Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[RandomWalk]

My comment related to an infill station between College Ave and MVP. If they had placed a station either at Winthrop, or perhaps midway between College and Winthrop (maybe including a pedestrian bridge between Brookings St and Boston Ave) that would have been possible in a world without Medford’s rabid NIMBYs.

 

[Dr. Rosen Rosen]

Today the old pedestrian tunnel is meeting its fate (5/27):
View attachment 24771

Interestingly (and pardon my limited zoom capability), the mode of demolition was for a large metal wrecking ball to be repeatedly lifted up and dropped onto the roof of the tunnel. Each time this happened, the ground shook with such reverberation that I could feel the new Lechmere platform vibrate. Here's an action shot:
View attachment 24772

I can’t quite tell what’s going on in that pic -are they just dropping a steel ball on top of the tunnel??

 

[bigpicture7]

I can’t quite tell what’s going on in that pic -are they just dropping a steel ball on top of the tunnel??

Yes, that's exactly what's happening. The ball is in mid-air in the bottom pic, about to go THUD.

 

[jbray]

It's an important contextual piece to remind some of you who may not have been tuned in when station placement was an ongoing conversation, but Medford Hillside residents are the ones (not universally) who helped shoot down a Winthrop Street station (with the support of MassDOT) in favor of the Route 16 terminus. College Ave, Winthrop, and MVP were all stations under consideration. I'd be interested to understand how that public petition would have played out with a reassignment of the 96 back to its original routing.

One thing that the lack of a station helps with is the speed (reliability/usefullness) of the extension over distance. I know F-Line has commented some pages back on the average distance between stations and that having both MVP and Winthrop was just too close of a distribution and having no Winthrop was just too far. A future extension to Winchester will benefit from the stop spacing as is planned.

For my money, I would keep the new 96 due to its increased overall usefullness and reroute the 94 over the George St. via Winthrop, coming back to the normal route via College Ave but that's for the bus thread.

 

[ceo]

Yup. It's the standard problem with siting the terminus of a transit line, everyone's afraid people are going to drive in from the suburbs and park all over their neighborhood. With the College Ave location, that's Tufts's problem for the most part. Same reason they hated the West Medford terminus.

 

[cubbe8]

Damn we have another train crash…..

 

[WormtownNative]

From the Twitter machine

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1532172921472524293

 

[citydweller]

I can’t quite tell what’s going on in that pic -are they just dropping a steel ball on top of the tunnel??

me thinks that demo job went to the contractor with the lowest bid. ... "drop ball go bang"

 

[BeyondRevenue]

From the Twitter machine

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1532172921472524293

Is that the NB exit from Gov't Center where rails merge at the Lechmere return loop?

 

[Dr. Rosen Rosen]

The GLX is indeed displacing many people. At least some of them are getting paid. Nissenbaum family’s 4 acre property adjacent to Union Sq station at Boyton Yards reportedly sold for $150M. Wow.

Junkyard turns to gold in Somerville development boom - The Boston Globe

The family name still adorns the business Jacob Nissenbaum started over a century ago. But this unvarnished slice of Somerville near Union Square is about to vanish as the area is transformed by the Green Line Extension and a boom in biotech development.

www.bostonglobe.com

 

[Texasian]

Starting to think the GLX is cursed: first the garage collapse and now the crash. :sigh:

 

[JumboBuc]

Starting to think the GLX is cursed: first the garage collapse and now the crash. :sigh:

Neither of these are GLX related

 

[stick n move]

Just noticed today that the full glx is now showing on the transit tab on apple maps for some reason, where it was only union sq before.

 

[stick n move]

My comment related to an infill station between College Ave and MVP. If they had placed a station either at Winthrop, or perhaps midway between College and Winthrop (maybe including a pedestrian bridge between Brookings St and Boston Ave) that would have been possible in a world without Medford’s rabid NIMBYs.

The good thing is that the hard part is done, or will be soon, and later on it will be much easier to add infill stations where appropriate. If Medford determines that they want a station at Winthrop st in the future then it shouldnt be too hard to do.

 

[cubbe8]

Just noticed today that the full glx is now showing on the transit tab on apple maps for some reason, where it was only union sq before.

It has been like that since union branch opened

 

[The EGE]

The DEIR considered separate College Ave and Winthrop Street stations, and a combined station between. The combined station scored higher, but community concerns (particularly access from north of the tracks) resulted in a single College Avenue station being chosen. There's some documentation in the DEIR:

Wayback Machine

Wayback Machine

At this point, a Winthrop Street station wouldn't be totally unreasonable (2000 feet from College Avenue, 2600 from MVP), but it would be at the lower limit of stop spacing. Given that it doesn't provide unique bus transfers, doesn't serve any commercial center, and doesn't have TOD opportunities, I see it having a hard time getting support. It would probably need to be committed to along with MVP, because any bridge modification would need to leave space for the station.

 

[BostonTrainGuy]

Is that the NB exit from Gov't Center where rails merge at the Lechmere return loop?

The train on the left is a B train so it must be westbound after making the GC loop. I think the track on the right is the westbound main from North Station and the track on the left foreground is the track into the eastbound (Lechmere) loop. Someone had to go through a double red for that to happen and that's not good.

 

[737900er]

The train on the left is a B train so it must be westbound after making the GC loop. I think the track on the right is the westbound main from North Station and the track on the left foreground is the track into the eastbound (Lechmere) loop. Someone had to go through a double red for that to happen and that's not good.

Yes, photographer is standing on the Brattle Loop track heading into Government Center.

 

[Jahvon09]

The Type 7's were rehabbed not too long ago, yet it seems like they are getting banged up fast! Boy! What a definite waste of money!!

 

[Brattle Loop]

The Type 7's were rehabbed not too long ago, yet it seems like they are getting banged up fast! Boy! What a definite waste of money!!

So...the T shouldn't spend money to make its trains as reliable as possible (given that it'll be a while before there are replacements for the T7s in any event, and it was even less clear how long they'd have to stay around when they started the rehab)...because some of them might get damaged when things that aren't supposed to happen...happen? I mean, yeah, if the T followed that logic there probably wouldn't be as many accidents, because the Green Line would have half the number of cars it does now. I wouldn't call that an improvement in service, though...