I agree there's still a way to make the track connection, which is at least something.
Sufficiently long exposure to the Crazy Transit Pitches thread makes me reach instinctively for the Mass GIS property map and the Google machine whenever something comes up involving a tantalizingly-open lot or ROW, to see what mines are lurking to turn a slam dunk into a boondoggle
You know, I'd heard of that GIS map for years but never actually looked at it until today. That's simultaneously a treasure trove and a month's worth of rabbit holes right there.
In any case, here's a sketch of what this might look like system-wise:
It guts me to let go of Seaport - South Station - Back Bay - Prudential - LMA - West Station - Harvard on one rapid transit service... and I suppose technically this plan wouldn't close the door to that at some point in the future. But this iteration does at least move us away from Crazy Transit Pitches, and in some ways is "back to basics" -- perhaps a more effective simplification of the Green Line Reconfiguration concept.
The design is relatively straightforward: hand the Fenway Branch over to the Gold Line, and run both the Harvard and Grand Junction branches into it. Simplify the Magenta, and have it pick up one of the Highland services at "half frequencies" (7.5 tph). Max out frequencies in both the Huntington and Boylston Subways with 30 tph each (22.5 of which stop at Brookline Village, meaning Gold transfers are quick and easy).
(The map nerd in me is tickled to have the H Line go to Harvard -- and that there's some reasonable alphabetical logic to it!)
I've also been tinkering with the BRT layers, and I'm intrigued by some of the possibilities, but I don't love the current state:
We know the southern half of the Urban Ring is going to have to be largely BRT, if for no other reason than the Ted Williams Tunnel. One of the things I've really been trying to more fully think out is what kind of possibilities open up with BRT that are
not available with LRT. Chief among those are
open BRT, where buses operate partially within BRT infrastructure before spreading out on conventional streets. Obviously this is the kind of thing that can be really effective, and can also be done really badly, so it's worth thinking through.
In general, I want the southern half of the Urban Ring to run from Longwood (and maybe Kenmore) to Ruggles & Nubian and then to the Seaport and then to the Airport -- that's the primary corridor, though obviously there are a number of branches that merit attention (e.g. JFK/UMass). Hence why in my previous map I drew a single line threading its way through all of these places, with overlapping short-turn services to improve reliability.
But the
discussion in the Bus/BRT thread reminded me that, Urban Ring or not, it's still going to make sense to run at least some of the Dorchester buses (eg the T22 and T28) into Longwood. This means, one, they will be contributing to Ruggles/Nubian-LMA services, and two, they will require capacity. Conceptualizing the southern Urban Ring as a partially open BRT system makes it easier to incorporate the additional routes that provide benefit to part of but not the entire corridor.
In theory.
In practice (insofar as making maps is "practice"), it gets a bit messier. What I've sketched out is supposed to be something like this:
- SL2, SL3, and SL4 are the "closed BRT network" that follow the primary corridor I mentioned above, and are intended to have separated lanes for their entire route
- Turning buses at Longwood Station is dicey, and may be a bridge too far -- a 5-min walking transfer to a turn location on the other side of the Muddy River may be the only actual option
- Having the Gold Line avoid Kenmore increases the pressure for a transfer at some place like Longwood
- SL1 begins at Kenmore, uses bus lanes on Brookline Ave and Longwood Ave before picking up the T22 route (and maybe the T28 -- I dunno how complicated the branding/wayfinding can afford to be), using the Columbus Ave and hopefully Blue Hill Ave bus lanes
- SL1 would also incorporate other Dorchester buses that extend to Kenmore, under the theory that multiple routes will add up to create a legible service along the corridor
- SL6 is the BRT corridor along Brookline Ave, which would incorporate today's 60 and 65 and maybe the T66, plus one or two buses that just ping back and forth along the corridor to keep reliability up
- This is one of the ideas I feel less confident about, but is a prime example of open BRT with feeder routes being used to create a legible corridor
- Rerouting the Fenway Branch away from Kenmore does reduce Kenmore-Longwood connectivity, so there's some need there
- If we're going to make Brookline Village a major transfer hub, Brookline Ave BRT would provide relief to the Huntington Subway by serving the western half of the LMA
- And Brookline Ave is wide enough for bus lanes, so I guess why not?
- SL5 is probably a terrible idea but is meant to be bidirectional bus lanes on Boylston (or paired one-way lanes on St James & Stuart, it doesn't really matter) that connect to lanes on Kneeland which connect to the Albany St - South Station lanes proposed upthread, in order to provide a two-seat journey for A, B, and C riders going to the Seaport
- Like SL6, it's a combination of feeder routes and a few dedicated vehicles. In this case, it's an extension of the T39 and the 55
- I really don't love this, but am playing around with whether it could be any better somehow
- Maybe this would be better if it leveraged the T9's bus lanes through the South End and then cut over to the Seaport from there? Ugh, I don't know -- at least doing that wouldn't require bespoke infrastructure for a service that duplicates a subway line a quarter-mile to the south
Anyway, yeah. The BRT stuff is very much a WIP. As is the first map, of course, though I feel like I've thought through those ideas better.
~~~
ALSO. Something to draw attention to, again from
@davem's map from 8 years ago (it's like they say, everything old is new again): an infill station at
Riverway Island (which based on Google results makes me suspect is a name generated by realtors). A station here would provide surprisingly improved access to the southern end of LMA, including Brigham & Women's, the Yawkey Center for Cancer Care, and the Beth Israel West Campus. Courtesy of
app.traveltime.com, you can compare the walksheds; while there is significant overlap, Longwood station itself barely reaches Children's in its 10-minute walkshed, which means that Riverway Island's additional access to Francis St is non-trivial: