Green Line Reconfiguration

[Teban54]

I mainly just think that if we have to wait on the Back Bay/Huntington Subway to do anything else with the Green Line we're going to be waiting a long time. I agree that the subway is critical, I just don't think has any remote chance of being built in the foreseeable future, unlike some of the other projects I mentioned. The only way I sort of see it working politically is if it's touted as a "whole new" LRT system in one package (e.g. Needham+Nubian+Subway) but that's extremely expensive.

While I ultimately agree that we won't see the Back Bay-Pleasant St subway built anytime soon, I'm a bit more optimistic about it in the future.

True, there's no political momentum for this particular project, but there is a lot of momentum for Nubian* and Needham, and some for Watertown/Oak Square. Needham in particular would really motivate the need of moving the E to Pleasant St: most people supporting it probably don't even know about the Central Subway's capacity constraints, but once Cleveland Circle, Riverside and/or Needham start experiencing 12-15 min headways (that easily stretch to 30-min in practice) and/or their trains being turned back at Kenmore for a forced transfer**, the capacity problem will become crystal clear and people will have to look into ways to increase capacity. So even if the Back Bay subway doesn't get built at the same time as Needham, it will probably follow soon enough.

Even for Seaport, there's a general consensus that the Transitway should be converted to LRT and tied to the Green Line, just that there's no consensus how. While connecting it to the Huntington subway may not be intuitive (as opposed to a Park-Seaport wraparound), it's ultimately a better route, that will hopefully become more visible once the Back Bay subway is built.

I'm also not sure if a package with Needham, Nubian and the "minimum" build of BBY-Pleasant subway is too expensive. One of the reasons for the popularity of a Needham branch is its low cost and high rate of returns; I'd imagine a Nubian branch won't be super expensive either (it's not on the radar today probably because of political and racial issues, as well as lower priority than stuff like GLX and Red-Blue). Most of the cost will amount to 0.7 miles of subway, which doesn't sound terrible.


* Not to mention Nubian will require huge capacity that makes me think a single branch with 6-7 min headways may not be enough.
** Cutting off OSRs from Cleveland Circle and/or Riverside is likely politically infeasible in the 21st century, even if it might make sense to do so from an operational perspective. Also, the optics of removing OSRs from Riverside may cause more people to drive instead of doing the P&R with transfer. Meanwhile, existing Needham Line residents have opposed :15 regional rail with a forced transfer at Forest Hills, so having their replacement be a forced transfer at Kenmore also doesn't sound good.

 

[Riverside]

Wait, hold on, this should've been obvious:

"The Gold Line: a 21st century subway for a 21st century Boston, connecting the Seaport, South Station, Back Bay, and Longwood"

Spoiler: gory details

The existing B and C Lines, along with a surface-running F Line to Nubian, retain the Green Line branding. A Grand Junction line can get a different, less flashy color -- e.g. Magenta -- or could just be the "Circle Line" without a color name. The "Gold" branding gets reserved for the flagship piece of the puzzle -- the "heavy metro" service that I've been calling the "Green Line", consisting of:

• Huntington Subway
• Back Bay <> South Station Subway
• Piers Transitway
• Bay Village <> Lechmere
• branches to Medford, Union/beyond, Riverside, Needham, and Heath/beyond (and maybe a future subway to Nubian, although I would leave that out of the initial "branding")

It's simple, "shiny", includes all of the vital-but-unsexy pieces, and immediately conveys the greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts transformative effect of those pieces.

