MBTA Red Line / Blue Line Connector

[whighlander]

The "max load" points on the Red Line during the peak are between Central and Kendall on the northside and between Broadway and South Station on the south. The max load points on the Green are between Hynes and Copley. Red/Blue does nothing to relieve crowding on the Red Line at its two most heavily utilized segments. We are getting by for two years (one year left to go) with Government Center being closed and all Blue/Red traffic being forced to use the very crowded Orange Line. Seems hard to make the case that the ability to make the Red/Blue transfer with the present network is at capacity when the capacity was cut in half for two years and the resulting crowding was considered acceptable.

Let's look at the motivation for Red<==>Blue Transfers -- when the idea first surfaced a few decades ago -- all of the T Lines had one primary function -- to bring people to 8 mostly downtown Stations to get to work*1:

• Charles [MGH],
• Park St,
• DTX,
• South Station,
• State
• Gov't Center
• Copley,
• Auditorium/Prudential

For a Red Line rider you either just disembarked directly or you changed to the Green Line @ Park, or the Orange Line @ DTX

Beyond the above list -- there was only one destination on the Blue Line that Red Line riders really desired*2 -- Logan via Airport Station and then there was the required Massport Bus to get to any Terminal

The much smaller number of Blue Line, riders at the time and still -- didn't need the Red Line to get to most of their likely employment places in downtown Boston as the Green Line [change @ Gov't Center] or walking provided the necessary access

Today the situation has only gotten better for the Red Line rider who has one transfer to make at South Station to the Silver Line and you then avoid the need for the Massport Bus -- there is no real compelling Red to Blue Transfer destination

The only real motivation for Red --> Blue is to improve system robustness -- but to be really useful the connection should be outside of the downtown area -- in particular on the Cambridge side of the Charles accompanied with another Blue Line connection to the Green Line -- very very expensive -- low prospect of occurrence anytime soon

However -- For the Blue Line rider -- Today there is the growing demand for access to Silver Line destinations in South Boston -- this could be fixed essentially for free by just letting the Silver Line connect to Airport Station

Notes:

• 1 -- could add a couple of other destinations Harvard & Kendall on the Red Line
• 2 -- OK -- the hardcore gamblers on the Red Line used the Blue Line to get to Wonderland or Suffolk -- and the occasional Tourist needed to get to Aquarium

 

[Alon]

The "max load" points on the Red Line during the peak are between Central and Kendall on the northside and between Broadway and South Station on the south. The max load points on the Green are between Hynes and Copley. Red/Blue does nothing to relieve crowding on the Red Line at its two most heavily utilized segments.

The Red/Blue connector isn't about capacity; as I ranted in the crazy transit pitches thread, Boston does not have track capacity problems to speak of. It's about providing a reasonable two-seat ride from East Boston to Cambridge.

 

[whighlander]

The Red/Blue connector isn't about capacity; as I ranted in the crazy transit pitches thread, Boston does not have track capacity problems to speak of. It's about providing a reasonable two-seat ride from East Boston to Cambridge.

Alon -- if your contention is correct -- then there really is no strong motivation for spending the money for the tunnel down Cambridge St. as the Blue to Red connection can be made with a guaranteed high frequency at rush hour via Orange or Green

Potentially the connection can be made via Silver Line @ Airport -- see my previous post

The other low cost solution to the EBos to Cambridge is via a pedestrian tunnel between Orange @ State to Orange @ DTX

 

[datadyne007]

The Red/Blue connector isn't about capacity; as I ranted in the crazy transit pitches thread, Boston does not have track capacity problems to speak of. It's about providing a reasonable two-seat ride from East Boston to Cambridge.

Bingo. The goal is to eliminate the need and reduce the crowding on green & orange when it comes to people trying to get to/from Cambridge.

Whigh, those are not two-seat rides. Silver is already coming to Airport Station for the Silver Line Gateway. Using it to transfer to red is still a convoluted, roundabout way.

Edit: ok, the State-DTX tunnel would be a two-seat ride, but a long walk and more importantly there's also a major electric room at the end of the platform, iirc.

