MBTA Red Line / Blue Line Connector

bigpicture7 said:
While I seem to always or almost always share your values, I typically disagree with you about how to actually get things done quickly (or at all). Here too I disagree. This becoming an "MBTA and MGH partnership" means one of the city's most powerful non-gov institutions now co-owns the project to a certain extent. It gains much more momentum that way.

BTW, values-based activism that has no chance of succeeding is failed activism. Humans are flawed, hey need unconventional pushes to get things done. That will always be reality.
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MGH has wanted this for over 20 years and it hasn't meant squat.
 
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Tallguy said:
MGH has wanted this for over 20 years and it hasn't meant squat.
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"Wanting it" is not the same as doing anything about it. There's a big difference between MGH saying they'd like it, and MGH using its considerable financial, logistical, and political resources to help shepherd it into existence. The latter is the kind of support that helps things get done.
 
Charlie_mta said:
I like BLX to Lynn better because it would serve a large low income community.
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Going off-topic, but will say there are parts of Rozzie that are lower income, and it would serve to help buses going to Forest Hills and tied up on Washington terminate earlier at a subway. The Fairmont line with electrification + subway service would serve the poorest parts of Boston along the Blue Hill corridor through Roxbury, Dot, Mattapan, and Hyde Park. I would think also much cheaper than the BLX to Lynn as the ROW is already there - just needs catenary and EMUs (+ support structures). I do think BLX to Lynn makes the most sense for a true/big heavy rail extension, though, and is needed in addition to any regional rail solution (whereas the Fairmont corridor is pretty much stuck with EMU service forever without a ton of tunneling/new ROW acquisition).

More on topic, though: the one stop move extension for the Red/Blue connector is probably the most shovel ready project the MBTA has (maybe the +1 at the end of the GLX is also close-ish), and it has by far the biggest impact system wide in finally connecting the two lines.
 
bakgwailo said:
Going off-topic, but will say there are parts of Rozzie that are lower income, and it would serve to help buses going to Forest Hills and tied up on Washington terminate earlier at a subway. The Fairmont line with electrification + subway service would serve the poorest parts of Boston along the Blue Hill corridor through Roxbury, Dot, Mattapan, and Hyde Park. I would think also much cheaper than the BLX to Lynn as the ROW is already there - just needs catenary and EMUs (+ support structures). I do think BLX to Lynn makes the most sense for a true/big heavy rail extension, though, and is needed in addition to any regional rail solution (whereas the Fairmont corridor is pretty much stuck with EMU service forever without a ton of tunneling/new ROW acquisition).
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On this site, the map below shows Lynn and Salem as low income areas, as well as Roxbury and Dorchester. Rozzie looks like it's not. Based on the map, my priorities for rail transit would be the Red-Blue Connector first, BLX to Lynn second, and as you described, electrification and EMU's on the Fairmont line as third.

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Wouldn't it then make more sense to have electric regional rail through Lynn and Salem rather than extending the Blue Line?
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Wouldn't it then make more sense to have electric regional rail through Lynn and Salem rather than extending the Blue Line?
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I don't think the Eastern Route, even if electrified for Regional Rail, could support the kind of frequencies that Blue could to Lynn's bus hub (probably especially true if they don't deal with those grade crossings in Chelsea).
 
bigpicture7 said:
IIRC, the ground beneath Cambridge st. is a disaster of tangled up ancient utilities that all need to be relocated. There were diagrams related to utility relocation posted in conceptual design documents upthread.
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How can that be? Wasn't the whole thing was completely rebuilt after the urban renewal bulldozers went through? Under that street should be pretty clean.
 
HenryAlan said:
How can that be? Wasn't the whole thing was completely rebuilt after the urban renewal bulldozers went through? Under that street should be pretty clean.
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I'd worry you'd have a tangle of old gas and water lines under the non-renewed (Back of Beacon Hill) side of the street.

Edit: @JeffDowntown beat me to this, so I'll only add that the utilities on the Hill side of the street are the ones that Urban Renewal would have had no occasion to relocate.
 
HenryAlan said:
How can that be? Wasn't the whole thing was completely rebuilt after the urban renewal bulldozers went through? Under that street should be pretty clean.
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Before the 1920s, Cambridge St was a typical old Boston narrow Street. It was widened along the north side of it in the 20s, but I would assume the utilities in the old south half of the street were not redone. Then in the 60s the Charles River Park urban renewal project slightly adjusted the north edge of the street, straightening it out a bit, but doing nothing with the utilities under the street. That's what I think probably happened, but it would have to be verified.
 