 

[Teban54]

Wait, hold on, this should've been obvious:

"The Gold Line: a 21st century subway for a 21st century Boston, connecting the Seaport, South Station, Back Bay, and Longwood"

Spoiler: gory details

The existing B and C Lines, along with a surface-running F Line to Nubian, retain the Green Line branding. A Grand Junction line can get a different, less flashy color -- e.g. Magenta -- or could just be the "Circle Line" without a color name. The "Gold" branding gets reserved for the flagship piece of the puzzle -- the "heavy metro" service that I've been calling the "Green Line", consisting of:

• Huntington Subway
• Back Bay <> South Station Subway
• Piers Transitway
• Bay Village <> Lechmere
• branches to Medford, Union/beyond, Riverside, Needham, and Heath/beyond (and maybe a future subway to Nubian, although I would leave that out of the initial "branding")

It's simple, "shiny", includes all of the vital-but-unsexy pieces, and immediately conveys the greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts transformative effect of those pieces.

I've actually been considering giving the Nubian branch(es) a third color that's different from your "Green" (Kenmore) and your "Gold" (Huntington). This resolves some of the issues with Green and Nubian having different platforms at Park and Boylston, while also preventing Gold from becoming too complex.

My pick was Brown, but that may result in racial implications. So I'd perhaps make the Nubian branches Magenta and use Brown for something like Grand Junction instead.

 

[TheRatmeister]

I've actually been considering giving the Nubian branch(es) a third color that's different from your "Green" (Kenmore) and your "Gold" (Huntington). This resolves some of the issues with Green and Nubian having different platforms at Park and Boylston, while also preventing Gold from becoming too complex.

My pick was Brown, but that may result in racial implications. So I'd perhaps make the Nubian branches Magenta and use Brown for something like Grand Junction instead.

Maybe just keep it Silver? The other option is to go back to the roots of the GL and use numbers for the routes, just like the streetcars.

 

[737900er]

Don't have time to respond to some of the other posts right now, but I wish there was an easy way to call the northside UR the "Rainbow Line" as a nod to the former multi-colored candy factories the line runs by. Too confusing in practice though.

 

[Teban54]

Maybe just keep it Silver? The other option is to go back to the roots of the GL and use numbers for the routes, just like the streetcars.

It appears that Silver will be used as a generic branding of any BRT routes, as seen from the proposed SL6 that goes from Everett to Kendall and has nothing to do with Nubian. Then there's also the concern that at least some form of SL1/2/3 will likely remain even after LRT conversion of the Transitway.

 

[TheRatmeister]

It appears that Silver will be used as a generic branding of any BRT routes, as seen from the proposed SL6 that goes from Everett to Kendall and has nothing to do with Nubian. Then there's also the concern that at least some form of SL1/2/3 will likely remain even after LRT conversion of the Transitway.

I'm generally of the opinion that SL1/2 should be replaced with surface routes along Summer St even without an LRT conversion, but you're right that SL3 probably will keep using the transitway along with SLW/LRT.

 

[Teban54]

I'm generally of the opinion that SL1/2 should be replaced with surface routes along Summer St even without an LRT conversion, but you're right that SL3 probably will keep using the transitway along with SLW/LRT.

My comment was more about branding and not the routes they use. I actually think SL3 should be moved to surface roads too (in order not to let the Ted delays cascade into LRT, and to not let the speed limit for buses hold LRVs back), but regardless, the SL1, SL3 (and possibly SL2 if LRT doesn't take over the Design Center loop) will likely still be called Silver Line even if they don't use the Transitway.

 

[Aprehensive_Words]

@Teban54 Don't underestimate the demand to travel from Eastie to Chelsea and Everett that good subway service can unlock/can shift onto transit. That Market Basket is a huge regional draw, and the flow of both car traffic along that axis and of Silver Line>Airport riders seems quite significant every time I'm in the area during rush hour or on the weekends.

 

[Riverside]

I've actually been considering giving the Nubian branch(es) a third color that's different from your "Green" (Kenmore) and your "Gold" (Huntington). This resolves some of the issues with Green and Nubian having different platforms at Park and Boylston, while also preventing Gold from becoming too complex.

My pick was Brown, but that may result in racial implications. So I'd perhaps make the Nubian branches Magenta and use Brown for something like Grand Junction instead.