 

[whighlander]

Bingo. The goal is to eliminate the need and reduce the crowding on green & orange when it comes to people trying to get to/from Cambridge.

Whigh, those are not two-seat rides.

Data -- So!

By the way -- I don't think the majority of the crowding on the Green & Orange comes from Blue Line commuters trying to get to Cambridge

There are plenty of people using transit systems all around the planet who are perfectly happy with 3 seats as long as the seats are reliable, and the waiting time is reasonable

For example consider the commute from Lexington to some destination either on the Silver Line or on the Green Line:

• begin by either driving to Alewife or taking the bus to Alewife -- 1st seat + 1st wait [note -- could be your 2nd wait if you are taking the bus]
• Red to Park [Green] or to South Station [Silver] -- 2nd seat + 2nd wait
• Green to destination or Silver to destination -- 3rd seat

or CR [1st seat] to North Station then Green / Orange [2nd seat] to Red [3rd seat] to Kendall -- could be a 4th seat if you drove to the CR or took a Bus to the CR

By the way -- there are a lot of people whose commute to/from downtown Tokyo takes over 3 hours each way

 

[winstonoboogie]

Today there is the growing demand for access to Silver Line destinations in South Boston -- this could be fixed essentially for free by just letting the Silver Line connect to Airport Station


[/list]

The Silver Line Gateway service from Chelsea will stop at Airport Station

 

[winstonoboogie]

The Red/Blue connector isn't about capacity; as I ranted in the crazy transit pitches thread, Boston does not have track capacity problems to speak of. It's about providing a reasonable two-seat ride from East Boston to Cambridge.

The present three-seat ride involves using a service that runs every 1.5 minutes in the peak for the middle leg (at least when Government Center station is opened). Reducing transfers makes the ride more attractive, but the negative impact of transfers can be partly mitigated by high-frequency service.

 

[George_Apley]

The "max load" points on the Red Line during the peak are between Central and Kendall on the northside and between Broadway and South Station on the south. The max load points on the Green are between Hynes and Copley. Red/Blue does nothing to relieve crowding on the Red Line at its two most heavily utilized segments. We are getting by for two years (one year left to go) with Government Center being closed and all Blue/Red traffic being forced to use the very crowded Orange Line. Seems hard to make the case that the ability to make the Red/Blue transfer with the present network is at capacity when the capacity was cut in half for two years and the resulting crowding was considered acceptable.

Highlighting such short max load stretches seems specious to me. It's not as though the Red Line is appreciably less crowded between Kendall and Park as opposed to the brief stretch between Central and Kendall. The Red Line is overcrowded at peak along the entire North Side from Alewife to Park Street. Pulling out the point at which it's most crowded doesn't mean that clearing house some before the Park Street is a frivolous waste.

Red-Blue would help with dwell times at Park. Longer dwells at Park are part of what leads to delay build up along the Red Line. The only way to get that Central to Kendall stretch to move more smoothly (short of parallel subway from the north to Kendall) is to increase the Red Line's headways. How can we do that if Red's dwell times at Park just keep getting longer and longer?

There are other ways to spread that load by tackling Red-Green connections (GLX past Union to Porter; Urban Ring leg from North Station down the Grand Junction through Kendall; GLX to Harvard through Allston). But the North Side is so crushed (especially between Central and Kendall - as you pointed out) because Kendall has matured into a second Central Business District. Tons of people getting off/on during the peak. Good luck to anyone in Central who wants to get on a train at all.

That's where I see the aforementioned GLXs to Porter from Lechmere and to Harvard from BU as being so useful. Spreads out Green Line transfers, which takes the crush off of the CBD.

 

[winstonoboogie]

Bingo. T

Edit: ok, the State-DTX tunnel would be a two-seat ride, but a long walk and more importantly there's also a major electric room at the end of the platform, iirc.

There is a utility room and the path would also need to get an easement through the basement of the building with Marshall's (one time Woolworths) which would also be expensive. However, it's hard to imagine that either of those expenses combined would be anywhere near the cost of extending the Blue Line.

