Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Equilibria said:
The train in the picture is a Type 9, and they run on all the lines.
Click to expand...
It was my understanding as well that the Type 9s can't run in the mixed-traffic portion of the E because they don't have the pop-out stop signs on the doors (a design flaw the T didn't see coming until the trains actually went into service).

But even if Type 9s don't run the E, they can still serve a portion of the GLX on the D to Union.
Ruairi said:
I haven't investigated too much but it looks like the space under the tracks will be for bike storage as well as station entrances. It doesn't look like there'll be too much dead space.
Click to expand...
Yeah there really isn't much dead space under here. The bus loop, bus shelters, bike racks, and station entrance itself will all be under the overpass, as well as multiple street grid connections. I expect the street level space underneath the new Lechmere to actually be pretty lively.
 
JumboBuc said:
It was my understanding as well that the Type 9s can't run in the mixed-traffic portion of the E because they don't have the pop-out stop signs on the doors (a design flaw the T didn't see coming until the trains actually went into service).

But even if Type 9s don't run the E, they can still serve a portion of the GLX on the D to Union.

Yeah there really isn't much dead space under here. The bus loop, bus shelters, bike racks, and station entrance itself will all be under the overpass, as well as multiple street grid connections. I expect the street level space underneath the new Lechmere to actually be pretty lively.
Click to expand...
I would load it with dance clubs, bars, light manufacturing, paintball, shooting ranges... places where people can be loud.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
I would load it with dance clubs, bars, light manufacturing, paintball, shooting ranges... places where people can be loud.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it looks like there's some room under the new GLX viaduct for a coffee shop, a restaurant, some pedestrian oriented businesses to make Lechmere Square look more like a square instead of a highway.
 
Are there any official commitments for building the Mystic Valley Parkway/Route 16 extension after GLX opens? I'm curious as to whether it's still planned to be completed sometime post-GLX.
 
themissinglink said:
Are there any official commitments for building the Mystic Valley Parkway/Route 16 extension after GLX opens? I'm curious as to whether it's still planned to be completed sometime post-GLX.
Click to expand...
I don’t know of any commitments, but it really seems like right now is the perfect time to get moving on the Mystic Valley extension. It’d be a shame to delay and lose all the momentum and know-how that has been formed over the last 5 years of construction.

I’m a big believer that a major factor limiting our ability to build transit in this country is the fact that we do it so rarely. If we had more of a steady stream of projects we’d build up an industry of people and equipment that have done it before and know how to do it again. But when a project only comes along once in a career, we never give the industry a chance to get their act together. Other countries that build transit way better than us are able to do so because they get a lot more reps.

We need to keep the ball rolling, and not let the systems put in place for GLX to atrophy.

[Also: “Mystic Valley” is an absolutely fantastic name for a station, and especially a terminus. That will go right up there alongside Wonderland and Cockfosters for all-time great terminus names.]
 
Former Lechmere yard and neighboring intersections.... fixed it! One big road diet. Now we just have to rename it for someone who didn't own slaves who did great things for Cambridge.
LechmereRotaryAfter.jpg
LechmereRotaryBefore.jpg
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Former Lechmere yard and neighboring intersections.... fixed it! One big road diet. Now we just have to rename it for someone who didn't own slaves who did great things for Cambridge.
View attachment 19868View attachment 19869
Click to expand...

Because Massachusetts drivers have such propensity to treat roundabouts properly as opposed to smaller-but-barely-slower rotaries...

I don't mind the road diet, but that traffic circle impinges badly on the ex-Lechmere station parcel. That would go down extremely badly with whichever developer wound up with it out of the GLX land swaps.
 
Brattle Loop said:
Because Massachusetts drivers have such propensity to treat roundabouts properly as opposed to smaller-but-barely-slower rotaries...

I don't mind the road diet, but that traffic circle impinges badly on the ex-Lechmere station parcel. That would go down extremely badly with whichever developer wound up with it out of the GLX land swaps.
Click to expand...
Yeah. Let 'em go up a couple more floors and wheedle some FAR variances OR give them the park across the street. Everybody'll find away to get theirs.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Yeah. Let 'em go up a couple more floors and wheedle some FAR variances OR give them the park across the street. Everybody'll find away to get theirs.
Click to expand...

Potentially. It generally makes sense to negotiate, but you do never know when someone's going to get ornery and say "nah, my parcel, get lost". (This isn't Crazy Transit Pitches, so I tend to feel a bit of an impulse to provide doses of reality and/or cynicism.)

You also have to think that Boston commuters probably would just jaywalk through that circle if at all possible, which would make a mess of things.
 
Does somebody have the title on the yard yet? Did it get RFP'd?
CROSSWALKS! I forgot crosswalks. Yes. God bless the Bostonian jaywalker. It's indeed a walking city. I think this would absolutely be safer than what we have now.
(Fixed it)
LechmereRotaryAfter.jpg
 
The problem with a rotary is that rotaries, and their ever-flowing vehicular traffic are not good accommodating large volumes of pedestrians, such as we'd expect going to/from a Green Line Station. The crosswalks aren't really sufficient because rotaries create an expectation among drivers that they will both enter and exit the rotary "at speed" / stopless.

EDIT: Consider how hard Powderhouse Circle has to be worked to feel even half-safe (and at much lower pedestrian volumes). This could (and should) be a nice "+" shaped intersection with only 2 basic signal cycles. (1) McGrath goes and (2) First Street crosses (along with its pedestrians). Please, no more Powderhouse Circles, particularly when there aren't more than 4 branches on the intersection anyway and there's huge pulses of pedestrians
 
Last edited:
BeyondRevenue said:
Former Lechmere yard and neighboring intersections.... fixed it! One big road diet. Now we just have to rename it for someone who didn't own slaves who did great things for Cambridge.
View attachment 19868View attachment 19869
Click to expand...
You will need traffic lights for the crosswalks because a lot of people will be crossing O'Brien highway to/from the GLX station. That is a problem on roundabouts and rotaries, because the auto traffic will back up into the rotary when a crosswalk light is red. Also, bicyclists will have a heck of a time getting through the rotary. On a high traffic road in a high pedestrian use area, I don't think roundabouts or rotaries work well for pedestrians and bicyclists.
 
Last edited:
Charlie_mta said:
You will need traffic lights for the crosswalks because a lot of people will be crossing O'Brien highway to/from the GLX station. That is a problem on roundabouts and rotaries, because the auto traffic will back up into the rotary when a crosswalk light is red. Also, bicyclists will have a heck of a time getting through the rotary. On a high traffic road in a high pedestrian use area, I don't think roundabouts or rotaries work well for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Click to expand...

Exactly and if you have to have stop lights anyways you might as well just make it a normal intersection so its better for pedestrians.
 
This is why we can't have nice things. 😞
One big buyer conglomerate buys acreage in bulk, builds an ostensible urban neighborhood around the T, but keeps it car-friendly. It would have been cool to see small parcels like an Amsterdam feel instead of the Apartmoplexes there are now.
My prediction? Nothing will get weaned, narrowed or cut from the existing street grid and we will have highway speed fatalities instead of rotary speed injuries. We'll still have all the old mistakes and highway botchery to deal with... 8 lanes wide and as smart as 1962's brain will let us be. And that's a shame.
/end rant

As an aside. Why does Gore Street get highway access? Why doesn't Second Street continue across? I saw this when it came out forever ago and I wondered why there wasn't more of attempt to stitch a grid together.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top