MBTA Construction Projects

As I said, I think it led down to the Pleasant Street-bound track (which is on the lower level at that point). I can't imagine where else the stairs could lead to - obviously there'd have been no sense in them going up. Like the Little Building tunnel (added around 1917 IIRC), that little staircase is not original to the station.
 
My curiosity has been piqued -- what is/was the Little Building and its connection to Boylston?
 
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Work at Ruggles was in full operation today nice to see for a change

Interesting to note the Skanska vehicles on a project supposedly being run by LMH
 
HelloBostonHi said:
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Work at Ruggles was in full operation today nice to see for a change

Interesting to note the Skanska vehicles on a project supposedly being run by LMH
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I am so happy to see this. That Columbus Ave around Northeastern is one of the great unsung growth areas in Boston. What is happening with that incredible ISEC building and the ISEC II that is on the way soon is going to be great to watch.
 
www.milforddailynews.com

Long-awaited $40 million reconstruction of the Natick Center commuter rail station is underway

The project will make the station fully handicap accessible.
www.milforddailynews.com www.milforddailynews.com

Ground finally broken on Natick Station rebuild & ADA'ing.


Project will also include the new trail head for the Cochituate Rail Trail, which is now shovels-in-ground for its 2.3 mi. extension from the current MA 30 trail head (next to TJX world HQ) to Natick Center, with spur path direct to Natick Mall along an old freight siding. Town of Natick has finally made the last installment of $6M owed to CSX for purchase of the Saxonville Branch (abandoned 2005, last freight train to the Mall area in '03) and now has full access to the property to start turning shovels. Easements fully secured for various trail head ramps around overpasses. As of last construction update from 2 weeks ago, work is underway on utility relocation at Route 30 while the bridge approaches have been under construction since last Fall. Decrepit Route 9 rail overpass was demolished last Fall, lane closures now underway for rehab of abutments for putting new deck on top. Grading work ongoing on the ROW towards Natick Ctr. Both bridges expected to be completed by Spring 2021, with new trail head opening at either 'fail-safe' Fisher St. (first grade crossing south of 9) or as many blocks south as are complete by the time the bridges are ready. Final tie-in at Route 27 @ North Ave. by the CR station entrance expected by time the renovated station opens in 2022.

With only 3 very minor street crossings between the CR station and Framingham city line on the other side of the Mass Pike, this is going to be a great trail for getting between downtown and the Mall (or even Shopper's World). Definitely will buff out the TOD cred of the full area. North trail head on the first segment opened in 2015 (on a Penn Central-era abandonment) is right by Framingham High School in village of Saxonville, where it connects to the unpaved Weston and Huffman Aqueduct trails that sprawl around Wayland.
 
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Chelsea road closures this week for grade crossing renewal at 2nd + 3rd + Everett at the 3 nearest crossings to the new relocated Chelsea CR station...plus a project-detached renewal of Eastern Ave. crossing fitted to the same work windows. Don't know exactly what the itinerary is for each. 2nd + Everett already have new crossing protection equipment so that might just be surfacing. None of those crossing surfaces look all that swell on Street View, so any of them could be no more than 1 pothole season away from being a muffler-wrecker. Since signal work was hinted in the article this is probably going to include fiber laying and wire-up for a DTMF switch (i.e. crossing gates dumped by switch at the engineer's console) at Everett Ave. so they can raise gates immediately upon an inbound train coming to a complete stop at the adjacent new-station platform.