 

[winstonoboogie]

Highlighting such short max load stretches seems specious to me. It's not as though the Red Line is appreciably less crowded between Kendall and Park as opposed to the brief stretch between Central and Kendall. The Red Line is overcrowded at peak along the entire North Side from Alewife to Park Street. Pulling out the point at which it's most crowded doesn't mean that clearing house some before the Park Street is a frivolous waste.

.

Just looking at some older data from 2006 (which I have a hard copy but doesn't seem to be on line anywhere), the line volumes (total people on all the trains) leaving Central from 8-9 AM (the highest volume hour for the day) was 8,691, it dropped to 8,142 leaving Kendall, and then 7,641 leaving Charles.

In the opposite (northbound) direction in the morning (the direction of peak travel for Blue/Red commuters), the northbound line volume leaving Broadway between 8-9 AM was 10,435, it drops to 10,201 leaving South Station, 7,842 leaving Downtown Crossing, 4,605 leaving Park, and 4,026 leaving Charles.

These are 8-year old numbers, I have numbers for the PM peak and I have more recent numbers (but not handy at the moment), but the patterns remain about the same though. In the AM peak, the amount of service northbound required to meet the demand between Broadway and South Station is more than enough to meet the demand between Park and Charles.

 

[Alon]

Potentially the connection can be made via Silver Line @ Airport -- see my previous post

It's not about the airport. I hate that people make it about the airport. The airport is not the busiest East Boston stop; Maverick is. Boston already has too much airport transit. Rich Cantabrigians might care about an airport line that they're not going to use much anyway, but most of the ridership of the Red/Blue connector is going to come in the other direction, from East Bostonians working in Cambridge.

The present three-seat ride involves using a service that runs every 1.5 minutes in the peak for the middle leg (at least when Government Center station is opened). Reducing transfers makes the ride more attractive, but the negative impact of transfers can be partly mitigated by high-frequency service.

It still involves a lot of walking between platforms, and a pair of transfers separated by just one station. Passengers perceive time spent transferring or waiting as worse than time spent on a moving train. In New York, the modeling assumes this penalty is 1.75. The MBTA assumes a higher number, 2.25. So if passengers need to spend an extra 4 minutes walking between platforms or waiting for the Green Line, that's like having to spend 10 minutes on a train.

And 4 minutes is best case, at the peak. Off-peak, the Green Line's not so frequent. Plus, one of the major benefits of riding off-peak, finding a seat, is reduced when one of the trip's legs is so short.

For example consider the commute from Lexington to some destination either on the Silver Line or on the Green Line:

• begin by either driving to Alewife or taking the bus to Alewife -- 1st seat + 1st wait [note -- could be your 2nd wait if you are taking the bus]
• Red to Park [Green] or to South Station [Silver] -- 2nd seat + 2nd wait
• Green to destination or Silver to destination -- 3rd seat

The commute from Lexington to pretty much any of these destinations is by car, precisely because it's so convoluted. Suburban commuters especially hate transferring at the urban end. In Toronto, people take commuter rail to jobs within about 700 meters of Union Station; beyond that walking range, they drive. And this involves people who will drive multiple kilometers to a better park-and-ride.

Origin-end transfers impose a smaller penalty than destination-end ones, for both commuter and intercity traffic; there's that example from Toronto, the utter failure of the commuter rail-to-bus transfer in Austin, and evidence from surveys of intercity travelers. Boston is a good example of this in action, actually: commuter rail has a much higher mode share on the South Side, where it hits Downtown Boston, than on the North Side, where it stops 1.5 subway stops short of it.

By the way -- there are a lot of people whose commute to/from downtown Tokyo takes over 3 hours each way

Not thaaaaaat many, but yeah, a lot in a 90+ minute range - without a seat, either. It's a function of city size. Boston should still want to change places with Tokyo, with its multiple subway and commuter rail lines with more ridership than the entire MBTA system combined.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Data -- So!