In terms of "selling" the overall Green Line Reconfiguration concept, I think the question of what color to give Nubian branch(es) isn't vital. I've been experimenting with mapping Nubian branches as the same color as Kenmore branches, and it works better than I expected. But yes -- I think "Brown Line" is unfortunately almost always going to be rejected; giving that shade to the Grand Junction could let you sidestep by calling it the "Circle Line" or the "Ring Line" maybe.

But again, under the topic of "selling" this: I think the question should be, "What looks cleaner on a map?" That may mean Nubian = Green, or Nubian = Magenta, but I think that's much more important than the potential confusion at platform level at Boylston and Park Street.

 

[Teban54]

But again, under the topic of "selling" this: I think the question should be, "What looks cleaner on a map?" That may mean Nubian = Green, or Nubian = Magenta, but I think that's much more important than the potential confusion at platform level at Boylston and Park Street.

I think besides "what looks cleaner on the map", another important question is "what makes riders easier to understand and use after they look at the map".

The main spine of the "Green" Line is from Park St to Kenmore, and anyone who looks at any map will get this impression once they see there are three branches that join at Kenmore. Having another standalone branch (or two) to Nubian with only two shared stations - Park St and Boylston - not only feels detached from the rest of the Green Line system, but can be misleading to riders going to important destinations like Copley and Kenmore (and that's before considering the platform-level directions).

The E branch today faces a similar problem, but at least it has a much longer section of shared stations with the other branches (Copley - Lechmere). There are already many signboards telling riders not to board the E if they're going to Fenway Park.

Another factor that helps the E today is that all four branches show up close to each other on the map, towards the left side with no intrusions between them. That won't be the case for Nubian in a full build, with Orange, "Gold" (Huntington) etc between the Nubian branch(es) and the rest of the Kenmore branches. I can totally imagine someone looking on the map for Kenmore, seeing that three Green Line branches go there, then just boarding any Green Line train without even seeing that there's an F branch that's far from the other branches on the map. It's almost like a Blue Line branch that splits east of Aquarium and runs Bowdoin-Seaport-South Boston.

 

[737900er]

Cutting off OSRs from Cleveland Circle and/or Riverside is likely politically infeasible in the 21st century, even if it might make sense to do so from an operational perspective. Also, the optics of removing OSRs from Riverside may cause more people to drive instead of doing the P&R with transfer. Meanwhile, existing Needham Line residents have opposed :15 regional rail with a forced transfer at Forest Hills, so having their replacement be a forced transfer at Kenmore also doesn't sound good.

I know I've brought this up before, but I just don't think the Riverside sub-branch is worth fussing over. Making a small number of people transfer isn't a big deal. Rail Vision and a new P&R on the Needham line will siphon riders from the Woodland and Riverside P&Rs. We're only doing this because Rail Vision is underway and we need to free up slots on the NEC. In this scenario, Newton also has a second LRT branch and Urban Rail on the B&A corridor.

The new pieces of information are just how little upzoning the City of Newton is targeting west of Newton Highlands* and that this area will continue to mostly be a bus desert under BNRD.

Building a >$1bn subway just 2,500 people/day have OSR seems like massive overkill, especially when there's little opportunity to grow that. If it's in conjunction with some other project as a capacity reliever it starts to make a little more sense.

BTW, some quick analysis suggests that Riverside Station's ridership increases by about 450 on Red Sox gamedays (as of 2023). I'm not totally sure how the T includes that in their ridership data, but these people don't care whether the train continues beyond Kenmore.

I won't bring this up for another 6 months

* I know that there are plans to revise this, but that's very unlikely to end up with more zoning on the Riverside-sub branch. This is also the map that inspired my Rapid Transit on B&A posts in the God Mode thread.

