MBTA Red Line / Blue Line Connector

c_combat said:
What are your thoughts on the Blue Line taking over D branch of GL seeing that the tracks having its own ROW and the stations spaced further apart?

I see what you're saying though and it seems to be a good 2 for 1 deal. I'm kind of lost on exactly why this portion of the river couldn't be drained temporarily. I'm only considering this being for the project to have a minimal impact on existing infrastructure.
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Well...doesn't get much more minimal than this build. The above-surface box tunneling is considerably, considerably cheaper than full subsurface tunneling requiring extremely expensive active flood mitigation in the form of pumps, pumps, and more pumps the whole length...a cost killer that torpedoes the whole build. You can't drain the river to mitigate the flood risk...there's nowhere for it to go when the sea level of the Harbor inches up closer to the top of the dam. The MIT side is well-fortified from the Charles basin by the high retaining wall, points west by retaining wall or earthen embankment. The Esplanade side...nothing, except for that Back St. wall and the BU retaining wall along Beacon Park. The Esplanade is going to get submerged up to the Back St. wall. Regularly. It just is.

The only thing you can do is leverage that Back St. wall as the fortification you glom onto. The slightly surface-poking subway tunnel can do that, and actually make the retaining wall more effective by creating a spillway that drains off of it back into the river. But Storrow EB has to go. You can't have both, because anything cut-and-cover has to be Netherlands-level pump city and that becomes the difference between a $250M tunnel from Charles to Charlesgate and a $2B tunnel.


As for Storrow traffic...the Pike already has Copley Sq. exits in both directions. Additional westbound Pike exits would remove the need for that Storrow midsection on one-half of everyone's commute making a parkway capacity reduction desireable for whacking useless induced demand. The Pike is the easier I-93 access point for all BUT Route 28/Public Gardens, and Kenmore-west is the only place the full parkway is necessary instead of 93 or Copley for reaching the Pike. That midsection traffic doesn't need to be there. Certainly not in 6 lanes worth of sprawl. So there is good impetus for zapping the induced demand, and then tackling the remainder that uses the midsection by baking in a transit trade-in that moves greater number of people per day. It's eminently justifiable whenever we reach the stage in our recovery from asphalt addiction that we're ready to have a serious debate on whether Storrow should or should not be put out to pasture.


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Swallowing D for Blue would not be a good idea for number of reasons.


First, important to note:

NEC FUTURE is going to squeeze the Needham Line out of all slots, necessitating conversion of the line to rapid transit. Requires an Orange extension to West Roxbury, and a Green spur off Newton Highlands to Needham Jct. Just like the 1945 expansion map called for. And it's non-optional, because you can't sack Needham with outright transit loss simply because Amtrak needs HSR slots and the SW Corridor tunnel isn't widen-able to 4 RR tracks (the NEC FUTURE commission has proposed that, but it's an absolute non-starter for the destruction it would cause).

This is a recent sea change in the long-range forecast, so the future need for Needham Line dispersal from CR has changed dramatically from "sitting middle of the priority pile, if we care to get that far" to "it doesn't look like we have any other way around this very real problem, except for changing modes." Therefore, a GL branch to Needham is a virtual certainty to happen before 2035-40. Hopefully with the feds chucking in match funding, because it's their projected choo-choos who are now driving that urgency.


As for D traffic:


  • Needham Branch has 8 grade crossings that are hard and very expensive to eliminate in-total. You must mandatorily eliminate them if it's heavy rail. You don't need to eliminate any of them if it's light rail. Cost difference is so stratospheric there's no way you'd consider HRT conversion for even a second...light rail all the way. If we have few choices but to do this project because it's either that or Amtrak not running enough HSR trains to Boston, then who cares about the grade crossings. Trolleys do grade crossings, and 8 widely-spaced crossings on a dedicated ROW is a piece of cake compared to the B/C/D.

  • Needham doesn't need particularly tight all-day headways or as much per-train capacity, so double-barreling Blue frequencies to Riverside and Needham exactly like Braintree and Ashmont on Red wastes a lot of capacity. Needham is a branch that has a big/intense...but pretty short...rush-hour peak, while Riverside has a longer peak demand and stays relatively steady throughout the off-peak. You want the option to 1) drop the Needham Branch to 2-car trolleys while Riverside stays 3-cars...and 2) throttle back the Needham off-peak headways quite a bit more than Riverside to not waste train slot. LRT's ideally suited for that level of capacity fine-tuning; HRT is not.

