Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[whighlander]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I recognize that just like 2017 in parenthesis would improve it in my mind

What it really shows is that the extortion practiced by the CLF should have been the subject of a Federal Grand Jury Investigation

The people in Montana, Hawaii, etc. -- they though they were paying for the Big Dig not phantom subway extensions

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

What it really shows is that the extortion practiced by the CLF should have been the subject of a Federal Grand Jury Investigation

The people in Montana, Hawaii, etc. -- they though they were paying for the Big Dig not phantom subway extensions

Care to substantiate that observation with something, whigh? Or are we just playing talk radio talking-points Johnny Appleseed around random threads again?

 

[Deetroyt]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I've noticed that the Fitchburg line has an at grade crossing at Park St. in between Union Square and Porter Square. Any idea how much of a problem this would be for a greenline extension to Porter Sq? Obviously traffic is stopped when a commuter rail train runs thru, but with the higher frequencies of rapid transit, would there need to be a bridge built over this street for green line to Porter to work?

 

[hockey92]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Is the green line even expected to connect with the red line at porter? I was under the impression they're planning on extending it to Union Sq. and end there

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I've noticed that the Fitchburg line has an at grade crossing at Park St. in between Union Square and Porter Square. Any idea how much of a problem this would be for a greenline extension to Porter Sq? Obviously traffic is stopped when a commuter rail train runs thru, but with the higher frequencies of rapid transit, would there need to be a bridge built over this street for green line to Porter to work?

You could eliminate the grade crossing, but I don't think you have to. Just signalize the crossing on top of having gates for the Commuter trains. Gates can stay up for the GL while car traffic has a red light. Same sort of thing would happen if the Urban Ring gets light-rail on the Grand Junction.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Is the green line even expected to connect with the red line at porter? I was under the impression they're planning on extending it to Union Sq. and end there

The GLX project only plans to Union, but it can, should, and probably will end up at Porter a decade after Union is done. STEP will undoubtedly advocate for it.

 

[Deetroyt]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

You could eliminate the grade crossing, but I don't think you have to. Just signalize the crossing on top of having gates for the Commuter trains. Gates can stay up for the GL while car traffic has a red light. Same sort of thing would happen if the Urban Ring gets light-rail on the Grand Junction.

Thanks! Good call, btw, makes more sense to just signalize it. For the record I do hope that Green eventually gets extended to Porter.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

You could eliminate the grade crossing, but I don't think you have to. Just signalize the crossing on top of having gates for the Commuter trains. Gates can stay up for the GL while car traffic has a red light. Same sort of thing would happen if the Urban Ring gets light-rail on the Grand Junction.

Park St. would probably get eliminated in an extension. It's in a little 'dip' in the road so wouldn't be a difficult one to bridge over if driveway access to the adjacent condos were squared, and train volumes would be extreme enough with trolleys and all manner of Fitchburg trains that it would seriously degrade level of service on Park. This falls in the category of get it over with. There's also more room for an intermediate stop behind Conway Park vs. at the grade crossing.

 

[choo]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Getting ahead of ourselves, but there would definitely need to be 1 perhaps 2 intermediate stops between union and porter. There is incredible residential density there and it would see high usage. Otherwise you are looking at a .5 walk up or down to a station in the middle there, particularly difficult considering the union station is on the front end of the square.

 

[bigeman312]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Getting ahead of ourselves, but there would definitely need to be 1 perhaps 2 intermediate stops between union and porter. There is incredible residential density there and it would see high usage. Otherwise you are looking at a .5 walk up or down to a station in the middle there, particularly difficult considering the union station is on the front end of the square.

Agreed. Wilson Square infill station.

 

[choo]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I think you could do Wilson Sq. (although more at Lowell street so your not too close to porter). Then one behind Conway Park/Rink and then one at the Market Basket. There's enough supporting density and uses to get all three going. You could do 2 and lower transit time and that would be fine.

This spacing would be equivalent to kenmore fenway longwood on the D (and that doesn't even include the C nearby), and the density is likely similar.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I think you could do Wilson Sq. (although more at Lowell street so your not too close to porter). Then one behind Conway Park/Rink and then one at the Market Basket. There's enough supporting density and uses to get all three going. You could do 2 and lower transit time and that would be fine.

This spacing would be equivalent to kenmore fenway longwood on the D (and that doesn't even include the C nearby), and the density is likely similar.

