Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

F-Line to Dudley said:
The Fitchburg Line used to be quad-track from BET to Belmont, so the width is there on the ROW. Porter Station would have to be in a duck-under tunnel from Beacon St. because the CR platform eats up the extra track berths. Not a massive production, as the tunnel roof would simply form the new Fitchburg trackbed. The only other place they're constrained is coming right out of Union, where the Eversource substation would have to have its equipment jacked up and moved about 20 ft. back (that's because the GLX tracks won't have completely returned on-alignment from the Union station turnout).
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I'd love to see "GLX to Porter" actually be "GLX to Watertown via Porter." Follow the Fitchburg line out to around Alewife, then use the old rail ROW that winds around the reservoir and makes its way to downtown Watertown. Not sure how you navigate getting all the way to the center of Watertown, maybe there's a way to have more street-running green trains (though of course avoiding that as much as possible is needed...but once the rail ROW hits Arsenal St I'm just not sure where you go without either being street running or using a tunnel. But joth arsenal and north beacon seem to have some extra width to them).
 
notthemonthaugust said:
I'd love to see "GLX to Porter" actually be "GLX to Watertown via Porter." Follow the Fitchburg line out to around Alewife, then use the old rail ROW that winds around the reservoir and makes its way to downtown Watertown. Not sure how you navigate getting all the way to the center of Watertown, maybe there's a way to have more street-running green trains (though of course avoiding that as much as possible is needed...but once the rail ROW hits Arsenal St I'm just not sure where you go without either being street running or using a tunnel. But joth arsenal and north beacon seem to have some extra width to them).
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Funny enough, I was just asking the same question in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread 4 minutes before you.
 
Arlington said:
Well, MVP was officially the only station put into "Green Extension Phase 2" and, as noted, they diverted the CMAQ funds from GLX2 to pay for the (expected) overruns in Phase 1 and then never programmed them back.
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I was a bit disappointed that the funding from the last federal infrastructure bill was not used to fund the GLX2 to MVP. The Environmental (NEPA) doc is approved and the 30% design dine, so it's shovel ready.
 
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Riverside said:
I’m generally in favor of PoP systems, but I can’t think that this will be popular. I wonder if we will actually see enforcement.
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Anyone know if there's been any enforcement on the Union Square branch?

If this is a stopgap because AFC 2.0 was supposed to be done by the time GLX opened (though believing Cubic's promises is...a choice), it's whatever. Would be unfortunate if this was a permanent kludge because of the faregates getting VE'd out by Baker & Company.
 
One time I wanted to go up to Lechmere and back just to see Medford test trains terminating there, so I got off a northbound D train, waited around a bit, and got a southbound E without exiting the platform. Technically this could be considered fare evading, because I got off at a station without gates and got on in the other direction, and there were T employees around, and none of them cared, despite me clearly not coming from/going to the mezzanine to get a receipt.

Back when the Union Sq branch first opened (don't call it just the "Union Branch" like that T video does...), I got a receipt at Union, rode to Lechmere, got off, looked around, including exiting the station mezzanine, so when I re-entered, the ambassadors told me to get a receipt before heading up (like they did to anyone entering either stop the first week or so of service), but upon showing my receipt from Union Sq, they said it was fine, the receipt was valid for 90 minutes, and let me go straight up. This was the only sort of enforcement I've ever seen on the GLX, and those ambassadors definitely aren't there anymore to make sure every goes to a fare machine before heading to the platform.
 
If I'm recalling correctly, I believe they were hiring fare validation position(s) a few weeks back.
 
Steve H said:
How long has it been "AFC 1.5" and how many hundreds of millions of dollars have they spent so far?
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No clue on the amounts. I suspect the "1.5" designation probably refers to the installation of new faregates and fare vending machines which can support AFC 2.0 (i.e. replacement of the hardware with the new models) but not the full rollout of the new system. To that point, have the updated CharlieCards been spotted in the wild yet? I know the new CharlieTickets are out (and no one bothered to tell Keolis that if you punch them in the wrong place, their idiotic faregates can't read them).
 
chrisbrat said:
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I drove over the School St. bridge twice last night. The green light at Highland is extraordinarily brief (2, maybe 3 cars can get through tops). Was the light perhaps abbreviated while the bridge was closed since School had so little traffic? At the risk of backing up Highland, it seems the green for School should be made maybe 10 seconds longer now.
 
Highland at School is detouring on Monday for sewer construction, so it’s going to be a mess anyway.
 
Charlie_mta said:
I was a bit disappointed that the funding from the last federal infrastructure bill was not used to fund the GLX2 to MVP. The Environmental (NEPA) doc is approved and the 30% design dine, so it's shovel ready.
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How long does the Environmental doc and 30% design stays valid before you have to do it again to start? Even we only talk about projects in terms of the MBTA doing 1-2 expansions at a time. But then that means GLX2 won't start until after 2030 because somehow Red-Blue will take +8 years (reasons why non-withstanding, it's just so many years so only a few thousand feet).

So unless Red-Blue is done faster or MBTA start paralleling projects, does GLX2 have to do that process again?
 
ant8904 said:
How long does the Environmental doc and 30% design stays valid before you have to do it again to start? Even we only talk about projects in terms of the MBTA doing 1-2 expansions at a time. But then that means GLX2 won't start until after 2030 because somehow Red-Blue will take +8 years (reasons why non-withstanding, it's just so many years so only a few thousand feet).

So unless Red-Blue is done faster or MBTA start paralleling projects, does GLX2 have to do that process again?
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An EIS is good for 3 years. After that time, a written reevaluation is needed for the project development to proceed.
 
This weekend, green line arrivals at Lechmere (heading toward Union) have included the in-train announcement: "Last chance to transfer to Medford/Tufts trains"

EDIT: caveat that this is a best-as-I-can-recall paraphrase of the announcement. My point was just to share the fact that this announcement is now turned-on as a milestone toward the Medford/Tufts branch getting ready to open.
 
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