Grounding the McGrath

Scipio said:
After:
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Great pics, thanks for posting. Looks good. Hopefully, won't make traffic too much worse. I think additional parking at Sullivan Square to get people off I-93 and into the Orange line would be of great help.

Is that a new tower at Volpe in the background looking South? If so, additionally interesting.
 
tangent said:
Is that a new tower at Volpe in the background looking South? If so, additionally interesting.
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No, it's a really badly-rendered Pru. The 111 Huntington blob is next door to it.
 
Man, if only...glx had been originally planned for median of a McGrath boulevard + one side of a complete-streeted Somerville Ave. ... I know it's too late now but it woulda been better and cheaper ... As always this town builds 'subways' to make sure there will still be room for happy motoring up on the surface
 
CSTH said:
Man, if only...glx had been originally planned for median of a McGrath boulevard + one side of a complete-streeted Somerville Ave. ... I know it's too late now but it woulda been better and cheaper ... As always this town builds 'subways' to make sure there will still be room for happy motoring up on the surface
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No, that have been a terrible disaster.

GLX is going to have multiple times the number of passengers per stop of the B/C/D/E branches. You'd have trains stopped for 10 minutes just to have passengers pay fares, and grade crossings would have slowed it down further.

GLX is made like a "subway" and not like the surface branches for a reason, and that reason isn't to make drivers happy.
 
CSTH said:
Man, if only...glx had been originally planned for median of a McGrath boulevard + one side of a complete-streeted Somerville Ave. ... I know it's too late now but it woulda been better and cheaper ... As always this town builds 'subways' to make sure there will still be room for happy motoring up on the surface
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Yes, THANK GOD they did not do this. We certainly dont need another C Line. Woulda been cheaper - maybe. Woulda been BETTER? What are you talking about?!
 
Plus the current plan fits the demand pattern really well based on the squares that are being serviced the Mcgrath passes between or never gets near most of them.
 
FK4 said:
Yes, THANK GOD they did not do this. We certainly dont need another C Line. Woulda been cheaper - maybe. Woulda been BETTER? What are you talking about?!
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C is OK. B past Kenmore is a nightmare.
 
I think that deetroyt brought up a great point about the community path. The need for it goes down dramatically for it after the medford street branch off from McGrath if McGrath will look like the current renders. I would be fine with the GLX team cutting the community path after where it meets McGrath if it will save a substantial amount
 
BuilditDenser said:
I think that deetroyt brought up a great point about the community path. The need for it goes down dramatically for it after the medford street branch off from McGrath if McGrath will look like the current renders. I would be fine with the GLX team cutting the community path after where it meets McGrath if it will save a substantial amount
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I wouldn't. The whole point of the community path is a seamless, off road connection between the minute man and the Charles river paths. Can't do that on the mcgrath.
 
Does anybody know what the interim improvements are going to look like for the Washington Street crossing? All I can find in their presentations is for the Somerville Ave intersection.
 
I live right beside this and think it looks nice in the renders but in reality it will end up like the section of 28 that separates Broadway. It's meant to tie East Somerville to the rest of the city but at six traffic lanes wide, I don't think it'll do that.
I'd love to see something different. Keep the overpass and turn it into a park and figure out how to move the traffic under/at the sides of it. Maybe hook the new park up to the community path. Pie in the sky, I know, but something like this would bring East and the rest of Somerville together as well as providing much needed park land in this area of the city.
If you want to tie the city together, make it harder to use 28 (especially with the casino coming).
 
CSTH said:
Mostly I mean, woulda been done by now
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If GLX, in its current plans, was done right, it also would have been done by now too. Either you compare both assuming it will be well managed and well planned or both incompetently.

If both incompetently, then I would argue that GLX you envision would be in the same state as it is now. Just as overpriced proportionally and time consumed. Overall figures might be in smaller numbers, but so would the benefits.

If both was competent, then GLX in an existing ROW is the logical choice. It would just a bit more expensive than the street version while so many more benefits to service.
 
It should be better than that. That stretch of 28 has 7 lanes of traffic, including turning lanes. This stretch is proposed to have anywhere between 4 and 6 lanes at all points. This is more likely to resemble Broadway itself, with better bike accommodations.

ant8904 said:
If GLX, in its current plans, was done right, it also would have been done by now too. Either you compare both assuming it will be well managed and well planned or both incompetently.
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I was about to post the same thing. +1.
 
Ruairi said:
I live right beside this and think it looks nice in the renders but in reality it will end up like the section of 28 that separates Broadway. It's meant to tie East Somerville to the rest of the city but at six traffic lanes wide, I don't think it'll do that.
I'd love to see something different. Keep the overpass and turn it into a park and figure out how to move the traffic under/at the sides of it. Maybe hook the new park up to the community path. Pie in the sky, I know, but something like this would bring East and the rest of Somerville together as well as providing much needed park land in this area of the city.
If you want to tie the city together, make it harder to use 28 (especially with the casino coming).
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You do not necessarily need to make 28 harder to use as that will increase the amount of time the roadways are clogged with traffic. Bumper to Bumper traffic is not he best for knitting a neighborhood together.

