Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Vagabond said:
Poor Triumvirate- ES station is in their parking lot but still a 1+mile walk...
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You see what passes for a sidewalk on Inner Belt Rd? Nobody "walks" there...especially with all the heavy truck traffic on that road. When I lived in East Somerville I once had to hoof it to the UPS distribution center from my apartment off Pearl to pick up a package, and found myself pressed up against the corrugated steel wall of those little hamster tubes clinging for dear life while a tractor-trailer blew through at about twice the speed limit swearing at me with a horn and high-beams show. Never again.

That neighborhood wants to be pampered and waited on hand-and-foot for every tangientally-related decision the city ever makes...and yet they never, to my knowledge, have advocated widening the @#$% hamster killtubes.🤬
 
1-ended stations is a particularly bad idea if you don't have underpasses or overpasses to get to that 1 end.
 
The E-somerville station access being on the side of the tracks that is farthest from the geographic center of East Somerville is just the cherry on top.
 
ra84970 said:
The E-somerville station access being on the side of the tracks that is farthest from the geographic center of East Somerville is just the cherry on top.
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Prediction: when McGrath comes down and that strip gets terraformed into a new gravity-weighted 'square', they rename the station. The current name was born out of political compromise; it'll pass out of political compromise.
 
Counter-prediction: To paraphrase Keynes: In the long run, every station's name gets changed, but in the long run we're all dead. Or in other words, no one on this board will be alive to see such a thing come to pass.
 
I feel like each line & branch of the rapid transit network has that "one" station which is the source of some naming ire/ache/complaint. For the GL subway, I think it's between Auditorium/Mass/Hynes/ICA and Government Center/Scollay. For the GLX, I guess it's East Somerville. For the RL, I suppose it's Columbia/UMass/JFK. For the OL, is it Haymarket or State? Blue line, though, I don't know if there's been as renaming-heavy station out there.
 
greenlinetobrooklyn said:
Has the landing in Cambridge Crossing been detailed at all? I haven't seen anything about the routing after the the viaduct.
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You can see it in various site plans for Cambridge Crossing - it's a side path along Morgan Ave. Part of it already exists from about East Street to the dead end by North Bank Bridge.
 
Herding my kids through the "hamster killtubes" is reliably terrifying. Of course, the walk down inner belt to see the GLX construction and the dog park is one of my kids favorite walks so we have to do it all the time. :rolleyes:
 
Given that that area is strictly industrial, (and about to be more so with the VMF) how many people actually walk through those "hamster tubes" regularly?

Also, what exactly are they classified as? Tunnels? A bridge?
 
Stlin said:
Given that that area is strictly industrial, (and about to be more so with the VMF) how many people actually walk through those "hamster tubes" regularly?

Also, what exactly are they classified as? Tunnels? A bridge?
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I'm surprised Somerville hasn't put in for a Federal "TIGER" (aka BUILD) grant to replace the hamsters tubes with a real, pedestrian/bicycle compliant bridge. I think they'd have a good shot at such a grant,
 
Stlin is correct - it's entirely an industrial area with minimal bike/ped demand. The only occasion I've ever had to go through was to photograph GLX construction.
 
Stlin said:
Given that that area is strictly industrial, (and about to be more so with the VMF) how many people actually walk through those "hamster tubes" regularly?

Also, what exactly are they classified as? Tunnels? A bridge?
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UPS is still there. God forbid you aren't home when they try to deliver your package to the neighborhood. Those yellow tickets stuck to the door are like a kiss of death.
 
Charlie_mta said:
I'm surprised Somerville hasn't put in for a Federal "TIGER" (aka BUILD) grant to replace the hamsters tubes with a real, pedestrian/bicycle compliant bridge. I think they'd have a good shot at such a grant,
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Or just do a tunnel-jacked 3rd bike-ped bypass.
 
Charlie_mta said:
I was thinking that also. Aesthetically a bridge is more pleasing, but a cheap alternative would be a 3rd tube.
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Looking in Google Maps, I now have my doubts that the ROW is wide enough. I worry that the "sidewalk margin" is actually used up between the two (existing) tunnels
 
The problem is that if you have to construct an actual underpass - you have no way in/out. I mean - unless you go super Dutch engineering and can make install a prefab underpass in 72 hours.
 
The T has done quick-swap replacements (e.g. the Fitchburg Line over Route 62 in Concord). If they can build the abutments during a series of shorter track outages, they might be able to do a single long weekend to slid in the new bridge. Emergency access could come through the Met Pipe parking lot.
 
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