Disappointing they aren't just jersey-barriering off 3rd Ave. and closing that superfluous low-traffic crossing, which worsens an already lousy speed restriction when the engineer has to eyeball 3 upcoming crossings simultaneously on the outbound straightaway. The T would love to get rid of that one because it would greatly simplify the field of vision, but Peter Pan Bus Lines loves its lazy backdoor shortcut from its adjacent bus yard and lobbies the shit out of local pols and Legislators to keep it. So...yippee!...now minorly-consequential money has to get spent 'upgrading' their de facto driveway shortcut instead of just barricading it and calling it a day.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:

Chelsea road closures this week for grade crossing renewal at 2nd + 3rd + Everett at the 3 nearest crossings to the new relocated Chelsea CR station...plus a project-detached renewal of Eastern Ave. crossing fitted to the same work windows. Don't know exactly what the itinerary is for each. 2nd + Everett already have new crossing protection equipment so that might just be surfacing. None of those crossing surfaces look all that swell on Street View, so any of them could be no more than 1 pothole season away from being a muffler-wrecker. Since signal work was hinted in the article this is probably going to include fiber laying and wire-up for a DTMF switch (i.e. crossing gates dumped by switch at the engineer's console) at Everett Ave. so they can raise gates immediately upon an inbound train coming to a complete stop at the adjacent new-station platform.

Disappointing they aren't just jersey-barriering off 3rd Ave. and closing that superfluous low-traffic crossing, which worsens an already lousy speed restriction when the engineer has to eyeball 3 upcoming crossings simultaneously on the outbound straightaway. The T would love to get rid of that one because it would greatly simplify the field of vision, but Peter Pan Bus Lines loves its lazy backdoor shortcut from its adjacent bus yard and lobbies the shit out of local pols and Legislators to keep it. So...yippee!...now minorly-consequential money has to get spent 'upgrading' their de facto driveway shortcut instead of just barricading it and calling it a day.
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Actually that article is already dated.

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HelloBostonHi said:
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Work at Ruggles was in full operation today nice to see for a change

Interesting to note the Skanska vehicles on a project supposedly being run by LMH
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That project you're referring to is the second iteration of ISEC, EXP. Should fill in the empty void between the existing ISEC building and the parking garage.

 
Zash said:
That project you're referring to is the second iteration of ISEC, EXP. Should fill in the empty void between the existing ISEC building and the parking garage.

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That is not the project I was referring to. I am referring to the lower busway reconstruction at Ruggles. EXP hasn't pulled ISD permits yet so its not EXP, although that should start soon. There's a somewhat dated project page here: https://www.mbta.com/projects/ruggles-station-improvements
 
Some very cool news buried in yesterday's FMCB meeting. Eight stations are getting new and replacement elevators - including several new headhouses. 22 months of design, then 30 of construction. It sounds like this contract goes through 100% design.

  • Wellington gets a new south headhouse with platform and parking lot elevators, plus replacement of existing elevators
  • Mass Ave has the Camden/Gainsborough footbridge converted to a full headhouse, with an elevator to the platform, plus replacement of the existing elevator.
  • Jackson Square gets a redundant platform elevator plus replacement of the existing one, and some busway/pedestrian modifications
  • Broadway gets a new headhouse at West 4th Street (corner of Cabot bus garage), plus replacement of the existing elevators
  • Davis gets two new street-mezzanine and two new mezzanine-platform elevators, plus new walkways at mezzanine level to connect them. This will make the west headhouse accessible for the first time.
  • Arlington has the Berkeley Street entrance reopened, with one of the stairways there replaced by an elevator
  • Sullivan gets three new elevators (including one to the lower busway) and two replacements, plus two ped bridges. No word about a west entrance, unfortunately.
  • North Station gets two new elevators, one to the OL NB platform and one to the OL/GL SB platform. This essentially makes the station accessible from the south end - currently, passengers using the surface elevator there have to use the platform elevators near the north end of the station.
When is the last time that we got a single extra entrance to a subway station - much less four? Edit: aside from the Forest Hill headhouse last year.
 
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There are hopefully others in the pipeline as well. The November 2019 SWA report also listed redundant elevators at Central as being in design, and plans to get redundant elevators at Chinatown and new elevators at the City Hall entrance to State to 100% design.