Instead you can make alternatives that are more appealing and siphon off traffic. A good majority off those cars heading down McGrath during the AM rush drive right past Wellington and why is that? They sit in bumper to bumper traffic from before McGrath goes under 93 to past the bridge over the train tracks and into Cambridge.

A good guess is that commuters from Malden/Melrose/Everett area that commute into Cambridge find it far more convenient/faster to drive in. According to Google maps, riding the OL from Wellington to the Red Line and back to Kendal takes 30+ minutes during the AM commute, while Google maps has driving McGrath from Wellington to Kendall takes typically 20 minutes to 45 minutes during the AM commute. Whatever the solution is, faster bus system, grand junction, or something else, there is a need for better public transportations options to get into Cambridge from points north of the city.
 
ant8904 said:
If GLX, in its current plans, was done right, it also would have been done by now too. Either you compare both assuming it will be well managed and well planned or both incompetently.
....

If both was competent, then GLX in an existing ROW is the logical choice. It would just a bit more expensive than the street version while so many more benefits to service.
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You know what, on further reflection, you guys are right. I do think the T would benefit by being more willing to consider street car and trolley applications in general, but the problem here is something else.

Anyway we've been around this block a dozen times on the glx thread (see you there!)
 
CSTH said:
You know what, on further reflection, you guys are right. I do think the T would benefit by being more willing to consider street car and trolley applications in general, but the problem here is something else.

Anyway we've been around this block a dozen times on the glx thread (see you there!)
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In terms of grounding (part of) the McGrath I think the important light rail consideration is to make sure that the overpass over the rail remains wide enough to accommodate two tracks over to Grand Junction. Or if it isn't already wide enough and major overpass work is planned, then make it suitably wide for two tracks over to the Grand Junction.

On other threads we have talked about light rail on GJ (if N-S Link makes this rail link for commuter rail train flexibility less necessary). That link, to Kendall and MIT and possibly over the River to the new West station would really help pull the rail network together in Cambridge/Somerville.
 
tangent said:
In terms of grounding (part of) the McGrath I think the important light rail consideration is to make sure that the overpass over the rail remains wide enough to accommodate two tracks over to Grand Junction. Or if it isn't already wide enough and major overpass work is planned, then make it suitably wide for two tracks over to the Grand Junction.

On other threads we have talked about light rail on GJ (if N-S Link makes this rail link for commuter rail train flexibility less necessary). That link, to Kendall and MIT and possibly over the River to the new West station would really help pull the rail network together in Cambridge/Somerville.
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None of the rail overpasses around here on either end of McGrath or on the side streets are being changed. Those set all of the outer limits of the project area. You'll certainly see the roadway on top of the Fitchburg Line overpass busted down to 2 lanes in each direction reclaiming lots of beneficial sidewalk space, since O'Brien Hwy. on the other side is going to get lane-dropped to Lechmere Square. Somerville Ave. Ext. is still going to snake underneath it as a driveway/alley for that auto chop shop and emergency access to the T tracks.



There's actually tons of unused space underneath on the rail ROW. When this current incarnation of the overpass was first built in the late-50's there were two small freight yards crammed in around here.

  • One was for Boston & Maine on the Fitchburg Line serving the warehouse district adjacent to Union Square. Fanned out into the whole space between the Medford St.-Webster Ave. / Merriam St.-Windsor Pl. blocks. Fitchburg Line briefly went 6-track from underneath McGrath and over the pre-1980's incarnation of the Medford St. bridge to feed this yard.
  • The other one was for Boston & Albany on the Grand Junction serving the former Broad Canal loading docks right in the heart of Kendall on what's now the Cardinal Mederos St.-6th St. / Binney St.-Spring St. blocks. Broad Canal used to continue right up to the Broadway/Hampshire intersection. Grand Junction was 4-track from the junction under McGrath to present-day Binney.
The yards were full-active throughout the 1960's, with the one in Kendall lasting for a few years after Broad Canal got covered over. 1970 was roughly when all the extra tracks under McGrath got ripped out for the current configuration. What was left of the yards stayed until about 1980 when they started getting covered over by new building construction and the urban renewal reboot of the Kendall street grid. So on that first Street View link from Somerville Ave. Ext., you're looking at space for 6 tracks to junction with 4 tracks between all those bridge support pegs...and less than half that space being used for anything today.

There's where all the room comes from for 2 tracks of future light rail Urban Ring on the Grand Junction to duck quickly under 2 Fitchburg commuter rail tracks to meet the GLX Union Branch tracks on a 4-track flying junction. All stuffed neatly under the untouched bridge. I don't know when the bridge is up for superstructure replacement, but since the Grand Junction hugs one extreme end of it and GLX Union the other extreme end there's no meaningful redesign options to consider for compacting its dimensions and easing up the steepish inclines on both sides. It'll most likely have to be an in situ deck replacement that retains all that ROW space underneath forever.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
There's actually tons of unused space underneath on the rail ROW. When this current incarnation of the overpass was first built in the late-50's there were two small freight yards crammed in around here.
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Good use of Google Street view by the way. Although I wish they had a Google "rail view" so we could follow the rail line. Maybe they could work something out with Google to put a camera mount on a train.
 
They do have a special collections team that does trails, rivers, national parks and more, rail wouldn't be too big of a challenge.
 
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