  • Branching that far out of town makes schedule-balancing on the mainline a lot harder than Red @ JFK. The herky-jerkiness of train spacing after all those D + subway stops to get to Logan is going to severely crimp your ability to expand north of Revere. Not just Lynn, but the monster North Shore ridership out to Salem. You want a self-contained linear mainline if you want future North Shore extension considerations.

  • 6 cars @ 210 total seats per train is way, way too much for even a rush-hour D. The Brookline and Newton stops aren't anywhere near that busy. Just take one look at the Blue Book boardings for the D vs. the Ashmont or Braintree branches. These will be very, very empty trains past Kenmore and Fenway/Longwood and be system-worst on farebox recovery. They aren't empty with right-sizing to 2- or 3-car trolleys based on demand.

  • The Urban Ring tunnel through Brookline from BU Bridge is flat-out not buildable per the current Phase III proposal. It's the same alignment as the I-695 tunnel that the neighborhood nuked from orbit 4 decades ago for the path of destruction it would carve. For that reason, if you want the UR to be a rail line you're going to need to bring it into Kenmore via a short Comm Ave. subway extension to BU Bridge. That in turn makes the D Line from Kenmore to Brookline Village a very critical piece you don't want to lose, because it's the only infrastructure you can grab to complete the circuit to UR destinations south of Kenmore.
    • Connecting the E to D at Brookline Village allows run-thrus from JP to Kenmore, and hopping platforms to quick-transfer from an inbound off BU Bridge to an outbound hitting Longwood, etc. The stuff coming in from the D can use the Kenmore loop to avoid Central Subway congestion while stuff coming in off the Grand Junction or Harvard spur can continue to Downtown and some thru Riverside/Needham trains can be sent down the E to load-balance, So the Ring can still function exactly as intended despite not having a cross-Brookline one-seat if it's divided into halves meeting at a Kenmore superstation.
    • The Ring can get even higher-capacity if the Huntington Subway is continued to Brookline Village for full grade separation, without over-burdening the Kenmore-Brookline Vill. D segment. You can have your southern Ring route branch off of here and loop at Kenmore for the cross-platform transfer that doesn't foul the Central Subway.
    • The Ring can get even higher-capacity still if the halves meet at Kenmore and Blue is there as an inbound crowd-swallower for downtown. It'll take so much load off the Central Subway from Kenmore to GC that you can run all kinds of new thru service patterns off the Ring trolley routes.
    • ALL of these Ring considerations go out the window if Blue swallows D. There'll be a permanent disconnect between halves because that cross-Brookline tunnel is a nonstarter and flood considerations with the Muddy River @ Fenway won't allow for modern construction to quad up the D to Brookline Village so the HRT trains and LRT/Ring trains can share a ROW. That's doubling the size of Boston's most infamous 'storm drain' during a sea level rise era where the Charles Basin and Muddy mouth are way more vulnerable.


Given all of the above it's just a really crappy overall value to consider HRT conversion for integrity-of-concept's sake. The D works way better as LRT, and becomes an extremely strategic building block out of Kenmore if it stays LRT because of the near-certainty of an eventual Needham Branch, a likelihood of an E-to-D connection enabling some alt routings, and design options for the Urban Ring needing to consider Kenmore transfers and mix/match alt patterns to usefully join the halves that that unbuildable tunnel won't be able to.
 
F-Line,
I understand and agree with your explanation for why Blue should not swallow D. And I understand why Blue along/under Storrow ROW has to get done as you describe. IF you stay along the Boston side.

But if the Blue/Red connector (which I am 100,000% on board for even if it stops at MGH) got extended into a longer Blue that goes to Kenmore, I don’t see why it should stay on the Boston side.

No matter how you get from MGH to Kenmore, you’re dealing with essentially underwater construction, right? Or wet enough it may as well be underwater. Why not have the Blue tunnel head right across the Charles to ease up alongside the shoreline at Mass Ave, with a station there, then make a sweeping curve (that ought not be a speed-inhibitor) over to Deerfield Street, from there to under Kenmore Station, then continue along Brookline Ave into the heart of Longwood.

