Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

My comment related to an infill station between College Ave and MVP. If they had placed a station either at Winthrop, or perhaps midway between College and Winthrop (maybe including a pedestrian bridge between Brookings St and Boston Ave) that would have been possible in a world without Medford’s rabid NIMBYs.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Today the old pedestrian tunnel is meeting its fate (5/27):
View attachment 24771

Interestingly (and pardon my limited zoom capability), the mode of demolition was for a large metal wrecking ball to be repeatedly lifted up and dropped onto the roof of the tunnel. Each time this happened, the ground shook with such reverberation that I could feel the new Lechmere platform vibrate. Here's an action shot:
View attachment 24772
Click to expand...

I can’t quite tell what’s going on in that pic -are they just dropping a steel ball on top of the tunnel??
 
It's an important contextual piece to remind some of you who may not have been tuned in when station placement was an ongoing conversation, but Medford Hillside residents are the ones (not universally) who helped shoot down a Winthrop Street station (with the support of MassDOT) in favor of the Route 16 terminus. College Ave, Winthrop, and MVP were all stations under consideration. I'd be interested to understand how that public petition would have played out with a reassignment of the 96 back to its original routing.

One thing that the lack of a station helps with is the speed (reliability/usefullness) of the extension over distance. I know F-Line has commented some pages back on the average distance between stations and that having both MVP and Winthrop was just too close of a distribution and having no Winthrop was just too far. A future extension to Winchester will benefit from the stop spacing as is planned.

For my money, I would keep the new 96 due to its increased overall usefullness and reroute the 94 over the George St. via Winthrop, coming back to the normal route via College Ave but that's for the bus thread.
 
Yup. It's the standard problem with siting the terminus of a transit line, everyone's afraid people are going to drive in from the suburbs and park all over their neighborhood. With the College Ave location, that's Tufts's problem for the most part. Same reason they hated the West Medford terminus.
 
D2147A5D-722E-4330-9C2C-252ACF8A6517.png
Damn we have another train crash…..
 
The GLX is indeed displacing many people. At least some of them are getting paid. Nissenbaum family’s 4 acre property adjacent to Union Sq station at Boyton Yards reportedly sold for $150M. Wow.

www.bostonglobe.com

Junkyard turns to gold in Somerville development boom - The Boston Globe

The family name still adorns the business Jacob Nissenbaum started over a century ago. But this unvarnished slice of Somerville near Union Square is about to vanish as the area is transformed by the Green Line Extension and a boom in biotech development.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
 
Starting to think the GLX is cursed: first the garage collapse and now the crash. :sigh:
 
Just noticed today that the full glx is now showing on the transit tab on apple maps for some reason, where it was only union sq before.
 
RandomWalk said:
My comment related to an infill station between College Ave and MVP. If they had placed a station either at Winthrop, or perhaps midway between College and Winthrop (maybe including a pedestrian bridge between Brookings St and Boston Ave) that would have been possible in a world without Medford’s rabid NIMBYs.
Click to expand...

The good thing is that the hard part is done, or will be soon, and later on it will be much easier to add infill stations where appropriate. If Medford determines that they want a station at Winthrop st in the future then it shouldnt be too hard to do.
 
The DEIR considered separate College Ave and Winthrop Street stations, and a combined station between. The combined station scored higher, but community concerns (particularly access from north of the tracks) resulted in a single College Avenue station being chosen. There's some documentation in the DEIR:


At this point, a Winthrop Street station wouldn't be totally unreasonable (2000 feet from College Avenue, 2600 from MVP), but it would be at the lower limit of stop spacing. Given that it doesn't provide unique bus transfers, doesn't serve any commercial center, and doesn't have TOD opportunities, I see it having a hard time getting support. It would probably need to be committed to along with MVP, because any bridge modification would need to leave space for the station.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Is that the NB exit from Gov't Center where rails merge at the Lechmere return loop?
Click to expand...
The train on the left is a B train so it must be westbound after making the GC loop. I think the track on the right is the westbound main from North Station and the track on the left foreground is the track into the eastbound (Lechmere) loop. Someone had to go through a double red for that to happen and that's not good.
 
BostonTrainGuy said:
The train on the left is a B train so it must be westbound after making the GC loop. I think the track on the right is the westbound main from North Station and the track on the left foreground is the track into the eastbound (Lechmere) loop. Someone had to go through a double red for that to happen and that's not good.
Click to expand...
Yes, photographer is standing on the Brattle Loop track heading into Government Center.
 
The Type 7's were rehabbed not too long ago, yet it seems like they are getting banged up fast! Boy! What a definite waste of money!! :eek:
 
Jahvon09 said:
The Type 7's were rehabbed not too long ago, yet it seems like they are getting banged up fast! Boy! What a definite waste of money!! :eek:
Click to expand...

So...the T shouldn't spend money to make its trains as reliable as possible (given that it'll be a while before there are replacements for the T7s in any event, and it was even less clear how long they'd have to stay around when they started the rehab)...because some of them might get damaged when things that aren't supposed to happen...happen? I mean, yeah, if the T followed that logic there probably wouldn't be as many accidents, because the Green Line would have half the number of cars it does now. I wouldn't call that an improvement in service, though...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top