MBTA Red Line / Blue Line Connector

mtnorshore said:
Its only a few blocks from the State Orange stop to Downtown Crossing, a pedestrian mall underneath Washington St would be fabulous, like Montreal.
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mtnorshore -- I call your attention to the alternative Red Blue passenger connector -- see # 246 in this thread from a bit over a year ago

With modern Logan-Parking-Terminal type moving walkways there is no particular reason that we need to have the intersection between Red and Blue be particularly close together -- in other words leave the subway tunnels as is -- just provide a link for the passengers

Originally like you I thought Orange to Orange and you have the Red-Blue via Orange

Then after doing some walking about between Park and DTX and State Orange to State Blue I thought of a direct link not following a particular line but just a pedestrian tunnel

The key when you look at a map is Otis Street and Devonshire St

You connect to the new Blue Line renovations to State at Devonshire -- follow Devonshire to Otis and then proceed down Otis -- I used to think that there was a lot of additional digging needed to get to the Winter / Summer St Concourse -- but there isn't

This quote from https://web.archive.org/web/20050304093249/http://members.aol.com/eddanamta/abandoned/abanstas.html
Remnants of Abandoned Stations, Tunnels, and Station Entrances found on the MBTA

by Jonathan Belcher

Park / Downtown Crossing / South Stations:
When the Red Line was extended from Park to South Station in 1915-16, the new tunnel featured two levels. The bottom featured tracks for Rapid Transit trains, the top was intended for possible future undetermined use as pedestrian passageways and/or use by surface streetcars. The top level in the Washington Street Station area became a concourse providing direct entrances to the Filene's (1912) and Jordan Marsh (1930 & 1951) department stores. Part of the top level near Dewey Square was demolished when the Dewey Square Automobile tunnel was built in 1955. In January, 1979, the section between Park Street and Washington was opened as a pedestrian passageway. The portion between Washington (now Downtown Crossing) and Dewey Square has never been opened as a public area, and is presently used by the MBTA's Revenue Department as a turnstile repair shop.
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So all that we need to do is bore a pedestrian tunnel wide enough for two moving walkways with a central open area for the dedicated hiker from the State T @ 53 State or there abouts down Devonshire to Otis and down Otis to the Summer / Winter concourse and voila

The added benefit -- build a new all purpose T entrance @ Franklin and Devonshire [100 Franklin] where a complete underground complex of T-commuter-useful shops can be developed to help pay for the tunneling work

https://goo.gl/maps/cdoL2g5LtfH2

from the new entrance:
  • a moving walkway takes you north to the Blue Line @ State -- where you can
    • exit directly @ Dock Square
    • take the Blue Line to the Airport and beyond -- by the time this is built you will be able to take a moving walkway from the Airport Station to Terminal E and the rest
  • a moving walkway takes you South to the Winter / Summer Concourse
    • directly to the and the Orange and Red -- with connections to the Seaport / Innovation District via the South Station branch of the Silver Line
    • on the surface the Roxbury branch of the Silver Line
    • and via the Winter Street Concourse you can access the Green Line as well
 
. . .because as we all know from escalators in T stations, moving walkways will never ever break and be blocked off with cones for weeks at a time. :rolleyes:
 
Don't be so negative. Moving walkways never break. They just become regular walkways.
 
underground said:
Don't be so negative. Moving walkways never break. They just become regular walkways.
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Reminds me of the old Mitch hedberg joke. Tried to find a clip of it to post here but couldn't cut just that segment
 
Deetroyt said:
Reminds me of the old Mitch hedberg joke. Tried to find a clip of it to post here but couldn't cut just that segment
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"I like escalators, because an escalator can never break; it can only become stairs. You would never see an "escalator temporarily out of order" sign, just "Escalator temporarily stairs... sorry for the convenience. We apologize for the fact that you can still get up there."" -Mitch Hedberg
 
Uncivil_Engineer said:
"I like escalators, because an escalator can never break; it can only become stairs. You would never see an "escalator temporarily out of order" sign, just "Escalator temporarily stairs... sorry for the convenience. We apologize for the fact that you can still get up there."" -Mitch Hedberg
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You must not have been to Washington 5 years ago.

About half the subway stations there had broken escalators! Equally as bad were the elevators. I got so frustrated and aggravated with having to drag my heavy suitcase up & down escalators that weren't even on!

And the ones leading to and from the street are very long!