I envision the River work as built with prefab steel tubes a la the Ted Williams tunnel, except way smaller. One tube each direction to keep diameter down so they can squeeze through the locks from the Harbor (am I dreaming on that squeeze? Maybe so…). The work of trenching for the tubes and then covering them will disrupt all the toxic sludge that Mother Nature’s been silting over, there’s one hell of a challenge. Containment coffer dams built first per section, then dredge the toxic sludge to be hauled, replaced with clean fill? Ooh, there went some $$ out the door, hauling that much toxic sludge off. If the tunnel segments have to be built in place because the tunnel segments can’t get through the locks, that looks a lot more expensive to me. I’d really rather build the tunnel elsewhere and float/sink it into place if possible.

In any event, you don’t get into the knock-down fight with car proponents. Closing Storrow and then converting it back to a small parkway would be a great idea in my mind, I’d be all in, but I fear the willpower will never be there in the general public. Swinging over to MIT keeps all the wet work out in the River, even over at the new MIT station at the Mass ave bridge (it’s be snug up against the shore, but you’d keep Memorial Drive open most of the time).

Deerfield looks painfully tight for the cut and cover. Maybe I’m dreaming. Plus you have to get under the Green line station, but all sorts of Blue goes to Kenmore concepts have already pitched that. Brookline Ave looks to have plenty of room.

Where to terminate? I dunno, heart of Longwood? Out there in Brookline Village where that D – E connector gets described so often, to link with that?
Advantages:
  • Red /Blue link at MGH, with all the benefits to Green and Orange riders, too (as admitted above, could be done without the rest of this, and should if only that much willpower is raised).
  • avoid Storrow and Memorial (aside from when you’re cutting across Storrow or doing the station work at Mass Ave)
  • A new station in the heart of Longwood, on a line that connects to all other lines faster than the Green currently does – more pressure off Green, more direct shot for Blue riders themselves who go to Longwood, and more options for Red/Orange riders to Longwood.
  • Another station at MIT, not so far from the Kendall area. Riders who now transfer from Green or Orange to Red to reach MIT/Kendall would also have another option – won’t work for all, but any pressure relief from Green/Orange/Red is good.
  • Leaves D alone for now, which is good cause it works OK-ish.
  • The Kendall Blue / Green link will get more riders to Blue by having a shot over to MIT than it would if Blue Line riders instead have a station at the Esplanade. A Blue station on the Esplanade is borderline redundant / unnecessary, for either Green transfers or Blue origin riders. On either route, maybe some Green riders to downtown would transfer at Kenmore perceiving the roundabout but speedy Blue to be a better option than slogging on the Green? I’m a Green line rider, I’d at least give it a try a few times. But having the additional option of a shot to MIT/Kendall would be great, way better than the Esplanade, which us Green Line riders can get to just fine already.

Disadvantages:
  • expensive as hell, maybe not enough ridership gains to make it worth it.
  • screws up the Urban Ring, perhaps? Not clear

I await my schooling in tranquility.

ETA: Turnpike, ayup.... I thought I was overlooking a 900 lb gorilla.

OK, between the necessary depth to get under the Kenmore AND the Pike, perhaps we're talking tunnel boring machine for Brookline Ave instead of cut and cover. Insert somewhere in the Brookline Ave / Route 9 nexus? Extract .... I'm not sure where. That's about one mile, seems a short distance for the massive start-up expense of a TBM....
 
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So, in regard to having to mess with storrow drive so much, did I once hear about somewhere a proposal to "boulevardify" it around the area we are talking about?

I mean in all honesty it wouldn't seem like a bad idea to do so. To make it more of a walkable street would allow for more street level commercial zone development and the subsequent residential that would go along with it would be better economically. Not to mention rid the disconnect to the river. As convenient as storrow is as a highway is, I'd take a subway under a larger street with a more walkable connection to the esplanade any day.

If there are any links to this storrow boulevard I thought I saw once, I'd like to explore this idea more!
 
West said:
F-Line,
I understand and agree with your explanation for why Blue should not swallow D. And I understand why Blue along/under Storrow ROW has to get done as you describe. IF you stay along the Boston side.

But if the Blue/Red connector (which I am 100,000% on board for even if it stops at MGH) got extended into a longer Blue that goes to Kenmore, I don’t see why it should stay on the Boston side.
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We know that flood mitigation is a bitch, and that the Charles Basin at that widest point between the Longfellow and Beacon Park is the worst of the worst. But there are some other specific factors beyond the low shoreline on the Back Bay side, Muddy River outflow, and general width of the Basin before the dam.