A 2016 MBTA report identified some other elevators that don't seem to be in active planning right now. Those included redundant elevators at Prudential, Courthouse (new east headhouse?) and Beachmont; elevators for the south headhouse of Tufts Medical Center; elevators at Fenway; and elevators at Readville. I hope all of those will be included in the next round; the long ramps at Fenway and Readville are not great, and the Tufts entrance is the closest for a lot of the new development near the Pike.

What other stations should be getting more elevators or new entrances? Aside from Courthouse and Sullivan, I nominate:
  • GC is definitely in dire need of that second headhouse
  • A south GL headhouse for Haymarket, near Hanover.
  • South Station, west of Purchase Street. I think you could extend passageways west from the platforms, then plop headhouses in.
  • Andrew, east of Dot Ave (and maybe a south headhouse too). Especially with that new development coming in.
  • Harvard, elevators to the Church Street headhouse. And improved RL-busway connections.
  • Porter, north of Somerville Avenue.
  • Copley - put a headhouse in the Square itself, with an underpass allowing it to serve both platforms
  • Back Bay - allow entrances to OL and CR at Columbus, and to CR at Berkeley
  • Chinatown - reopen Lagrange and Hayward entrances
  • Park Street - reopen the Temple Place entrance (possibly in the works?)
  • Faregates on both platforms at Suffolk Downs and Wood Island
 
The EGE said:
There are hopefully others in the pipeline as well. The November 2019 SWA report also listed redundant elevators at Central as being in design, and plans to get redundant elevators at Chinatown and new elevators at the City Hall entrance to State to 100% design.

A 2016 MBTA report identified some other elevators that don't seem to be in active planning right now. Those included redundant elevators at Prudential, Courthouse (new east headhouse?) and Beachmont; elevators for the south headhouse of Tufts Medical Center; elevators at Fenway; and elevators at Readville. I hope all of those will be included in the next round; the long ramps at Fenway and Readville are not great, and the Tufts entrance is the closest for a lot of the new development near the Pike.
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Readville's most definitely awaiting the Rail Vision final report to inform where it needs the most work, because there's moving parts involved. Fairmount platforms have to be relocated 200 ft. north off the Franklin-Fairmount connector in order to be double-tracked and allow a thru-service Foxboro train to pass a Fairmount shuttle that's reversing on-platform, as well as get off the freight clearance route so it can be made full-high. That would place the relocated platform square-up with the Milton St. entrance to the parking lot. Which means that the Franklin-via-NEC platform probably needs a second north egress grafted onto Milton St. (ditto the Providence/Stoughton platforms if/when they ever see any reanimated use) because the station's whole center-of-gravity is going to shift further north. The Wolcott Sq. and Sprague St. south ramps might as well just be left as-is because they'll shift to secondary status.

What other stations should be getting more elevators or new entrances? Aside from Courthouse and Sullivan, I nominate:
  • GC is definitely in dire need of that second headhouse
  • A south GL headhouse for Haymarket, near Hanover.
  • South Station, west of Purchase Street. I think you could extend passageways west from the platforms, then plop headhouses in.
  • Andrew, east of Dot Ave (and maybe a south headhouse too). Especially with that new development coming in.
  • Harvard, elevators to the Church Street headhouse. And improved RL-busway connections.
  • Porter, north of Somerville Avenue.
  • Copley - put a headhouse in the Square itself, with an underpass allowing it to serve both platforms
  • Back Bay - allow entrances to OL and CR at Columbus, and to CR at Berkeley
  • Chinatown - reopen Lagrange and Hayward entrances
  • Park Street - reopen the Temple Place entrance (possibly in the works?)
  • Faregates on both platforms at Suffolk Downs and Wood Island
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Red-only Park St. headhouse on Boston Common via widened emergency exit...#1 with a bullet for correcting the ped flow platforms that set the low-bar for Red Line peak dwell times. Highlight that one in blood if you have to; in concert with Red-Blue it's the only hope for dwell congestion relief right now.