This particular day, a reporter just happened to be on the platform at Dupont Circle Station, taking commuters' opinions on the lousy escalator & elevator service. I told her that it was so ridiculous and exasperating to have to climb up & down broken escalators at the station. I was in the newspapers a few days later.

The south entrance had all three of its escalators replaced with new ones since then. the ones leading to the platforms were repaired and put back into service, though at times, the ones inside are not on.
 
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Ari analyzes how -- in his estimation -- the state purposefully botched cost estimates on Red-Blue.

Link
 
^wow thanks for sharing. Didn't realize the cost estimate assumed a tbm. That's preposterous - the machine itself would be nearly as long as the full tunnel.
 
Thank god for the internet so that these shady practices can be brought to light. If only someone would do the same for the MTA in NYC.
 
Just like the GLX, the T's proposal for Red-Blue is gold plated to an obscenely wasteful, unachievable level.

Seattle's deep bore tunnel being built under its downtown, years behind schedule and way over budget, has run into all kinds of unforeseen physical obstacles and conditions. In the case of Cambridge Street, a cut and cover tunnel is much less risky than deep bore, as well as being exponentially cheaper.
 
I thought that was kind of the point of the Red-Blue connector though - the State/MBTA were trying their best to weasel out of any legal commitment to even do the design/feasibility study, let alone build it after the Big Dig. A more recent exam (although it didn't have a legal mandate) would be the last NSRL study - the administration then seemed to really, really not want to do it and the study itself seemed to come out to justify that stance (when it should be the other way around).
 
Charlie_mta said:
Just like the GLX, the T's proposal for Red-Blue is gold plated to an obscenely wasteful, unachievable level.

Seattle's deep bore tunnel being built under its downtown, years behind schedule and way over budget, has run into all kinds of unforeseen physical obstacles and conditions. In the case of Cambridge Street, a cut and cover tunnel is much less risky than deep bore, as well as being exponentially cheaper.
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If done right, I would be 110% behind the RBLC. But the problem here is that this is the T. Like you said, the fact that it would be mired in cost overruns is a foregone conclusion.

When I worked in the nonprofit field in DTX, we used to hand out these "public transit funding" pamphlets to the new employees. We were fundraising for a public interest group. So, there were quotas and high turnover rates because most of the "go-getters" were just there looking for part-time work. Anyways, the pamphlets had an outline and description of all the proposed projects for the T. GLX to Medford/Tufts, RLX to Hanscom/128, BLX to Lynn/Nahant and the RBLC.

I would see the looks of yearning and desire on the faces of these young callers/canvassers who envisioned a future where all these projects would be built on time and on budget. Many of them had either just moved to the city or were there for school and needed a few hours. So, they didn't know the ins-and-outs of Beacon Hill politics. And this was months after Obama's historic election. So there was hope among the canvassers that incremental change was upon us. I heard one our callers (a young kid out of Emerson) look at the future GLX and said "Good, I can't wait until they build the GL. I live in Union Square and I can't keep taking the bus." Obviously, I couldn't say anything but I wanted to serve this kid a full plate of reality and tell him how the T actually operates.

Again, I think that these "doable"T projects were created at a time when neoliberalism and incremental change was seen as reaching across the aisles of the State House. That was before reality set in. The T, along with other regional transit authorities across this great land of ours, failed when they chose not to invest for the long-term. This isn't just a Boston problem. I see all my friends posting their usual "T sucks" and "this is why the other cities hate us" recycled comments online like that'll get the T up and running.

Sound Transit and the TriMet (I've ridden both) are fine light-rail systems. I think that there is a little bit more of an investment in their LR systems, but they still have stations that have been under construction for years now. It's fun to shit on the T, until you're ridden the SEPTA OL. Then you'll never ever complain again about how long the GL type seven overhauls are taking.
 
Arlington said:
I'm convinced. Does the pocket track need a 10'x300' platform? I'd be interested in F-Line's take.
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I replied to Ari on the blog about this. It's too damn tight for the pocket track to store trains before the platforms and have any sort of fluid motion in and out of the pocket. With space available you're literally doing the tightest crossovers possible...akin to B Line Blandford St. yard...instead of something like Alewife or Forest Hills that's configured-to-task. There's literally not a foot to spare for spreading the crossovers if this pocket is going to take up all available space before hitting the platform...which in turn has a fixed westerly limit to how far you can push the platform before the Red Line viaduct pilings upstairs become an obstruction that takes $$$ for additional underpinning.

