Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

lainpimicaja said:
MBTA plans them and recommends them to the right of way owner, so either the municipality or the state agency that owns the roadway, for final approval.
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Does anyone know why the bus stops didn't get changed for Medford/Tufts? I took the 96 for fun(?) to get back to Ball Square and it makes no sense that they kept the old bus stops.
 
737900er said:
Just pulling the data for the day you cite (which was a Saturday), I'd argue that it's the Central Subway that's responsible for more of the problems on GLX than Huntington Ave signals/traffic.
The Huntington Ave line entering the Subway doesn't actually look that bad compared to the Highland Branch which should be the best performer.



When it gets out of the Subway it's way worse, as you show.


This is of course why GLR is so important :)
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I couldn't find any data on this, but anecdotally the B and C have very high dwell times on the Lechmere-bound track at Government Center. The operators have to get out of their seats and walk through the car to make sure everyone got off before they can take the loop. This is not a very rapid process and Union Square or Medford/Tufts trains frequently have to wait at the threshold of the station while the operators clear the train. Presumably it will be even worse with a Type 10 unless they're just going to use CCTV. Making this process faster and/or changing the B back to Park Street is probably some of the lowest-hanging fruit to generate reliability improvements on GLX, short of restoring 2-train berthing.
 
737900er said:
I couldn't find any data on this, but anecdotally the B and C have very high dwell times on the Lechmere-bound track at Government Center. The operators have to get out of their seats and walk through the car to make sure everyone got off before they can take the loop. This is not a very rapid process and Union Square or Medford/Tufts trains frequently have to wait at the threshold of the station while the operators clear the train. Presumably it will be even worse with a Type 10 unless they're just going to use CCTV. Making this process faster and/or changing the B back to Park Street is probably some of the lowest-hanging fruit to generate reliability improvements on GLX, short of restoring 2-train berthing.
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Aren't the platforms at North Station a lot longer? I feel like I recall having to walk quite a ways from the southside entrance at North Station a lengthy ways all the way to the front of the two set streetcar on the Lechmere bound track. I'm not sure but perhaps at North Station they may be able to hold two sets of streetcar pairs on the platform simutaneously. The "please stop here" sign for the first car also has a bit of a decent gap before the platform ends as well, so the first set of streetcars may be able to berth further towards the end of the platform to maybe make room for a second set of streetcars.

This also allows an Orange Line connection for Kenmore bound bus riders, so that the downtown transfers actually function as opposed to limiting Kenmore bus transferees to either a Red only or Red/Blue transfers, missing the Orange transfer.
 
Delvin4519 said:
Aren't the platforms at North Station a lot longer? I feel like I recall having to walk quite a ways from the southside entrance at North Station a lengthy ways all the way to the front of the two set streetcar on the Lechmere bound track. I'm not sure but perhaps at North Station they may be able to hold two sets of streetcar pairs on the platform simutaneously. The "please stop here" sign for the first car also has a bit of a decent gap before the platform ends as well, so the first set of streetcars may be able to berth further towards the end of the platform to maybe make room for a second set of streetcars.
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North Station's platforms are longer, but Government Center's absolutely can fit two two-car trains, they used to do it all the time. (I presume that went away after one of the Green Line's collisions.) Even when they had two trains stop simultaneously, it only helped when a Lechmere-bound train was in front of a train terminating at GC, because if it was the other way around, the in-service train inevitably still waited to stop in the usual berth. That'd probably still end up happening at North Station with dual-berthing there, and absent much better dispatching or building the crossover from Track 3 to Track 4 at Park Street there's no real way to reliably ensure the going-out-of-service trains are following the in-service ones on the platform.
 
737900er said:
changing the B back to Park Street is probably some of the lowest-hanging fruit to generate reliability improvements on GLX, short of restoring 2-train berthing.
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The B was extended from Park to Gov'y since without it, it breaks the color transfers from Blue Line bus transferees with Kenmore bus transferees. It's not as bad as the broken Kenmore bus transfers <---> OL northside bus transfers since Kenmore still had 2 branches feeding into Government Center as opposed to single branch headways to get to North Station. Blue Line bus transferees had already limited connectively with no Red (already talked about massively with Red-Blue) and somewhat limited connectivity with Kenmore bus connections with only 2/3rds of Green. It's literally the same problem as the NSRL link, so it requires rail service to at least get to the opposite side of downtown's rail terminal to cover the demand shortfall.

This article from 2021 about the extension of the B from Park to Govy.

www.boston.com

A 'subtle' but permanent change is coming to the Green Line this weekend

The MBTA is switching up several Green Line branches' downtown northern terminuses this Sunday, as Green Line Extension testing begins.
www.boston.com

Officials hope that lengthening the B Line will provide better connectivity to the Blue Line and a better distribution of service through downtown Boston.
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I don't expect much different in terms of fare collection on the GLX, but also it seems the communication on the fares for inbound GLX is just a lost cause. The language and process of fares on GLX is just kind of silly at this point, with this awkward and vague feel to it.

