Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Can't really get to a spot where a decent photo can be taken, but the first art panel at Gilman Sq. went up a couple days ago. The folks unimpressed by the tagging/graffiti "art" at Magoun will probably dig this more -- it's an image of the lion's head atop the old Homan Building on Medford St. (torn down to make this stop). The actual head was *supposed* to be installed somewhere at or near the station, but haven't seen that thing anywhere yet.
 
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There were some small waves of people coming in around 5.

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Regular Union Square riders - have the delays/slowdowns approaching the station been resolved? Is there still an at-grade stop as you approach the station?
 
Lrfox said:
Regular Union Square riders - have the delays/slowdowns approaching the station been resolved? Is there still an at-grade stop as you approach the station?
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Can't speak much for the Lechmere to Union leg, as I primarily get off at Lechmere. But as of yesterday, there has been no discernible improvement on the viaduct speed reduction. On both directions yesterday, the distinct slow-down on the viaduct continues.
 
chrisbrat said:
Can't really get to a spot where a decent photo can be taken, but the first art panel at Gilman Sq. went up a couple days ago. The folks unimpressed by the tagging/graffiti "art" at Magoun will probably dig this more -- it's an image of the lion's head atop the old Homan Building on Medford St. (torn down to make this stop). The actual head was *supposed* to be installed somewhere at or near the station, but haven't seen that thing anywhere yet.
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"No, I don't have any money to pay you. But I DO have a picture of money!"
 
Was on a 1 car from Union that turned back at Government Center. Was pretty funny how confused everybody was. I don’t think I’d ever seen a train that used that platform before.
 
Texasian said:
Was on a 1 car from Union that turned back at Government Center. Was pretty funny how confused everybody was. I don’t think I’d ever seen a train that used that platform before.
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Common reaction. In my experience they don't always do a very good job of explaining what's going on, and just dump people on entirely the wrong side of the station. They probably could also have done a better job with the signage when they renovated, as the elevators, stairs, and the cinderblock wall block a lot of the view towards the inbound/westbound platform from the Brattle Loop platform. It'd be less confusing overall if they ran that service pattern more often, because people would get more used to it, but right now it's just an inevitable carload of bewildered passengers.

As I understand it, the Brattle Loop platform can't quite fit two cars, so it's usually a single Type 8 running there.
 
Very happy to have this, but I must say it looks very narrow. Its going to be pretty hard to bike on this with pedestrian traffic and especially because the stations share their entrance/exitways with the path.

Hopefully at some point in the future if funds can be secured maybe there could be a way to widen it a bit. It does look like theres room. Of course thats if in practice it does end up causing some conflict between bikes and pedestrian traffic, it may not. Either way happy to have this and especially happy that this extension is completely grade separated-thats a huge plus.
 
stick n move said:
happy that this extension is completely grade separated-thats a huge plus.
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This section is not grade-separated though -- Central, Sycamore, School, and Medford will all be at-grade street crossings. Hopefully some sort of traffic calming will be implemented at these, but I'm not holding my breath (Medford St. crossing looks more or less finished, with no calming, and the "speed humps" they've installed on Central and Sycamore are laughable).
 
Yes, Lowell got the bigger, more effective humps. The ones on Central and Sycamore are fairly useless. With the speed that you gain coming down Central from Highland, there is an accident waiting to happen once the Path opens.
 
Camberville said:
Hopefully some sort of traffic calming will be implemented at these, but I'm not holding my breath (Medford St. crossing looks more or less finished, with no calming, and the "speed humps" they've installed on Central and Sycamore are laughable).
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Because all the crossings are all adjacent to bridges, raised crosswalks similar to Cedar are verboten.

The city has noticed that the Sycamore and Central humps are jokes. They have said that they will be redone.
 
Texasian said:
Was on a 1 car from Union that turned back at Government Center. Was pretty funny how confused everybody was. I don’t think I’d ever seen a train that used that platform before.
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That's really cool, I had no idea any revenue service trains were using the Brattle Loop.

stick n move said:
Very happy to have this, but I must say it looks very narrow. Its going to be pretty hard to bike on this with pedestrian traffic and especially because the stations share their entrance/exitways with the path.
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That was my first gut reaction, too. The yellow line is either super thick, or if not, the path is quite narrow. We knew that was the case, but this is the first time I've seen it with a understandable reference point. That said, it might be okay. I'll definitely be judicious about speed when riding there, but having ridden across the Brooklyn Bridge before it got the recent bike infra upgrade, I can say this path will never be as challenging as that. It's okay to ride 5-8 mph for sections of our journey. For most, that is still preferable to riding on the streets.
 
Camberville said:
This section is not grade-separated though -- Central, Sycamore, School, and Medford will all be at-grade street crossings. Hopefully some sort of traffic calming will be implemented at these, but I'm not holding my breath (Medford St. crossing looks more or less finished, with no calming, and the "speed humps" they've installed on Central and Sycamore are laughable).
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Sorry I can see how that could be confusing because I was talking about the ped path initially. The comment about grade separation was about the glx itself, and that the project overall is still a win overall even with minor flaws here n there, because one of the hardest things to change later is grade separation and its already done.
 
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