By the way -- I don't think the majority of the crowding on the Green & Orange comes from Blue Line commuters trying to get to Cambridge

There are plenty of people using transit systems all around the planet who are perfectly happy with 3 seats as long as the seats are reliable, and the waiting time is reasonable

For example consider the commute from Lexington to some destination either on the Silver Line or on the Green Line:

• begin by either driving to Alewife or taking the bus to Alewife -- 1st seat + 1st wait [note -- could be your 2nd wait if you are taking the bus]
• Red to Park [Green] or to South Station [Silver] -- 2nd seat + 2nd wait
• Green to destination or Silver to destination -- 3rd seat

or CR [1st seat] to North Station then Green / Orange [2nd seat] to Red [3rd seat] to Kendall -- could be a 4th seat if you drove to the CR or took a Bus to the CR

By the way -- there are a lot of people whose commute to/from downtown Tokyo takes over 3 hours each way

I ride the Orange Line at evening rush hour through the downtown stations. I see a lot of people coming from Blue (East Boston not Airport types), jumping on the Orange for one stop to connect to Red. They look like service workers to me heading to their evening jobs in Cambridge. And they pack the trains and platforms for the one stop.

 

[winstonoboogie]

I ride the Orange Line at evening rush hour through the downtown stations. I see a lot of people coming from Blue (East Boston not Airport types), jumping on the Orange for one stop to connect to Red. They look like service workers to me heading to their evening jobs in Cambridge. And they pack the trains and platforms for the one stop.

Note that for the past year since Government Center closed, the number of people on the Orange Line making the Red/Blue transfer has increased tremendously, and in the evening peak, it results in the platform at Downtown Crossing northbound being packed even more so than it previously was.

 

[George_Apley]

Note that for the past year since Government Center closed, the number of people on the Orange Line making the Red/Blue transfer has increased tremendously, and in the evening peak, it results in the platform at Downtown Crossing northbound being packed even more so than it previously was.

I think my point has been that the downtown transfers between Red-Green and Red-Orange have been packing the platforms, leading to longer dwell times, leading to delays. T ridership is showing no signs of slowing down. The CBD transfer stations aren't going to be able to handle the traffic flow for much longer without severely crippling headways. That headway problem effects the areas of highest need (like that Central-Kendall stretch for example) because more trains can't be run at higher frequencies because there's a train in front of them at Park Street waiting for the platform to clear.

One way or another, the load needs to be spread so that riders can get to where they're going without transferring at Park or DTX. That's one place where Red-Blue comes in. That's where GLX to Porter comes in. That's where GLX to Harvard via Allston comes in. Spread the load before the CBD transfer stations choke the system.

That's not even touching the more socio-economic argument of people in Eastie having a one-transfer ride to Cambridge and the employment centers there (and vice-versa, especially if Eastie gets a large employment district other than Logan). Easy transit connections across lines expands the housing map for residents dramatically.

 

[davem]

As someone who has been doing the red- blue a lot lately (off peak, thank god), it's brutal. Even when the connections are perfectly timed with the train rolling in as you hit the platform, its a lot of walking with a lot of stairs, and the orange in particular is crushed. State and DTX are dangerously crowded what seems like all the time. The various tunnels between the platforms are also really narrow to the point that it slows the crowd down to a shuffle, even if there is a train on the platform about to depart. It was slightly better with the GL since the transfer was just walking up stairs, but then the trolleys were always packed so...

And yeah, it's insulting to say red-blue is about the airport. Its about all the people who live (and want to live) in eastie and beyond being able to get yo their jobs, a lot of which are on the red line

 

[cden4]

In Hong Kong, I noticed that some stations where you could transfer trains were actually very vast underground complexes, with many hallways and moving walkways. The trains weren't actually that close to each other, but you could transfer between them within a 5 minute walk all underground and within the station. I do indeed wonder if there is some way to make an underground walking connection between Red and Blue. It seems like that would be a LOT cheaper than extending the Blue Line to Charles/MGH. I know connecting the State/DTX platforms would be one way to do it. I wonder if there are others as well. A walking connection between Government Center and Park St perhaps?

