Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[Arlington]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

It's an El. Els aren't climate-controlled. And enclosures on the surface are goddamn expensive. And largely futile with the sun doing what the sun does and earth's axial tilt doing what it does from December to March and June to September. Nobody has that expectation with Science Park and Lechmere being outdoors since 1912. Not one rider is going to go there thinking "why the @#$% isn't there an enclosed waiting room?"

Platform enclosures should also be less important in the future given Green Line Countdown Clocks. Electronics before Concrete! (yay!)

On the worst days, I'm sure some people will hunker down in the headhouse until their D or E's countdown reads "ARR" (or its rumble is heard on the structure above) and then head upstairs.

{EDIT: Actually, given tracking technology, somebody (soon) is going to create an app that knows how fast you walk and tells you when best to leave your office so as to minimize wait time for your best route. Standing on the platform in the rain as the only way to know a train is coming is just silly, so building a fancy shelter is going to be less important}

Today, most routing apps use live information for, at best, the first leg. At some point, we'll have apps (like Waze, but for transit) that are looking at all segments of your trip and making smart guesses about connections. (Should connect to the 96 at Harvard, or Porter, or Davis? Or go Straight to Davis and get a 94?)



I do wish they'd have the roof-only shelters reach closer to the platform edge instead of soaring upward. They look more like snow scoops designed to catch snow and throw it on the tactile edge.

 

[Equilibria]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I said underwritten, not implemented. Pan Am isn't a developer, it's a landowner and rent-collector that committed to writing an $X check for the streetscaping bill. You want to critique the design, absolutely go take it to the state and the Northpoint developers who have the biggest seat at the table at what that design is.

But save your energy...you're responding to something I never said or implied.

When you said "so some of that ground-level extravagance is being underwritten" you weren't "saying or implying" that you considered the ground level extravagant? I apologize, my mistake.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I do wish they'd have the roof-only shelters reach closer to the platform edge instead of soaring upward. They look more like snow scoops designed to catch snow and throw it on the tactile edge.

There's a very practical reason for the set-back shelter roofs. Some of the work equipment that runs on all 4 lines on the overnights can't clear those overhangs. There's no way around it. You need the Green Line wire car with the inspection platform on top. You need those automated tie-changing machines that looks like some steampunk contraption. You need the rail grinder. It's the only way the system opens at 5:00am the next day.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

There's a very practical reason for the set-back shelter roofs. Some of the work equipment that runs on all 4 lines on the overnights can't clear those overhangs. There's no way around it. You need the Green Line wire car with the inspection platform on top. You need those automated tie-changing machines that looks like some steampunk contraption. You need the rail grinder. It's the only way the system opens at 5:00am the next day.

I understand the need to overhead clearance, but that doesn't preclude some level of wind screens, for example. An elevated platform, open on the sides, in New England, just seems brutally utilitarian. Even the Silver Line bus shelters on Washington Street (after the modifications!) are more protective than this design.

I assume that they will include at least a 1/2% slope for the floors so that this platform drains at least (unlike Assembly Station).

 

[elemenoh]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I understand the need to overhead clearance, but that doesn't preclude some level of wind screens, for example. An elevated platform, open on the sides, in New England, just seems brutally utilitarian. Even the Silver Line bus shelters on Washington Street (after the modifications!) are more protective than this design.

This is what I was thinking. I don't expect climate controlled platforms, but some kind of enclosure to block the wind/rain/snow seems reasonable to me. Science Park has walls, doesn't it?

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

 

[Scalziand]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Needs more green.

 

[Matthew]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Chicago gets by with some small shelters tucked into the walls of the platform, with heating elements, but otherwise open.

I think that if Chicago can get by without fully enclosed "L" platforms, we can manage.

 

[fattony]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Chicago gets by with some small shelters tucked into the walls of the platform, with heating elements, but otherwise open.

I think that if Chicago can get by without fully enclosed "L" platforms, we can manage.

The heating elements are a life saver!

 

[Jahvon09]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

In Washington, DC, all of the subway stations underground are air conditioned during the summer months!! Never knew that until the first time that I waited for the first subway train there!!

 

[jass]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Chicago gets by with some small shelters tucked into the walls of the platform, with heating elements, but otherwise open.

I think that if Chicago can get by without fully enclosed "L" platforms, we can manage.

Any every single commuter rail station in New Jersey has an enclosed and heated waiting room.

But yes, why not have a race to the bottom?

 

[paperless paul]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

There's a fair bit of enclosed space below where you can wait on both sides. And there's enclosed space at the platform level where you can wait (at the north head house and possibly a very little at the south). I am not sure whether they are heated/cooled.

The brand new and expensive Silverline stations in DC aren't enclosed either. As F-line pointed it, doing so would be silly expensive.

 

[Matthew]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Any every single commuter rail station in New Jersey has an enclosed and heated waiting room.

Not the NJTransit that I know. Maybe the major stations, e.g. Newark Penn, which does have waiting areas (Art Deco style and all).

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Those heated enclosures on the D line are nice.

 

[Tombstoner]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

+1. Yeah, I'm not sure the arguments "we've never had it before, why should we want it now?" or "other cities don't have it, why should we want it?" seem...odd. Of course everyone understands that some things will be prioritized over others (and no one is holding their breath for enclosed platforms), but it seems like a legitimate and desirable objective for a New English mass transit system that is expected to grow increasingly central to the economic vitality of the area.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

+1. Yeah, I'm not sure the arguments "we've never had it before, why should we want it now?" or "other cities don't have it, why should we want it?" seem...odd. Of course everyone understands that some things will be prioritized over others (and no one is holding their breath for enclosed platforms), but it seems like a legitimate and desirable objective for a New English mass transit system that is expected to grow increasingly central to the economic vitality of the area.

If you plan to get people out of their (nice warm enclosed) cars, you do not make them wait in the wind/rain/sleet/snow/freezing temperatures without some protection.

 

[Matthew]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

In these diagrams I see a covered headhouse where people can wait. That's more than just about every other branch Green Line station.

 

[Nexis4jersey]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Not the NJTransit that I know. Maybe the major stations, e.g. Newark Penn, which does have waiting areas (Art Deco style and all).

Most Stations do have Shelters although some are provided by the town and have odd hrs. We also have heated bus stops in certain middle and upper class towns. Newer stations have a heating room on the Inbound side.

 

[bolehboleh]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/re...act-medford/rZVlqRmyq4SIqlJvYp3GIJ/story.html

Will the green line extension have a positive impact on Medford?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/re...act-medford/rZVlqRmyq4SIqlJvYp3GIJ/story.html

Will the green line extension have a positive impact on Medford?

"Doctor" Bill Wood is a well-known crazy person, permanent distraction at all manner of Medford town meetings with his "Old Man Yells at Cloud" schtick, and local public access TV carwreck. He and his wife are are just about the most unpopular people in town. He sounds like he was on his meds for that op-ed, which is an improvement of his usual hysteria. But that's about the least-credible voice the Globe could've ever chosen for the con argument, and even people in Medford against GLX would throw that article in the trash on-spec.

Check out page 35 of this thread for a refresher on this crackpot: http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?t=1321&page=35. It's too bad the YouTube montage of "Medford's weirdest town meetings" has disappeared...it's like a greatest hits reel of Wood's most batshit rants.