Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

tocoto said:
Interesting that anyone celebrates the Green line for any reason. Not that my opinion matters much, but it is one of the most crowded, dirty, slow and poorly operated subway lines I have ever been on anywhere in the world, and that is really saying something. It is a true disgrace.
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Slow, yes.

Poorly-operated...no, not in the sense that they're stuck with 19th century technology. It's run about as well as it can for 100% human dispatchers and surface schedules held hostage by un-timed traffic lights.

Crowded...don't go to New York much, do you? How about Tokyo?

Dirty...now you're just trolling.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

tocoto said:
Interesting that anyone celebrates the Green line for any reason. Not that my opinion matters much, but it is one of the most crowded, dirty, slow and poorly operated subway lines I have ever been on anywhere in the world, and that is really saying something. It is a true disgrace.
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OK, all light rail shows its age, and the Green Line, as the most aged this side of Budapest, shows it most. As light rail goes, it ain't shiny like Dallas, Charlotte, Baltimore or Norfolk, but they don't have subways. I'd say it compares favorably to similar age subway-surface systems like Pittsburgh, Philly, SF's Muni, and Cleveland's Green/Blue lines, or even (in my experience) Cologne's U-Bahn.

Better still, if you live in Somerville, and don't have any at all, and are going to get the shiny, new, 3-car, Type-9, full-station version of it that, at the end, gets you to Park Street in 20 minutes, man...that's worth celebrating.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Pittsburgh's subway is only about 30 years old. (A small section of one early 19th century tunnel is reused for a tiny bit of the system, and the Mt Washington tunnel is from 1902, but that's it). It's slow underground because it follows the street grid, but must move diagonally, hence frequent and sharp turns are necessary. The streetcar tracks it uses on the surface are older.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

F-Line to Dudley said:
Slow, yes.

Poorly-operated...no, not in the sense that they're stuck with 19th century technology. It's run about as well as it can for 100% human dispatchers and surface schedules held hostage by un-timed traffic lights.
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No, it's poorly operated precisely because the MBTA has failed to modernize the Green Line signaling and allowed their trains to be held hostage by un-timed traffic lights. You don't get a free pass because your legacy systems are showing their age.

Say, whatever became of all the talk to get CBTC on the Green Line? Weren't we supposed to be very bullish on that before an unfunded mandate for it came down the pipe in the wake of a bad accident? Real-time next train countdowns are slowly being rolled out system-wide - the absence of Green Line timers is going to become more obvious and much more painful, very soon now.

And the impending 'phase 1' extension over to Union Square is going to also fix the Lechmere curve... but, oops, nothing about the Boylston curve! Too bad, we might have been able to save on the cost of the next round of new Green Line stock if only we could have had less-customized equipment.

And, gosh, speaking of Boylston - we're going to pour all this money into these new GLX stations! Surely some of that money could have been used on making the last four stations that need it ADA accessible. Oh, we're not talking about that? Maybe if we ignore it long enough, the problem will go away? I don't think so.

Yes, we can celebrate that GLX is finally off the ground and ready to open for business... in 2019. That doesn't mean the current state of the Green Line is at all worth celebrating.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

You're confusing "operated" with "managed." F-line rightly points out that it's operated fine, from the dispatchers and drivers doing their best. Management has not invested as they should though. Your entire post was bitching about management. So, you know. That's not operations.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Don't know if there is a community path thread or not, but since it is so closely linked to the GLX I'll post here.

MassDOT meeting last night on community path at 30% design. Big takeaway from my perspective: Designers HDR Gilbane say that the only part of the path within the scope of their work was from its upcoming terminus at Maxwell's Green to just past Washington Street at the Somerville/Cambridge line, where some nasty track spaghetti prevents affordable crossings to North Point.

The thing is, the only part of the GLX that is fully-funded alongside the path is the stretch between Washington Street and North Point. If the path isn't designed to cross the tracks along with the Green Line, that means the only part of the path assured to be built is a piece that goes from nowhere to nowhere.

Strong reaction from the crowd was that it is silly to invest more money into designing a path that can only be built once the other GLX stations get Fed funding. Better to invest it into designing a connection between Washington St and North Point, where trains actually will be running in 5-6 years.

MassDOT rep said she would bring the idea back to the powers-that-be. This is where I hold my breath in anticipation.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

kjdonovan said:
The thing is, the only part of the GLX that is fully-funded alongside the path is the stretch between Washington Street and North Point.
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So, does that mean the MBTA will build this leg of the GLX to Union Square as Phase 1, and defer to a later Phase 2 the branch to Medford and the proposed LRV maintenance/storage yard?
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

kjdonovan said:
MassDOT meeting last night on community path at 30% design. Big takeaway from my perspective: Designers HDR Gilbane say that the only part of the path within the scope of their work was from its upcoming terminus at Maxwell's Green to just past Washington Street at the Somerville/Cambridge line, where some nasty track spaghetti prevents affordable crossings to North Point.

The thing is, the only part of the GLX that is fully-funded alongside the path is the stretch between Washington Street and North Point. If the path isn't designed to cross the tracks along with the Green Line, that means the only part of the path assured to be built is a piece that goes from nowhere to nowhere.
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This might answer your question:

http://www.wickedlocal.com/somervil...-Belt-bridge-for-Community-Path#axzz2EmnKW5Uz
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

F-Line to Dudley said:
Slow, yes.