 

[George_Apley]

In Hong Kong, I noticed that some stations where you could transfer trains were actually very vast underground complexes, with many hallways and moving walkways. The trains weren't actually that close to each other, but you could transfer between them within a 5 minute walk all underground and within the station. I do indeed wonder if there is some way to make an underground walking connection between Red and Blue. It seems like that would be a LOT cheaper than extending the Blue Line to Charles/MGH. I know connecting the State/DTX platforms would be one way to do it. I wonder if there are others as well. A walking connection between Government Center and Park St perhaps?

You might be able to engineer that, but you also run into the "transfer time perception penalty" that Alon mentioned upthread. It's also not necessarily as straight forward, economically, as you'd think. Cheaper for sure, but perhaps not worth the cost given the utility.

 

[Alon]

In Hong Kong, I noticed that some stations where you could transfer trains were actually very vast underground complexes, with many hallways and moving walkways. The trains weren't actually that close to each other, but you could transfer between them within a 5 minute walk all underground and within the station. I do indeed wonder if there is some way to make an underground walking connection between Red and Blue. It seems like that would be a LOT cheaper than extending the Blue Line to Charles/MGH. I know connecting the State/DTX platforms would be one way to do it. I wonder if there are others as well. A walking connection between Government Center and Park St perhaps?

Those are the connections between different systems in Hong Kong. But the four core MTR lines meet in cross-platform transfers, with multiple shared stations for most pairs of lines to allow reverse-direction cross-platform transfers. The East and West Rail Lines have a cross-platform transfer at Hung Hom, too.

Another example of this discrepancy is Chatelet-Les Halles, Paris's central Metro and RER station. The Metro lines are all far away from one another and have horrendous transfers, to one another and to the RER. But the transfers from the RER A to the RER B are cross-platorm, and the wrong-direction transfers and the transfers with the RER D only involve a bit of walking between platforms. That 7-minute walk from the RER A to Metro Line 7 was not the most pleasant, and I know other people who went to that conference with me who stayed at the same hostel who biked to the university or rode a bus and walked a lot, to avoid that transfer.

 

[winstonoboogie]

I think my point has been that the downtown transfers between Red-Green and Red-Orange have been packing the platforms, leading to longer dwell times, leading to delays. T ridership is showing no signs of slowing down. The CBD transfer stations aren't going to be able to handle the traffic flow for much longer without severely crippling headways. .

However, the peak demand period for people using Red/Blue would be from Revere/East Boston to Cambridge in the a.m. and from Cambridge to Revere/East Boston in the p.m. In the a.m. right now, Red Line trains are carrying 10,000 per hour at the busiest hour between Broadway and South Station but half that between Park St. and Charles. The dwell times on the Red Line at Downtown Crossing and Park heading toward Cambridge in the morning (the time period when Red/Blue would draw the most riders) is not the busiest time of the day in that direction at those stops and there is no period of time when it is the location that trains are at their highest loads. The busiest time for Park and Downtown heading toward Cambridge is in the p.m. and Red/Blue would have less of an impact on the loads those stations then (same is true for the p.m. return patterns).

 

[winstonoboogie]

As someone who has been doing the red- blue a lot lately (off peak, thank god), it's brutal. Even when the connections are perfectly timed with the train rolling in as you hit the platform, its a lot of walking with a lot of stairs, and the orange in particular is crushed. State and DTX are dangerously crowded what seems like all the time. The various tunnels between the platforms are also really narrow to the point that it slows the crowd down to a shuffle, even if there is a train on the platform about to depart. It was slightly better with the GL since the transfer was just walking up stairs, but then the trolleys were always packed so...

e

It was more than slightly better when Government Center was opened, it was tremendously better. The transfers from Red/Green and Green/Blue all require less walking than Blue/Orange and Orange/Red and the combined Green Line frequency between Park and Government Center is better than the Orange Line at all times. There has been an enormous increase in riding on the Orange Line between State and Downtown Crossing with Government Center closed. I'm sure that in good weather conditions, people with passes and without mobility issues will walk between State and Downtown Crossing rather than take the Orange line but we haven't had a lot of good weather conditions recently. But these are temporary conditions, Government Center will reopen, and the transfer between Blue and Green will be improved by the addition of elevators.