Green Line Reconfiguration

JeffDowntown said:
I still wonder if it would not be easier to make this a connection to outbound Green Line only, basically Seaport becomes an alternative destination to Park, North Station, Lechmere, and Boylston becomes an alternative Green Line transfer point.
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What do you mean by this? Outbound only?
 
I think he means - and this is what I assumed an Essex extension would be - through-routing only from Seaport to points west of Boylston.

The other option (which is shown extensively earlier in this very thread) is an extension from points North down from Boylston into the Tremont Street Tunnel, turn east along the Pike and into back north into the bus loop under the ramp spaghetti. That would't have a Back Bay through-routing connection, unless another segment - an E line extension - links up to it via a wye.

Transit sage F-Line always felt the latter was fundamentally better. I always had a feeling that it was way overcomplicated, and that Essex St should be explored much more thoroughly as an option. (Sometimes "OCD lines on a map" as he would call it actually might be the best!)
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
What do you mean by this? Outbound only?
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Shepard got my implication correct. A Seaport to Points West routing. No Seaport to Downtown without a transfer (But you get three transfer options South Station, Chinatown or Boylston).

I always felt that trying to merge into the Tremont tunnel for northern destinations was too complicated at Boylston for the Essex alignment.

And crazy as it may seem, you might be able to insert a TBM in via a hole cut in the center of Boylston Street -- right through the Green Line Tunnel. There has to be a large area of patched ceiling and floor in the wide tunnel there, because that was where the Arlington Street portal used to be. Go down through the portal area, and on through the floor of the tunnel, underneath to start the bore. (Locals there on Boylston are going to hate this though!).

Public Garden Portal on Boylston Street, shortly after the Tremont Tunnel opened.
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Oh ok cool. Yeah I was never a fan of the idea of taking Tremont to connect North and South Stations. Just because the tunnels are there doesn't mean you have to use them, they were abandoned for a reason. And who would ever take the subway in such a backwards way? The demand isn't between North and South stations but the Seaport and Back Bay. Any north-south demand would also be picked up by the new station connecting Boylston and Chinatown.
 
Rolling out of the lurking woodwork for a hot second here...

Van-- those track maps you teased on Twitter look fantastic-- I hope we can see the whole thing, and soon!

Tangentially related to that-- in your current iteration of the track map (v2.3), there are two spelling mistakes I'm aware of-- Route 128 station is incorrectly labeled "Westbrook/128"-- it should be "Westwood/128"; and "Brandeis/Roberts" is incorrectly labeled as "Brandies/Roberts" (as if there were several different types of brandy there, ha).

Apologies for the temporary off-topic diversion... back to the woodwork for me.
 
Love it, Van! Essex Street to me is the #1 transformative play to be made, all others are subsequent phases. I like how you articulated it as such.

Quick comment on a zinger: Newtown should be Newton
 
34f34f said:
consensus best ideas
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It's funny how things come full circle. If you look back earlier in the thread you'll see that between Davem and F-Line and other transit gurus, the consensus went towards the go-south-and-around-on-the-pike routing.

Essex Street should most definitely be studied. I understand there's a hell of a lot of unknown stuff under the street, and that it's narrow and challenging.

Wonder if there's a surface option, via two inclines/portals? Boylston is already very close to the surface.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Ok go nuts. http://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_i...line-from-harvard-and-needham-to-the-seaport/

Not sure if I'll release the PDF because it's not as cleaned up as I'd like.
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Van, Excellent work!

One thought about the new station between Boylston and Chinatown Stations, can you make it work on a single level (avoiding the stacked tunnels) if you stagger the eastbound and westbound platforms -- one closer to Boylston, other close to Chinatown, with a slight track jog mid-block, but with walkway connection still running along both sides of the tunnel)? Think Boylston station for a model.
 
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JeffDowntown said:
Van, Excellent work!

One thought about the new station between Boylston and Chinatown Stations, can you make it work on a single level (avoiding the stacked tunnels) if you stagger the eastbound and westbound platforms -- one closer to Boylston, other close to Chinatown, with a slight track jog mid-block, but with walkway connection still running along both sides of the tunnel)? Think Boylston station for a model.
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I hadn't considered that but that could work. The Silver Line Phase 3 plan was to have two stations which would be in similar locations so this kinda combines the two ideas.
 