 

[Teban54]

I know I've brought this up before, but I just don't think the Riverside sub-branch is worth fussing over. Making a small number of people transfer isn't a big deal. Rail Vision and a new P&R on the Needham line will siphon riders from the Woodland and Riverside P&Rs. We're only doing this because Rail Vision is underway and we need to free up slots on the NEC. In this scenario, Newton also has a second LRT branch and Urban Rail on the B&A corridor.

The new pieces of information are just how little upzoning the City of Newton is targeting west of Newton Highlands* and that this area will continue to mostly be a bus desert under BNRD.

Building a >$1bn subway just 2,500 people/day have OSR seems like massive overkill, especially when there's little opportunity to grow that. If it's in conjunction with some other project as a capacity reliever it starts to make a little more sense.

I'm not saying that Riverside-Eliot has super high ridership that anything short of 9 tph* into downtown is unworkable. But building the Back Bay subway allows you to reap much greater benefits on the entire Green Line system:

• If you treat both D and N as full branches, this allows you to send all branches downtown
  • Arlington running B/C/D/N and Government Center running C/D/N/E
  • Newton Highlands to Fenway runs 18 tph
• BUT: Even if you treat D and N as half-branches with 12-min frequency at both ends (or equivalently, cut the D to Kenmore and run all N downtown), this allows you to have a 33% increase in capacity on every single full branch
  • Arlington running B/C/DN and GC running C/DN/E
  • Since there are 3 branches per trunk instead of 4, you can run 12 tph (5 min) per branch instead of 9 tph (6.7 min)
• OR: You can also double down on the B, or have 50% increase for both B and DN, since these two branches have the highest ridership
  • Double down on B: B runs 18 tph, Arlington running B*2/C/DN (36 tph) and GC running C/DN/E (27 tph, can increase to 36 if half of B trains run to GC or if C gets cut to Park in place of B)
  • Split the extra 9 tph between B and DN: B gets 4.5 extra tph and DN gets 4.5 extra tph, Arlington running B*1.5/C/DN*1.5 (36 tph) and GC running C/DN*1.5/E (32 tph)
    • The 4.5 tph for DN can be used to send half of Riverside trains downtown, OR super-charge Needham trains while still cutting Riverside trains to Kenmore

Regardless of how you do it, the Back Bay subway itself is a "capacity reliever" that increases capacity on the entire Green Line system and Kenmore, one way or another (albeit imperfectly due to the Boylston merges).

I also don't think the subway from Copley Junction to Pleasant St incline via Back Bay will cost >$1 billion in 2023 dollars. The section is about 0.7 miles long, only marginally longer than Red-Blue whose estimates of $850 million is already being disputed.

* For simplicity, I'm assuming each full branch runs 6.7-min headways and 9 tph, and each segment of the subway has a capacity limit of 36 tph (so 4 full branches). This is based on this tph analysis.


Edit to add: Another issue with turning Riverside trains at Kenmore is that their mileage between Newton Highlands and Fenway become wasted, and this is a segment that does have high ridership. Few people there are going to board a train coming from Riverside, when they have the option to wait for the next train from Needham that continues into downtown - except for the relatively few riders who want to get to Kenmore first in hope of a B/C train showing up before the next N train, thus doing a 2-seat-ride for a marginally faster trip. I actuall feel that the C may be a better, or at least equally intriguing, option to cut back to Kenmore: there's little reason why it should have the privilege of an OSR when it's not much different from a typical bus corridor.

 

[Riverside]

I think besides "what looks cleaner on the map", another important question is "what makes riders easier to understand and use after they look at the map".

Just to be clear (to briefly respond), I'm basically saying, "At this stage, all that matters is the map, since there won't be any riders for years if not decades". I'm thinking of the map as a slight oversimplification for the sake of selling the concept -- similar to the politician's "campaign in poetry, govern in prose". The UX of specific diagrams is going to be much more dependent on the eccentricities of the moment. (Imagine if everyone starts using Google Glass again -- that'll change maps and navigation in ways we can't imagine, just as the iPhone made 2010 completely unrecognizable compared to 2000.)