Poorly-operated...no, not in the sense that they're stuck with 19th century technology. It's run about as well as it can for 100% human dispatchers and surface schedules held hostage by un-timed traffic lights.

Crowded...don't go to New York much, do you? How about Tokyo?

Dirty...now you're just trolling.
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No offense but I have been to Tokyo and the subways and elevated lines blow the green line out of the water. The Japanese wouldn't be able to stomach such a wreck in their city.

I lived in NYC a couple of times. The subways may be dirty and crowded but they generally are fast, much faster than the Green line, and it is uncommon not to be able to get on a train because it is too full. that happens to me frequently when I travel the Green line, especially if I have a suitcase.

BTW - I am probably older and have far more national and international travel experience that most.

I don't troll.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

tocoto said:
I don't troll.
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You're already walking back on the "most crowded" and "dirty" parts, so your original post was never intended as an honest or productive contribution to the discussion.

Call it whatever you want, it walks/talks like a thread derail. :rolleyes:
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

F-Line to Dudley said:
You're already walking back on the "most crowded" and "dirty" parts, so your original post was never intended as an honest or productive contribution to the discussion.

Call it whatever you want, it walks/talks like a thread derail. :rolleyes:
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My point is the Green line really needs very major improvements. By looking only at the benefits of expansion, the media and politicians overlook the abominable state of the line and its service.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

In my opinion, I think you might be exaggerating the current state of the Green Line. While it's not perfect, it certainly is not that bad. I ride it 5 days a week to/from work and it serves me well for the most part. Sure there may be days where things don't run that smoothly, but by and large, the line runs pretty well in my experience.

Are all of the stations modern? Nope. Does that matter? To me, no. As long as a station is well lit, doesn't have trash and/or graffiti all over the place and it has good signage it's fine in my book.

You also need to remember that you have 4 branches feeding into one central line. The Green Line is no different than other transit systems that have a similar setup, San Francisco being an example. So that will obviously lead to some bunching and slow moving through the shared central stations.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

PaulC said:
This might answer your question:

http://www.wickedlocal.com/somervil...-Belt-bridge-for-Community-Path#axzz2EmnKW5Uz
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I did see that. The car-accessible bridge discussed in the article strikes me as a little dodgy. Such a bridge would only be built after 1) Inner Belt has been re-imagined as a neighborhood; 2) utilities and roads are reworked, current tenants booted and their buildings demolished (including MS Walker, maker of coffee-flavored brandy, the champagne of Maine); 3) New Assembly Row/North Point-style neighborhood conceived and created and funded by outside parties that do not fail or get bogged down in pesky recessions; 4) State, local and Fed funds come together alongside some developer stimulus to fund a bridge that goes into one of the most vociferous NIMBY cities in the world, which incidentally is a city that does not want said bridge to ever be built and will not rest until the idea is dead and buried.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Wanna get depressed?

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/co...ovement-day-24-new-tram-stations-paris/4169/#

following the link further:
The 14.3 km extension of orbital tram route T3 following the Boulevards des Maréchaux ring road around the eastern side of Paris was opened for revenue service on December 15. This trebles the length of T3, which has been running for 7.9 km across the south of Paris from Pont du Garigliano to Porte d’Ivry since 2006, and adds 24 stops.

Cost of the civil works is put at €651.9m
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Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Paris is just mocking us now.

On the other hand, LRT is to Europe is what BRT is here. You rarely hear about heavy rail extensions there anymore. Or if you do, they're also taking forever.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Arlington said:
It was a classic, flawless, airtight bit of NIMBY reasoning:

Outsiders look like nobody I know. I don't ride the Green Line. None of my friends ride the Green Line. Nobody I know rides the Green Line, ergo, anyone riding the Green Line is someone I don't know, and who is not my friend.
​
I had to admit, there is no refuting that, and I sympathized in a way. Also there was this quote:
This is Medford. When we need to go somewhere, we drive.​

But from there, things got psychedelic:

Green Line riders were going to be so poor they were going to steal all "our" stuff, but so rich they would want to replace the hair and nail salons with Starbucks. Home prices would go up so much "our" children can't afford to live here, and go down so much that "our" life savings will be wiped out.

The Green Line is so high-voltage that it will surely electrocute people, but others noted that idling MBTA vehicles always fill neighborhoods with fumes. Vehicles are so quiet, that they hit people who didn't see them coming, and so noisy that you can't sleep at night.

It will be so empty nobody will use it and will be a waste of money, and so full that there won't be any place to park.
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After all, look at that sprawling slum that Newton has turned into! Those shabby run down mult-million dollar mansions and historic homes... Poor Waban is only the 3rd most expensive zip code in the state. And blighted Chestnut Hill, they're only the 6th.

Oh wait, its all uniform and corporate. Look at the slew of Starbucks! Two whole coffee shops along the D line! Two more if you're willing to walk across Route 9 or I-95!

If those Newtonites knew then what they know now...
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Brookline too! What a hell hole!
 
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