Shepard said:
It's funny how things come full circle. If you look back earlier in the thread you'll see that between Davem and F-Line and other transit gurus, the consensus went towards the go-south-and-around-on-the-pike routing.
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I was looking at those again and as much as I appreciate the work I never agreed with it. It seemed needlessly complicated with the sole purpose of reusing all of the Tremont St tunnel. I'm all for reusing what we have but I don't see it as the end goal.

Wonder if there's a surface option, via two inclines/portals? Boylston is already very close to the surface.
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Why? That defeats the purpose of rapid transit. The connection would be slowed down much like the Silver Line is already. The whole point of a tunnel is to avoid surface obstacles.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
I was looking at those again and as much as I appreciate the work I never agreed with it. It seemed needlessly complicated with the sole purpose of reusing all of the Tremont St tunnel. I'm all for reusing what we have but I don't see it as the end goal.
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Your layout lines up with the official proposals by the old MTA and MBTA for the last 70 years. The Stuart Street tunnel and the connection of the D Line to the Riverside Branch were in the BRA Plan for Boston 1965-1975. I used to hear about the Stuart Street Tunnel proposal a lot in the early 60's. I think these two projects will eventually be built to relieve traffic in the Central Subway through Back Bay.
 
Yeah, I always though the Pleasant Street Portal would be best used to send a line back down to Dudley (and hopefully beyond) vs snake it over to the seaport - although if both end up happening (Essex to Seaport, Pleasant St. Portal to Dudley), then it would really turn the green line into something new/different.
 
If we were only going to run one train in each direction every 6 to 7.5 minutes through the Chinatown Green Line station under Essex, could we get away with making it a single track for both directions to make it a smaller station?

Is there any plausible turn from Pleasant St to Essex St with acceptably small impacts on nearby buildings that would allow a two track Essex St tunnel to carry SL4 equivalent trains between South Station and the Pleasant St Incline portal?

Could we build a portal that would allow some westbound trains departing WTC Station to proceed under the Congress St to I-93 on ramp roughly parallel to Congress St and then over that I-93 on ramp roughly parallel to E Service Road / S Boston Bypass Road, then follow S Boston Bypass Road to a new tunnel under W 2nd St to the Broadway Station former streetcar level, then proceed to Melnea Cass Blvd, Ruggles, and Huntington Ave? (That segment of S Boston Bypass Road seems to be largely without nearby abutters, but a lot of the excuse for maintaining it as a truck route seems to relate to air quality concerns that the Tesla Semi should be an even better solution for in a few years.)

Could we build a tunnel under Lincoln St from Essex St to Kneeland with a portal next to the Reggie Wong Memorial Park to carry buses toward the carpool tunnel under Fort Point Chanel and to carry the SL4 equivalent trains?
 
F branch not quite to Dudley

My current thinking is that if we want a train that roughly duplicates the SL5 bus, it should use the center lanes of Washington St from I-90 to Melnea Cass Blvd (including a stop in both directions just north of Melnea Cass Blvd), continue along Washington St to Eustis St, and follow Eustis St and some approximation of Renfrew St to Harrison Ave, and then run along the west edge of Harrison Ave (possibly taking some space from parking lots to do so) to a pair of platforms just to the north of Dudley St, where transfers to the route 15 bus would happen. (The platforms would be built across Zeigler St just west of Harrison Ave such that Zeigler St would no longer offer a connection between Harrison Ave and Warren St.)

South of Dudley St, the train would continue along Harrison to the Warren St median, with platforms just to the north of Walnut Ave for connections to 44 (and 28/23/19), and then the terminal would be just south of Dale St (another opportunity for 28/23/19 connections). To make the Dale St terminal work, the southbound lane(s) of Warren St would be moved over into what is now a parking lot, and perhaps we'd have an island platform just south of Dale St for the Green Line trains to turn around with bus lanes next to the tracks.

The Warren St center transit reservation from Harrison Ave to Dale St should be shared by the buses and Green Line trains.

Terminating the trains at Dale St would avoid the narrow segment of Warren St from Townsend St / Quincy St to Grove Hall, and the Harrison routing would probably avoid some crowded surface streets along the more obvious routing through the heart of the Dudley Sq area.

It might be desirable to move the traditional Dudley Station roof over to the Green Line platforms just north of Dudley St on the west side of Harrison.
 
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