  • The soil at tunneling depth under the Charles Basin is still former Back Bay tidal flats silt. It's very porous, and influences the water table all around. So tunneling under the pre-dam Basin requires especially good flood controls. Active pumps and the kind of stuff that pushes a dig to well >$1B when you factor in tunneling feet.


  • Flood mitigation area is not set by the basin wall at MIT, but rather the width of the landfilling because of that soil porosity. And the MIT campus is the most recent mass landfilling in all of Boston, capped in 1905. Main St. @ Kendall and Albany St. in Cambridgeport used to be the shoreline and border between bedrock and fill.
    • Pre-1900 the Grand Junction ran on a man-made causeway through Cambridgeport, creating a sort of Cambridge-side equivalent to the Esplanade lagoon.
    • The Red Line was built up the Main St. bedrock in 1912 to stimulate development on all this freshly-capped expansion land, and basically draws the border between bedrock and fill where tunnels no longer need to be actively flood-proofed.
    • Extent of the fill inland through MIT is what ends up being killer for everyone's dream cross-Mass Ave. subway. It ends up taking over 2/3 mile of Netherlands-grade active flood protection to span bedrock-to-bedrock across the Basin. Any Charles tunneling you south of, say, Western Ave. is going to be a flood mitigation megaproject because of how wide the ancestral part of the basin is below-ground.


  • For that reason the only new cross-Charles tunnels you can feasibly build at non- self-defeating cost are up by Harvard Sq. for the Urban Ring, or down by the pre-existing active flood controls at the dam between North Station and Museum of Science.
    • Orange freely crosses under and all the low-hanging drawbridges are safely protected from overtopping. So you COULD very feasibly bang a right with the Blue tunnel from Charles to Leverett Circle and get across with relative ease (albeit probably more expensive than the above-surface box to Charlesgate). The tail tracks for official Red-Blue design neutrally enable bang-a-left or bang-a-right options.
    • Blue to West Medford was indeed a real-real build alternative in the very first GLX scoping studies, for purpose of establishing comparative numbers between modes. Obviously that was non-preferred because Green is so much easier, requiring no tunneling. And because it's such a funky routing to have Blue bend back on itself for West Medford. But bang-a-right to Leverett Circle and a crossing east of Museum of Science was indeed how they'd do it.


  • Downside to the routing is...it's just as weird and inefficient for reaching anywhere in Cambridge as it is for taking up GLX. You have to bend way out of the way before serving any points west, and too many transit lines--Blue, Green, Orange--end up duplicating themselves to oversaturation between North Station and Lechmere/Community College.
    • Worse, you can't tunnel under the Grand Junction to head west because that's in the fill zone. Back to pumps, pumps, linear pumps and megaprojects.
    • The only routing that DOES make any sort of sense is up Cambridge St. via Inman to Harvard, cut-and-cover. But that's still kinda weird for Blue and nowhere near a top priority.


In a nutshell, that is why the riverbank Blue extension with the passive flood wall and Storrow EB trade-in is buildable while nothing else flanking or crossing the Basin is without counting up billions that don't [bad pun] "wash".


I envision the River work as built with prefab steel tubes a la the Ted Williams tunnel, except way smaller. One tube each direction to keep diameter down so they can squeeze through the locks from the Harbor (am I dreaming on that squeeze? Maybe so…). The work of trenching for the tubes and then covering them will disrupt all the toxic sludge that Mother Nature’s been silting over, there’s one hell of a challenge. Containment coffer dams built first per section, then dredge the toxic sludge to be hauled, replaced with clean fill? Ooh, there went some $$ out the door, hauling that much toxic sludge off. If the tunnel segments have to be built in place because the tunnel segments can’t get through the locks, that looks a lot more expensive to me. I’d really rather build the tunnel elsewhere and float/sink it into place if possible.
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Water-tight shielded metal tubes are exactly how you'd cross under the Muddy non-destructively. They wouldn't be sunk, though, just pushed through the under-river silt. What you're talking about is similar to the way the Pike extension was built under Ft. Point Channel. The tunneling technique is very tried-and-true, but the killers are:

