If You Were God/Goddess | Transit & Infrastructure Sandbox

[Aprehensive_Words]

I wasn't meaning my comment as a put-down, at all, so I'm sorry if it came out that way. I was trying to say that, in some places on Earth, this kind of transit expansion idea would be seen as exactly that: a growth tool. So, in other political contexts, an idea like this would be a lot closer to a "reasonable" pitch.

 

[Riverside]

I keep seeing extending T service out to the burbs. How about densifying Dorchester, Roslindale and Mattapan? If the red line can be extended to Alwife, this could be reasonable. But I put it here instead of reasonable pitches because building tunnels$ just doesn't seem feasible these days. Also, I think its a shame that Franklin Park and Arborway is not on a subway so...
Extending the Red line from Ashmont to Forest Hills under Gallivan Blvd and Morton St and ending at a new storage yard at the old Forest Hill station. Extending the orange line thru Roslindale to Mattapan under Cummings and taking over of the red line extension yard with a small yard and loop. The red line extension can be extended over River St and take over the Auto Sales lot for a new station.
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Oh huh, this is an interesting idea I hadn't seen before. I've crayoned extending an HRT-converted Mattapan Line up to Roslindale Village, but I hadn't considered an alignment from Ashmont via Gallivan and Morton. In general, I'm pretty skeptical of dogleg extensions like this; they combine radial and circumferential service in ways I think are often less efficient, and they create long roundabout rides. But the idea of a pair of doglegs creating multiple cross-Dorchester corridors is thought-provoking.

That being said, you're suggesting (I think) about 5.7 miles of new tunnels here; that same distance of tunnel is just about what it would take to build a new subway that runs from the Pleasant Street Portal all the way through Nubian, Warren St, and Blue Hill Ave all the way to Mattapan, potentially allowing you to extend the Green Line all the way through Dorchester without killing its reliability.

Of course, that's not so much "Imagine that Boston were Madrid," as "Imagine that Boston were LA"!