Doing anything between Conway Park and Union is going to be very difficult because of the solid wall of buildings abutting the ROW. I don't know how you could plunk a station beneath the Dane St. overpass or behind the Market Basket without it being exceedingly narrow. I very much doubt that's going to work.


Wilson Sq...yes, that ought to be doable if they took the car wash property and had a ped link to the Sacramento St. underpass for reaching Beacon St. and the Star Market. This is the potential end point for the air rights cover-over, so you could even set it up as a linear park the whole distance between Porter and Wilson spanning the stations.


Station spacing would have that Conway-Union gap, but the options are so very limited for doing any sort of acceptable station configuration there because of the abutting buildings. Some of those industrial parcels still very much active. You probably have to punt any ideas of a stop here off till later should a redevelopment of one of those abutting parcels offer up an opportunity for a later infill. I just can't see it ever working with the base build.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I don't think you need Wilson if you have a Conway stop. Wilson Square is less than a five minute walk from Porter. Wilson also doesn't get you that much more coverage that's not already well within walking range of either Conway, Porter or the Lowell Street stop on the Medford Hillside branch.

 

[Deetroyt]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

It seems to me that the bulk of the cost of GLX is designing and building the actual stations themselves. Was there ever any consideration of a private-public partnership, where private developers design and build the stations (with final gov't approval), and in exchange they are given the rights to develop above/around the stations? The developer could have been allowed to exceed zoning heights (within reason) to make up for the cost of the station build? I'm sure there would have been interest in this from private companies, as these types of infrastructure improvement generally lead to economic opportunities, and it could have greatly reduced the cost to the state.

I know in theory we'd love for the state to man up and commit financial resources to improving public transit, but in reality this might be the best way. Seems to have worked for Yawkey Way CR station.

So I'm curious, to those that know more about these things than me (ahem, F-line, Winston, Busses), was this ever considered? And if so, why didn't it happen? I'm sure questions like "how do you decide on which developer to choose" are raised, but processes similar to Air Rights development over the Pike could have been used.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

It seems to me that the bulk of the cost of GLX is designing and building the actual stations themselves. Was there ever any consideration of a private-public partnership, where private developers design and build the stations (with final gov't approval), and in exchange they are given the rights to develop above/around the stations? The developer could have been allowed to exceed zoning heights (within reason) to make up for the cost of the station build? I'm sure there would have been interest in this from private companies, as these types of infrastructure improvement generally lead to economic opportunities, and it could have greatly reduced the cost to the state.

I know in theory we'd love for the state to man up and commit financial resources to improving public transit, but in reality this might be the best way. Seems to have worked for Yawkey Way CR station.

So I'm curious, to those that know more about these things than me (ahem, F-line, Winston, Busses), was this ever considered? And if so, why didn't it happen? I'm sure questions like "how do you decide on which developer to choose" are raised, but processes similar to Air Rights development over the Pike could have been used.

It's tough to string together for a full extension because the highest areas of public-private interest are going to be at single points like Fenway Ctr. and the New Balance HQ.

The best bet for getting things done is simply roping in as many stakeholders and related redevelopment zones as possible. Taming McGrath Hwy., for instance, is a humongous driver for GLX utilization that kickstarts Brickbottom redevelopment, tying together East Somerville with Union, and opening up a new area of density along a boulevarded McGrath that could--if executed properly--become its own new Square centered around the Washington St. stop. That's saturation-level stakeholder investment that can move mountains on a project that has no single big-money private anchor with political clout.

For Porter bootstrapping the GLX extension onto the air rights studies for covering up the Fitchburg Line canyon increase the heft a lot for getting that done. Somerville Ave. is separated from Cambridge by that canyon, and bridging the gap not only fully integrates it with Porter-Harvard in a solid accessible density wall from Harvard to Davis but also integrates Lesley U. with its surroundings. It is probably critical that both projects get combined if they have any realistic chance of happening, but the more full-throated advocacy they can get from cities of Cambridge and Somerville, Lesley, every small business on the corridor, and even distant nods of approval from Harvard and town of Arlington for the downtown transit bypass and its coattails along the Mass Ave. corridor will help give it a bigger clout footprint for the state.


