bigeman312]

I wonder if consolidating the BU stops will allow them to make the B line shorter. I hate how it looks so much longer than the D

I much preferred the way the Green Line branches were represented in the early 2010s maps.

 

[HenryAlan]

Nice find.

I wonder if consolidating the BU stops will allow them to make the B line shorter. I hate how it looks so much longer than the D

The map already has the consolidated stops on it, though it mislabels Amory St. as St. Paul, which means that this design predates the final decision on station names.

Edit to note: they still show the B-Line crossing the Worcester Line at Harvard St., which is ridiculously wrong. I've always hated the current version of the spider map for having such radically wrong geography.

 

[RandomWalk]

Have they officially announced the routings, or is it still need-to-know (modulo the random map update)?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Have they officially announced the routings, or is it still need-to-know (modulo the random map update)?

As far as I can tell, this is the first indicator of a change.

Line pairings haven't been much of a topic at public meetings, however, so this would've been easy to escape notice.

 

[JumboBuc]

Now you mention it yeah they made a weird decision to remove the two stops on the B line but didn't rename Amory or mark them as accessible. I guess its a halfway through construction snapshot (that we will likely see at Ruggles for the next 40 years if the other maps at Ruggles are any indication)

It'll be easy to update station names and accessibility designations with stickers, but would be much harder to change the number of stops along a line with stickers. So they probably set up the future "structure" of the B on this map, then they'll update with final name stickers once the stop consolidation is complete.

As far as I can tell, this is the first indicator of a change.

Line pairings haven't been much of a topic at public meetings, however, so this would've been easy to escape notice.

I don't see why the GLX termini need set line pairings at all. Why not designate Medford/Tufts as "1" and Union as "2" (and N Station as "3" and Gov Center as "4") and then allow variable alpha-numeric pairings across the Green Line in order to maximize operational efficiency?

 

[ra84970]

I don't see why the GLX termini need set line pairings at all. Why not designate Medford/Tufts as "1" and Union as "2" (and N Station as "3" and Gov Center as "4") and then allow variable alpha-numeric pairings across the Green Line in order to maximize operational efficiency?

Going from 4 regular service patterns (in addition to the rando exceptions and peak-hour short-turns) to up to 16 regular service patterns doesn't seem to be particularly intuitive for new or infrequent users.

B1 B2 B3 B4
C1 C2 C3 C4
D1 D2 D3 D4
E1 E2 E3 E4

Also, woe be the service planner, operations manager, and operators/motorpersons that have to create/manage/get some likely wildly-interlined schedules.

 

[Equilibria]

Going from 4 regular service patterns (in addition to the rando exceptions and peak-hour short-turns) to up to 16 regular service patterns doesn't seem to be particularly intuitive for new or infrequent users.

B1 B2 B3 B4
C1 C2 C3 C4
D1 D2 D3 D4
E1 E2 E3 E4

Also, woe be the service planner, operations manager, and operators/motorpersons that have to create/manage/get some likely wildly-interlined schedules.

Really, you don't need branches at all. The trains have the destination sign on them. Just use that - who cares about what letter is on it?

FWIW, there are systems worldwide that number all of their stops to help foreign visitors or folks who speak various languages. It's standard practice in East Asia, I think. Mexico City gives each station a pictogram.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Boston's been accustomed to eyeballing the destination signs for inbound termini Park vs. GC vs. NS vs. Lechmere all along. I don't think the letter designations are exactly doing as much of the heavy-lifting as we assume they are. Wayfinding really wouldn't change at all if they were outright de-emphasized.