  • The landfilled shorelines. Can't sink shielded metal sections here. You're ascending to cut-and-cover (elevated risk of 'storm drain effect') or TBM'ing with regular concrete seal. Which can never be made airtight enough through enough tunneling feet to cover the several subterranean blocks you have to go on each side (moreso in Cambridge) to hit bedrock.
  • Since you can't sink airtight shielded sections under built-up landfill, that's where the armada of budget-busting pump rooms is needed to protect the whole thing for >1/2 linear mile on the crossing, and everywhere you go that stays within the fill zone. There go your billions.
    • FWIW...the Pike crossing of Ft. Point will eventually need to be fortified exactly the same for the same reason. The sunk tunnel sections under the Channel are tight as can be, but the approaches (esp. on the Back Bay side) most definitely are not. And are terrifyingly susceptible to the storm drain effect. It's the single-most vulnerable piece of Big Dig infrastructure, and like these Charles Basin tunnels the risk has nothing to do with the actual underwater crossing.

In any event, you don’t get into the knock-down fight with car proponents. Closing Storrow and then converting it back to a small parkway would be a great idea in my mind, I’d be all in, but I fear the willpower will never be there in the general public. Swinging over to MIT keeps all the wet work out in the River, even over at the new MIT station at the Mass ave bridge (it’s be snug up against the shore, but you’d keep Memorial Drive open most of the time).
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I agree. I don't think we're ready in 2016. This is a multi-decade debate that's barely begun to become hot-button. But I think we're eventually going to get that to that point. The Kenmore-Charles midsection is empirically a whole lot of induced demand that doesn't need to be there at all with other load re-shaping moves in-play. It can suitably be replaced by a 2-lane Esplanade drive.

Blue-Kenmore can't land on any transit priority list until we're ready to let go of contiguous Storrow, so it is out-of-sight/out-of-mind until then. It's only relevant discussion because if the bust-down of the Storrow midsection goes on the table, it's extremely likely that a transit trade-in becomes an ironclad prerequisite for absorbing the last niche volumes that do use the middle parkway. i.e. Fortify it with a replacement transit line that carries more overall people than the middle parkway, and you've neutralized traffic with slack room to settle any concerns about carmageddon overwhelming other roads.

Then it's go time. The fact that you can bake in a semi-surface construction method that shaves hundreds of millions in tunneling cost AND have the build usefully fortify the Back Bay retaining wall for +1 passive flood protection then becomes a pretty attractive package. One you certainly can't justify on cost with any full subsurface tunneling where pump city becomes necessary.

But that's all something to think about when the whither-Storrow debate has hit actionable majorities for a go-time and actionable majorities for the trade-in concept. Totally out-of-sight/out-of-mind for no less than 20 years. Just file this Blue stuff away in the file cabinet and pay it no more mind, because we've got lots more urgent transit building to occupy our times. Then have it ready to pull out and put back on the table when the time comes for planning the mandatory post-Storrow transit mitigation.
 
I would also point out that all that tunneling in the MIT landfill, and all that pumping would certainly deplete groundwater around the wooden pilings that many of the MIT buildings are built on. (Similar to what happened with the Green Line and the McKim Building at Copley and the row houses near Back Bay Station.) And the failure of those wooden piles would result in one humongous lawsuit.
 
This entire discussion needs to move into Crazy Transit Pitches -- none of those things are happening inside of the lifetime of any ABforum member

Not saying that something dramatic and grand shouldn't be done -- just very very unlikely

So in the spirit of the previous discussion here's my Blue Line extension all done with deep bore tunneling after leaving the Charles / Esplanade Station

Blue Line crosses under the Charles under Lederman Park to the following Stations:
  • Cambridge Parkway / Land Blvd.
  • Third & Bent [aka circa 1970 MIT Phone Hackers Heaven]
  • Tech Square [Broadway @ Draper]
  • Central Sq [crossing deep under the Red Line and providing redundancy]
  • MIT West [Vassar St. at Hyatt]
  • BU Central [Deep under Green Line B branch]
  • Riverway & Longwood Ave
  • Babcock & Freeman
  • Cambridge St [@ N Beacon for Sportsville USA]
  • Western Ave & market
  • Arsenal [@ the Arsenal]
  • Watertown Square
  • Lexington St & Belmont St.
  • National Archives [Trapello Rd Waltham]
  • Waltham Center [Lexington St. & Main St.]
  • Prospect Hill [@ 4th St.]
  • Winter St & Reservoir [near Raytheon] -- end of line