STEP knows this. And knows that existing GLX, the Community Path extension, the McGrath grounding, the Porter link, and the Porter air rights cover-over are all interrelated. If Phase I of the base build proceeds on-schedule and they can steer the state to an acceptable design for McGrath there is no doubt the GLX-Porter advocacy is going to be an all-out assault. Near decade's end they'll be ready to shift it into high gear. How soon it can feasibly happen is all dependent on state-level financial reform, but the local motives for where they're going to go with their advocacy are completely transparent. It will be an intense sales pitch ramping up within the next 5 years. And I would expect them to try to front load and get Porter + the air rights tacked on as an addendum to the Route 16 phase of GLX that's still unfunded and will surely lag into the early 2020's. Odds are long, but they'll take a home run cut at it since the 16 extension is the soonest opportunity to get their foot in the door. At minimum that home run cut will be their way of fighting to first in line for the next rapid transit expansion award after 16.

 

[Equilibria]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Odds are long, but they'll take a home run cut at it since the 16 extension is the soonest opportunity to get their foot in the door. At minimum that home run cut will be their way of fighting to first in line for the next rapid transit expansion award after 16.

Dunno, I think they have a better chance than Lynn/Salem, Reading or Lexington. The only realistic projects they'd be competing with would be DMU/EMU expansion or Blue/MGH. Any others you can think of that might by pushing by 2020?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Dunno, I think they have a better chance than Lynn/Salem, Reading or Lexington. The only realistic projects they'd be competing with would be DMU/EMU expansion or Blue/MGH. Any others you can think of that might by pushing by 2020?

No. But 16 is a cinch to slip a few more years, so the state may be in mea culpa mode for the delays after recently going to the trouble of making an official (unfunded/unscheduled) statement of commitment to it as mea culpa for the delays accrued to-date. I do not think the odds are good for a Porter addendum, but STEP will use it as an attack vector to get it on the front burner. Like I said, a home run cut.


Anything else at the non-DMU level is going to be advocacy-driven. They've already said they have no intention of building Red-Blue, so the only way to get that back on the table is for Mayor Walsh to blow a gasket and rile up MGH and other big money to go for some Beacon Hill scalps. Much like the BCEC is doing. Lynn is just too weak and disorganized given its remedial position as a recovering blighted city to mount a STEP-level campaign, so they are truly dependent on an unlikely sea change at the state level to have a prayer. And nothing else...not Reading, not Lexington, not anything...matters until the Blue projects are built so their ability to move at all is directly tied to Lynn's ability to move at all.

That doesn't leave anything with mojo except GLX-Porter. Which also has a very big radial circulation angle for saving Red's bacon to downtown with a load diversion and ability to take a contraflow transfer out of Harvard on an empty train to get to your downtown Green Line destination quickly and more comfortably. And by being much lower cost than Red-Blue or Seaport-Back Bay and bundleable into the air rights project and associated lucrative redevelopment on the Somerville Ave. corridor the only wildcard that's sort of unbound by position on the overall priority list. Anything else is almost pointless to talk about without the downtown radial circulation projects advancing...the system can't handle more suburban or outer neighborhood expansion with the Big 4 downtown transfer stops that overloaded.

 

[kjdonovan]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

A stop at Park Street could draw support from some Cambridge neighbors. It is a two minute walk from the Academy of Arts and Sciences, a seven minute walk from the edge of Harvard campus. On the flip side, Irving Street and adjacent streets are aggressively quiet and leafy. Encouraging more foot traffic through them may not sit well with some.

 

[belmont square]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Is the thinking on a Union to Porter Green Line extension that the 87 can't handle the demand along the Somerville Ave corridor? Or is that the current two seat 17 minute trip from Porter to Government Center would be better served by a one seat 17 minute ride?

 

[bigeman312]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Is the thinking on a Union to Porter Green Line extension that the 87 can't handle the demand along the Somerville Ave corridor? Or is that the current two seat 17 minute trip from Porter to Government Center would be better served by a one seat 17 minute ride?

Well, relieving pressure off of the extremely overburdened Government Center-Park Street stretch of the Green Line would be huge. While Red-Blue at Charles-MGH should relieve pressure off of GC or Blue Line trips between the northern Red Line, this "Porter extension" would relieve pressure from Haymarket, North Station or Lechmere trips between the northern Red Line. Once the GC-Park stretch of the Green Line is less overcrowded, it will be able to function more effectively and even handle the GLX better. Kind of counter-intuitive that extending the Green Line farther will help relieve over-crowding while serving more people, but that's how I see it. (As long as headways on the Red are improved, which they will be by then).