 

[BosMaineiac]

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A bit of a sidestep, but tangentially related to this conversation: what if Auburndale station wasn’t replaced and instead an urban rail branch terminated at Riverside? I know in the Regional Rail thread the pros and cons of a branch terminating at riverside was discussed recently. In place of Aurburndale, Newton Corner get a CR station. Buses in the auburndale area can be rerouted to riverside with connections to the Urban rail and D line. I’m thinking about how this may affect the big picture of both the D-line and B&A corridor in Newton. Would the D continue down the Huntington corridor or turn back at Kenmore? The Needham branch would most likely continue on to South Station in this scenario as a more similar replacement to the CR, so not sure about the phasing of the reroutes in this scenario.

 

[kdmc]

I would kinda hope that any Green Line Reconfiguration involves some amount of rebranding, e.g. calling part of it "Magenta".

Just the other day I helped two separate groups of tourists who had found themselves on the wrong Green Line train. They were having a hard time understanding that they the "line" they were on was not in fact a line, but a collection of lines that shared a trunk. So, in addition to color and direction, they had to make sure that their train was the right letter, too. That's a lot to ask someone who just wants to visit a city without driving.

Even with just four branches, it's confusing. I can't imagine having 6+ branches with two different trunks!

EDIT: Just saw @Riverside's latest point. I agree, this doesn't matter right now

 

[Riverside]

I would kinda hope that any Green Line Reconfiguration involves some amount of rebranding, e.g. calling part of it "Magenta".

Just the other day I helped two separate groups of tourists who had found themselves on the wrong Green Line train. They were having a hard time understanding that they the "line" they were on was not in fact a line, but a collection of lines that shared a trunk. So, in addition to color and direction, they had to make sure that their train was the right letter, too. That's a lot to ask someone who just wants to visit a city without driving.

Even with just four branches, it's confusing. I can't imagine having 6+ branches with two different trunks!

EDIT: Just saw @Riverside's latest point. I agree, this doesn't matter right now

Well, ironically, I am arguing for some rebranding — I’m just saying that it doesn’t need to be a fully complete rework.

 

[bigeman312]

A bit of a sidestep, but tangentially related to this conversation: what if Auburndale station wasn’t replaced and instead an urban rail branch terminated at Riverside? I know in the Regional Rail thread the pros and cons of a branch terminating at riverside was discussed recently. In place of Aurburndale, Newton Corner get a CR station. Buses in the auburndale area can be rerouted to riverside with connections to the Urban rail and D line. I’m thinking about how this may affect the big picture of both the D-line and B&A corridor in Newton. Would the D continue down the Huntington corridor or turn back at Kenmore? The Needham branch would most likely continue on to South Station in this scenario as a more similar replacement to the CR, so not sure about the phasing of the reroutes in this scenario.

The cons were mostly discussed. What are the pros of routing to Riverside instead of just running more Newton-stopping service to Framingham and/or Worcester?

 

[737900er]

The cons were mostly discussed. What are the pros of routing to Riverside instead of just running more Newton-stopping service to Framingham and/or Worcester?

I think 15 minute headways from Riverside with a 20 minute running time to South Station and 15 minutes to Lansdowne would get more political buy-in from the large number of people who take the train infrequently and want a convenient P&R. Higher frequencies to Worcester/Framingham doesn't quite get you there.

 

[TheRatmeister]

I think 15 minute headways from Riverside with a 20 minute running time to South Station and 15 minutes to Lansdowne would get more political buy-in from the large number of people who take the train infrequently and want a convenient P&R. Higher frequencies to Worcester/Framingham doesn't quite get you there.

Maybe a couple platforms should be built at Riverside, but given that space on the line is limited, and that Riverside already has good service (And would have even better service in the GLRC universe), I'm hesitant to say they should be used for anything other than special event trains.