Crazy -- but it would be very useful to tie a lot of lines together and a lot of places which are or will be rapidly developing

Note because it crosses back and forth under the Charles it certainly qualifies to be Blue
 
Would a "Stay In Your Comfortable Lexington Home And Bloviate About Never Building Any Transit Ever Because Innovations In Autonomous Personal Flying-Driving-Amphibious Vehicles Will Save Us All" thread be more aesthetically pleasing for one's sensibilities than an on-topic sidebar within a clearly-labeled thread one is not forced at gunpoint to be bored to tears by clicking on?
 
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F-Line,

Thanks for taking the time to respond in detail, much appreciated. Lots for me to chew on.

One aspect stands out. I understood that transitions from under-river tunnels to under-land tunnels are problematic regardless of technique and local conditions, but how you describe it in the Charles-specific circumstances sounds much worse than I had been (dimly) imagining. Your comments about the vulnerability of that transition zone on either end of the Fort Point Channel section of the Ted tunnel are daunting.

As for:
I don't think we're ready in 2016. This is a multi-decade debate that's barely begun to become hot-button.
… …

Totally out-of-sight/out-of-mind for no less than 20 years. Just file this Blue stuff away in the file cabinet and pay it no more mind, because we've got lots more urgent transit building to occupy our times.
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I think you were referring to the Blue from MGH to Kenmore; I hope to hell we’re not quite that far off on the Red / Blue connector itself, though it’s clearly not moving at the pace I would like it to move. I agree with your concluding assertion about having lots more urgent priorities than MGH – Kenmore Blue, but I see Red/Blue connection as one of them. Especially every evening when the Park Street Green Line platforms just get crazier and crazier with overcrowding. It’s been like watching a slow-motion heart attack these last fifteen years.
 
Once the future of GLX at least to Union Square and College Avenue is secured, Red-Blue is definitely the highest-priority concrete-in-ground project on the rapid transit side.* BLX-Lynn can't happen without it, RLX-Arlington probably can't. GLX-Porter and GLX-Route 16 are very attractive projects but getting downtown working first is essential. Only OLX-Roslindale might reasonably jump Red-Blue on the priority queue, and that's only if the timing works out for the T to grab 25-50M in federal grants and bang that one out real fast.

* Station ADA mods will be largely complete by about 2022; while stations will always need renovated every few decades, we're in the final stages of the massively disruptive and expensive ADA mods. Hynes is 2/3 funded by the Viola development; it'll start construction in 2019 if the mBTA can come up with $15M. Wollaston should be at 100% design, with funding pending approval. That leaves only Symphony (low-priority with only 1700 daily riders and the OL two blocks away; 15% design found a lot of challenges), Boylston (low ridership, close to other stations, ADA exemption), and Bowdoin (probably eliminated by Red-Blue, and low-priority anyway) as the only non-surface-stop stations that aren't ADA'd.
 
The EGE said:
Once the future of GLX at least to Union Square and College Avenue is secured, Red-Blue is definitely the highest-priority concrete-in-ground project on the rapid transit side.*

...

* Station ADA mods will be largely complete by about 2022; while stations will always need renovated every few decades, we're in the final stages of the massively disruptive and expensive ADA mods.
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Yeah, that's how I see the rapid transit priorities. Hopefully the political will shows up after GLX gets secured.
 
Different route(s) for the Red/Blue Connector from 1926. These are cool. I like Route B the best.

34840836501_539f2388f4_b.jpg


The original map is at http://www.wardmaps.com/browse.php?page=11&world=0&cont=1&count=1&state=1&city=1&s=&o= along with some other very interesting transit expansion plans from that time.

I think the concept here was to tie Blue into Green at Park, and convert at least one branch of the Green Line west of Park Street into the Blue Line.
 
The 1926 plan would have created two rapid transit lines: Maverick - State - Park - Kenmore - Comm Ave - terminal at Warren Street, and Lechmere - Park - Boylston - southern tunnel branch - Railroad ROW - Huntington Ave - terminal at Brigham Circle. The Maverick end may have been extended to a cross-platform connection with the BRB&L. You can see that plan here: http://www.wardmaps.com/viewasset.php?aid=18896

Although that plan was not carried out, several elements were reused. Those included the loop track at Kenmore (to allow the C to turn there), a subway to Huntington Avenue (built on a different alignment in 1941), and connecting the East Boston Tunnel to the BRB&L (Blue Line, 1952).