Brattle Loop said:
"Wanting it" is not the same as doing anything about it. There's a big difference between MGH saying they'd like it, and MGH using its considerable financial, logistical, and political resources to help shepherd it into existence. The latter is the kind of support that helps things get done.
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I'm sorry but to date the only resources I have seen them commit is to offer to connect their building to the potential station, which is in their own self interest.
 
Tallguy said:
I'm sorry but to date the only resources I have seen them commit is to offer to connect their building to the potential station, which is in their own self interest.
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Committing to build out a head house inside their building is certainly in MGH's interest, but it is a public headhouse. So they are building a significant benefit for the station at their own expense, and forgoing other potential uses of the expensive space. And while making the T more convenient for their employees and visitors is certainly in MGH's interest, it is also in everyone's interest from a supporting mass transit perspective. Typically that is viewed as a win-win.
 
Charlie_mta said:
I like BLX to Lynn better because it would serve a large low income community.
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I don't know if this makes a great deal of budgetary/logistical sense, but it seems like with a new governor there might be some momentum for a bigger project and tackling both projects in quick succession of each other - the Charles/MGH extension and the extension to Lynn - and marketing it as one project, i.e. 'A better Blue Line' or something like that. I realize that the Lynn extension would need more planning/engineering but that might be handled while Charles/MGH is under construction. If we wanted to get real crazy, we could add a conceptual Phase III showing an extension to Salem and a spur to Chelsea/Everett to help generate some enthusiasm for those future projects.
 
Smuttynose said:
I don't know if this makes a great deal of budgetary/logistical sense, but it seems like with a new governor there might be some momentum for a bigger project and tackling both projects in quick succession of each other - the Charles/MGH extension and the extension to Lynn - and marketing it as one project, i.e. 'A better Blue Line' or something like that. I realize that the Lynn extension would need more planning/engineering but that might be handled while Charles/MGH is under construction. If we wanted to get real crazy, we could add a conceptual Phase III showing an extension to Salem and a spur to Chelsea/Everett to help generate some enthusiasm for those future projects.
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A Blue Line spur to Chelsea/Everett wouldn't make sense IMO (a Green Line branch to Chelsea/Everett would be ideal), but I agree with what you said regarding a potential BL extension to Salem.
 
themissinglink said:
A Blue Line spur to Chelsea/Everett wouldn't make sense IMO (a Green Line branch to Chelsea/Everett would be ideal), but I agree with what you said regarding a potential BL extension to Salem.
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Agreed. Apart from the fact that the infrastructure isn't really there in places to shiv a Blue Line branch into Chelsea, branching Blue would not be a good idea at all, especially not before Lynn's bus hub (for the same reason that an Orange Line branch south of Malden to, say, Everett, isn't a particularly good idea). A Green Line branch eating (or sharing space) with the SL3 would indeed be a better fit.
 
FWIW, here's what the 2004 Program for Mass Transportation snapshotted for each of the BLX projects, costs (2004 dollars) and ridership. . .

Red-Blue
PMT1.png


Wonderland-Lynn
PMT2.png


Lynn-Salem
PMT3.png



Lynn is the largest-ridership transit expansion project that the PMT evaluated after the Urban Ring and NSRL. Note that these projections were with current middling headways. With Blue Line Transformation angling for 3-4 minute headways, the ridership figures for each project are now likely to be lots higher.
 
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JeffDowntown said:
Committing to build out a head house inside their building is certainly in MGH's interest, but it is a public headhouse. So they are building a significant benefit for the station at their own expense, and forgoing other potential uses of the expensive space. And while making the T more convenient for their employees and visitors is certainly in MGH's interest, it is also in everyone's interest from a supporting mass transit perspective. Typically that is viewed as a win-win.
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So, why is an extensive headhouse needed when we will have 2.0 fare collection by then?
 
Does Orient Heights have enough space to support the cars needed for Red-Blue, Lynn, and BLT (i.e. 3-minute headways of Orange sized trains)? It seems like there's limited expansion potential there.
 
737900er said:
Does Orient Heights have enough space to support the cars needed for Red-Blue, Lynn, and BLT (i.e. 3-minute headways of Orange sized trains)? It seems like there's limited expansion potential there.
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The 411-space parking lots at Orient Heights are excessive-capacity for such an urban station, but the T has held onto them instead of turning them over for redevelopment strictly because that's where the storage expansion would go if needed. You'll see additional yard tracks get plunked down there, and probably a generous halving (or more) of the parking capacity.
 
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