My guess is most people don't bother and/or also read this very polite sign and keep walking.
 

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AndrewOnTheMBTA said:
I don't expect much different in terms of fare collection on the GLX, but also it seems the communication on the fares for inbound GLX is just a lost cause. The language and process of fares on GLX is just kind of silly at this point, with this awkward and vague feel to it.

My guess is most people don't bother and/or also read this very polite sign and keep walking.
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Sadly and ironically I've actually begun paying *less* frequently since the recent AFC2.0 rollout. That's because I ditched the Charlie Card in favor of my credit card, but the fare "validation" machines on the GLX don't take just credit. I would pay with my credit card using the new readers on the train, but it's awkward and a little embarassing to push around people at rush hour just to pay when nobody else is doing it.

If they don't eventually show some fare enforcement, they should just make the whole GLX inbound free 🙃
 
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kdmc said:
Sadly and ironically I've actually begun paying *less* frequently since the recent AFC2.0 rollout. That's because I ditched the Charlie Card in favor of my credit card, but the fare "validation" machines on the GLX don't take just credit. I would pay with my credit card using the new readers on the train, but it's awkward and a little embarassing to push around people at rush hour just to pay when nobody else is doing it.

If they don't eventually show some fare enforcement, they should just make the whole thing GLX inbound free 🙃
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Agreed 100%, before they occasionally had someone staffed at one of the Gilman entrances (and maybe at other stations, not sure) asking people to pay which definitely increased the percentage of people validating, but now they can’t do that anymore since there are now two separate and independent locations to pay/validate - there’s now no way they can enforce fares on GLX until Charlie cards work on the door readers at this point.
 
AndrewOnTheMBTA said:
I don't expect much different in terms of fare collection on the GLX, but also it seems the communication on the fares for inbound GLX is just a lost cause. The language and process of fares on GLX is just kind of silly at this point, with this awkward and vague feel to it.

My guess is most people don't bother and/or also read this very polite sign and keep walking.
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Why do people still need to validate on the platform if they can tap on board at all doors now? I, for one, was wondering why those signs are still there.
 
Does anyone have a rough estimate (i.e. order of magnitude) for how much implementing fare gates could cost? I remember seeing figures somewhere it would be something ~$1B to modify the stations, but curious if anyone has any newer insights.
 
sean99090900 said:
Does anyone have a rough estimate (i.e. order of magnitude) for how much implementing fare gates could cost? I remember seeing figures somewhere it would be something ~$1B to modify the stations, but curious if anyone has any newer insights.
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Someone please explain to me how it could be even remotely that expensive. At nearly all of the stations, the "vestibule" at the top of the stairs is plenty wide enough for a row of gates. East Somerville might be tricky, but the entrance is at ground level so it's easy to fix. Might have to move the bike cage over a bit.
 
ceo said:
Someone please explain to me how it could be even remotely that expensive. At nearly all of the stations, the "vestibule" at the top of the stairs is plenty wide enough for a row of gates. East Somerville might be tricky, but the entrance is at ground level so it's easy to fix. Might have to move the bike cage over a bit.
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The entire extension cost 3 billion so how can just fare gates cost 1 billion?
 
ceo said:
Someone please explain to me how it could be even remotely that expensive. At nearly all of the stations, the "vestibule" at the top of the stairs is plenty wide enough for a row of gates. East Somerville might be tricky, but the entrance is at ground level so it's easy to fix. Might have to move the bike cage over a bit.
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Medford/Tufts is easy, one entrance through an enclosed area. Gilman Sq is the same but with two entrances. I think Magoun Sq would also be fairly easy except for the pathway that leads into the other side of the station, I don't know if that's an actual entrance or just a fenced off maintenance area or what.

I think Union Sq would be doable but it has a much wider area at the front of the station so it would likely be more expensive and require some additional fencing of some kind. Ball Sq might be possible but it also seems like just walking around the barriers would be pretty easy no matter how you set them up unless you build a bunch of new fencing. East Somerville, I have no idea how you'd get barriers that aren't so walk-aroundable freestanding fare readers without gates isn't an significantly better proposition.
 
cubbe8 said:
The entire extension cost 3 billion so how can just fare gates cost 1 billion?
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See that's what I want to know, allegedly getting rid of the gates in the original designed allowed for simpler station and contributed a large amount to the $3B -> $2B value engineering towards the end of the design process.

My intuition would have been that fare gates are much cheaper than that which is why I asked lmao
 
Or, hear me out: Hire 10 fare inspectors, 5 for the GLX and 5 for the western surface branches. Loudly ticket fare evaders. The threat of public confrontation would be enough to get 97% of people to pay. At $100k/yr each it would take a thousand years for them to cost as much as a $1B fare gate installation project.
 
It sucks that the old Lechmere had fare gates but the new one doesn't. I get they cut the fare gates from all of the GLX stations to save money but it would have been nice to at least have them at Lechmere.
 
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