sorry i was busy and forgot to check the forum
You might
find this piece I wrote about the B & C Lines interesting. It sounds like you are describing what I call the "Kenmore Model"; I am critical of that model in the linked piece, but I do think there is value to it.
I also
imagined a system where more examples of the Kenmore Model were implemented, which I think is similar to what you're describing.
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this is awesome, yeah its kinda similar. heres my "plans" for a future dorchester neighborhood LR system in dark orange
(ignore the stations theyre all wrong)
i have something similar in mind for harvard square which i made a google maps for here:
MBTA LRV/BRT transit routes
unfinished but my idea for both these is to make trolleybus routes with dedicated ROWs to eventually become LRV if ridership is high enough
i know this stuff is very expensive but considering the mattapan trolley gets abt 2.5k daily ridership i think this is all perfectly reasonable (eveyr line i made follows only bus routes with at least 3k daily ridership by 2013 numbers) also i am very stubborn about trolleybusses over battery electric idc how many wires the mbta tears up
I have more thoughts I might share later, but the other big piece (in my opinion) is the question of grade-separation. With light rail, you have some flexibility for things like grade crossings at streets and even sometimes street-running. With heavy rail, you have no wiggle room at all, especially if power comes from the third rail. A light rail project can be significantly less expensive if one or two costly grade separations can be avoided.
i mean to be fair the commuter rail crosses roads at a lot of places at speed with crossing gates, and regardless the b branch could be sunken very easily because the avenue is so wide, the D branch can be rebuilt to use the inner track, and the c branch can keep trams and use the loop, again all theoretical i dont think heavy rail is very important
I would argue that RL crowding is less-so a function of downtown density and more-so a function of slow zones, a missing orbital line, and missing link between North and South stations. Unless they hop on a bus, anyone north of the river needs to travel downtown in order to reach Back Bay, LMA, Fenway, or the southern commuter rail network.
Plus, there are a lot of upsides to having a super-dense downtown. More street activity, less room for automobiles, short distances between offices and food/coffee/nightlife. In fact, with post-pandemic WFH, Boston is currently feeling the negative effects of *too much* vacancy downtown.
im all for density, and i know Boston has lots of space to grow. i just think we need to start now with polycentrism because otherwise well end up liek new york with ten billion parralell metros that all go to the same place because all 20 million people work in two places (no new york hate its just a bit claustrophobic)
In fairness, the T's predecessors did have such a conversion in mind when they built Kenmore, and the T gave it a study in the early 1970s, via extending the Blue Line down a narrow side street in Beacon Hill cutting a diagonal across the Common to meet up with the Central Subway near Arlington (broadly similar to the proposals
contained in the 1926 report, but bypassing Boylston).
not gonna go into depth but another ide ai had ive seen literally nowhere is swinging it southeast from storrow drive to a station at copley and back bay, then following the road before going under the highway then replacing the B branch of the red line, giving the ashmont branch the higher ridership it deserves while still serving braintree and stuff
i dont know how to quote people from the last page, theratmeister said that boston is alreayd pretty polycentric, and i kinda agree honestly, doesnt change my mentality just another point against my GR to heavy rail idea. more orbital routes are absolutely needed
on the last page henryallen explaine dsome things about the capacity of light rail. i dont have a response but i do want our GR rolling stock to move towards something like the budapest suburban rail system
hungarian suburban rail
they have these big full low-floor cars that i think look really cool and i think we should use things like this instead of just making longer and longer streetcars. we can still use something like the current rolling stock for the C branch, cuz its the only one thats really like a streetcar
riverside, your post about the B and C branches was very informative, a difference of opinoin i have is that the B branch with its less road crossings and less stations is closer to the D branch, again with how wide the avenue is i think itd be easy to sink it a bit without a tunnel and eliminate basically all but a couple of the road crossings basically just making ir a more urban D branch (i like this idea asthetically so i may be biased sorry)
sorry if this post is too long i havent hit a word limit idk if theres an unspoken rule about post length or seomthing