Also: completed west-side headhouse to Anderson RTC. It's criminal that the residential walk-up to the west is walled off from a station they can eyeball from up Merrimac St. Ironclad requirement for RUR, for meaningful bus route tie-ins, and if Mishawum has to be completely abandoned because it's too hard for too low utilization to raise the platforms while squaring freight clearances.
 
The EGE said:
  • Wellington gets a new south headhouse with platform and parking lot elevators, plus replacement of existing elevators
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This is huge for connections to the path network along the Mystic.

The EGE said:
What other stations should be getting more elevators or new entrances?
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Oak Grove could really use a north head house. When it was built most of the residential density was south of the station, north was an industrial wasteland. Now the balance has shifted though, as most of the industrial has converted to multi-family residential. There are over 1000 units of new residential built in the last 15 years north of the station; those residents all have to walk all the way past the platform and the parking to get to the entrance.
 
A second headhouse for Porter north of Somerville Ave (in the plaza in front of CVS, I assume) would be really frickin' spendy. And they put in redundant elevators a few years ago, so I don't see it as a high priority.
 
The EGE said:
What other stations should be getting more elevators or new entrances? Aside from Courthouse and Sullivan, I nominate
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Mass Ave needs a south entrance, by census data that's one of the densest residential areas in the city of Boston to the west in that section of Fenway and a south headhouse would open up the walkshed to that area. And better access Roxbury to the east
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Mass Ave needs a south entrance, by census data that's one of the densest residential areas in the city of Boston to the west in that section of Fenway and a south headhouse would open up the walkshed to that area. And better access Roxbury to the east
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It's on the official list. Gainsborough St. footbridge's exit-only stairs are being converted into full headhouse w/elevators.

If Northeastern can try to cram a walking path along the athletic fields' rear service driveway on the east side and zap a few behind-dorm parking spaces on the west-side alley for a matching path, that headhouse can span walking distance to all the campus blocks between there and Ruggles.
 
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ceo said:
A second headhouse for Porter north of Somerville Ave (in the plaza in front of CVS, I assume) would be really frickin' spendy. And they put in redundant elevators a few years ago, so I don't see it as a high priority.
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Station structurally doesn't have a reach out that way. The utility plant from the giant electrical substation trenches deep down into the mezzanine level of the Somerville Ave. side blocking most obvious paths for crossing under the street.

STEP, in addition to its GLX-Porter advocacy, sees an air rights cover-over of the station block down to Beacon St. overpass in the cards. That I think is a more dynamic target to shoot for in terms of secondary egresses, because Porter Arcade/Shops @ Porter and Lesley U. campus are much harder-up for unconstrained access to the station than Porter Shopping Center is and the canyon really distorts traffic patterns with Roseland St. having to be load-bearing to the Arcade parking lot in a way it's cosmically undesigned for. Fitchburg trackbed would have to be undercut a couple feet before capping it...otherwise cover-over here is a fairly academic exercise if just an open-air plaza linear with bike path and no load-bearing buildings are going on top. But probably better off waiting for STEP to reload for bear on its GLX advocacy, because if you're dropping the trackbed there's efficiencies to be gained by bundling that in with the GLX duck-under tunnel into the station and just letting the lowered Fitchburg tracks sit on the bare roof (and, if possibly in the cards a few years sooner vs. later, waiting until then to reboot the CR platform as full-high).
 
The path connecting the Riverway to Lansdowne, whenever it gets out of bureaucracy jail, should include a new egress out the west side of the Fenway station, on the other side of Park Drive from the one there now. This doesn't even have to be a headhouse because the station is at grade with the Riverway, and would be so easy for them to just do tomorrow if they had the will to do it. BU should want this done for as long as they plan to keep the Wheelock campus. (ETA: Then again, BU should also want West Station, so I suppose that's misplaced confidence on my part.)
 
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