Other elements from the plan were also (partially) built: Orange Line to Reading, conversion of the Highland (D) Branch to light rail, Red Line to Braintree, and Orange Line to Forest Hills via Back Bay.
 
I'd never thought about the possibility of Red-Blue connector at Park vs. MGH. That seems like it would be much easier to build... especially Route C. It kills a future BLX to Kenmore via the Storrow but I don't think that's something anyone has ever thought about beyond an enthusiasts proposal.
 
meddlepal said:
I'd never thought about the possibility of Red-Blue connector at Park vs. MGH. That seems like it would be much easier to build... especially Route C. It kills a future BLX to Kenmore via the Storrow but I don't think that's something anyone has ever thought about beyond an enthusiasts proposal.
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Why would tunneling down Tremont be easier than tunneling down Cambridge St? The distances are comparable (especially when you consider the old portal on Cambridge St). Park St station itself is 100+ years older than Charles/MGH; I imagine that integrating new platforms into it would be anything but easy.

And wouldn't this also negate the benefit of Red-Blue relieving transfer pressure at Park?
 
JumboBuc said:
Why would tunneling down Tremont be easier than tunneling down Cambridge St? The distances are comparable (especially when you consider the old portal on Cambridge St). Park St station itself is 100+ years older than Charles/MGH; I imagine that integrating new platforms into it would be anything but easy.
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Also tunneling under Tremont would require tunneling under the Green Line.
 
Just Wondering. It popped into my mind once again. What is the feasibility of connecting the Blue Line from Bowdoin to Charles MGH and the connecting the line from there to Kenmore Station in order to replace the entire Green Line D Branch. I just noticed from the real life maps of the MBTA that the D Branch is expansive. An actual subway would be better suited for that amount of travel than say a trolley.
 
kevtron2000 said:
Just Wondering. It popped into my mind once again. What is the feasibility of connecting the Blue Line from Bowdoin to Charles MGH and the connecting the line from there to Kenmore Station in order to replace the entire Green Line D Branch. I just noticed from the real life maps of the MBTA that the D Branch is expansive. An actual subway would be better suited for that amount of travel than say a trolley.
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Scroll back through this thread. It has been extensively discussed. Also over in this thread:
http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?t=3664 because it probably is crazy.

Pretty expensive, but conceptually doable. Takes a major force of political will though.

Need to put Storrow Drive on a diet, and take out one side of lanes for the tunnel.
Expensive underwater tunnel to connect to Kenmore (crossing the Muddy River).
Questionable service benefits beyond the connection to Charles MGH. Run to Kenmore is single side density -- usually bad for transit usage. Riverside run probably does not have the ridership to justify heavy rail. Likely intense opposition in Brookline and Newton to the heavier trains roaring through.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Scroll back through this thread. It has been extensively discussed. Also over in this thread:
http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?t=3664 because it probably is crazy.

Pretty expensive, but conceptually doable. Takes a major force of political will though.

Need to put Storrow Drive on a diet, and take out one side of lanes for the tunnel.
Expensive underwater tunnel to connect to Kenmore (crossing the Muddy River).
Questionable service benefits beyond the connection to Charles MGH. Run to Kenmore is single side density -- usually bad for transit usage. Riverside run probably does not have the ridership to justify heavy rail. Likely intense opposition in Brookline and Newton to the heavier trains roaring through.
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My thoughts would be connecting from Bowdoin to Charles MGH and then going down say Charles Street and turning on Beacon Street. There would be another stop called like "West End" on that corner of the Public Garden (Arlington by Beacon Street). Then, it would go down Beacon Street and have like another stop called "Charles River".

It might be crazy since it would involve some 90 degrees turns.

True for the Brookline/Newton Opposition. Suburbanites tend to be opposed to heavier trains due to noise. That could be alleviated due to new zoning, emiment domain, and walls to reduce noise. If other subway systems can do urban to suburb heavy rail like the Metro in DC, we can do it in Massachusetts as well. We have the RedLine to Braintree of all places.
 
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