So tail tracks are sort of a necessity here. 100% agree with the thrust of Ari's argument that this deep-bore build looks suspiciously books-cooked and that 1000 ft. of cut-and-cover from S. Russell St. on a thoroughfare as wide as Cambridge St. should not cost as much as what they're proposing (mitigation included). He's absolutely right to pounce on that, and I hope it gains more public traction that MassDOT's making this purposefully harder than it needs to be. I just think that storage sidebar is secondary to the main argument and not a wormhole worth getting lost in. Too cutesy a perfect-is-enemy-of-good distraction from the bread-and-butter build, and too much rooted in theory vs. the tail-track reality that we can be pretty sure the T can competently operate to obsess about too much. Storage is most definitely not the cost bloater leading this project by the nose...presence of the TBM when the street utilities have to be ripped up anyway is the bone of contention.
 
BL_RL.jpg


Idea for Blue/Red connection at MGH and connection at Kenmore.

1. Partition and drain area highlighted. Boundaries defined by Esplanade Islands.

2. Build the tunnel cut/cover in drained work area. Perhaps bore to connect to MGH and Kenmore station areas.

3. Build station on esplanade with proximity to foot bridge to Back Bay neighborhood.

4. refill construction area with water from Charles River.


I think this may be the way to go about not only building the connection to the RL, but also bringing the BL down to Fenway (I would like to eventually see it take over what is the D branch of the GL). This alignment also being less intrusive on vehicular traffic, less disruptive to historic buildings along Beacon St. and the geography lends itself sort of conveniently to this projects construction.

Considering that the bulk of this route's construction seems to be "out of the way" of some important infrastructure and developed area, I think the process could go quick as well. Maybe....
 
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No way cutting through the Esplanade would work because of flood mitigation for the Charles Basin. This can be done very straightforwardly with one big caveat:
You must tear down Storrow Drive between Kenmore and Charles Circle.
​
If you propose that and get buy-in from MassDOT, then it is reasonable to expect that there will be a mandated transit trade-in as necessary concession for doing the parkway teardown. In which case the Blue Line would take up the space of the former eastbound carriageway, and westbound would be reserved for a low-speed 2-lane park road. The full parkway can remain between Public Gardens and Leverett Circle for spanning Route 28/I-93, and between Kenmore/Fenway and the Pike for Pike access.


Here's how it would go:


  • Build Charles MGH per the official Red-Blue design.

  • Build out both tail tracks stretching beyond the station, per the official Red-Blue design. Start extending the tunneling from tail tracks' ends. Inbound track would continue cut-and-cover from its end under the CVS front sidewalk underneath the Storrow EB exit ramp. Outbound track would make a wider swoop around Cambridge St. and pass under the rotary under the Red Line viaduct overpass to meet back up with the other track.

  • Assume that the Charles-to-Beacon length of parkway is busted down from 6 to 4 lanes, since it's now just a connector road to the Public Gardens and not a thru parkway. Use freed-up side space on the Charles St. side for the tunnel dig so you can stay very shallow and just plant grass and wide sidewalks on top.

  • Recycle verbatim the Storrow EB auto tunnel as a subway tunnel. Refurb and re-waterproof it, cut down the roadbed to the substrate to increase the clearances for Blue Line cars. Stick Esplanade station platforms where the tunnel widens out for the Copley exit. It's exactly the right amount of room for a station.

  • At the west portal, stay on footprint of Storrow EB roadbed and tunnel directly abutting the Back St. retaining wall. Storrow WB can become your traffic-calmed 2-lane road spanning the Beacon exit and Charlesgate.

  • Tunnel shallow up against that retaining wall, rebuilding the wall as a combo tunnel wall and new Back St. retainer. Dig down maybe 10 ft. at most, and have the other tunnel wall sticking 3-4 ft. above the surface. Simple 4-sided box, no more complicated than the Wellington tunnel on the Orange Line or the Columbia Jct. fly-unders near JFK on the Red Line.

  • Pour dirt on top of the tunnel and grade a gentle hillside from Back St. to the 2-lane park road now on the Storrow WB carriageway. Sort of like a very long BU Beach, with fully open access from Back St. the entire length. Tunnel is now invisible, but because it's a few feet above ground-level of the riverbank and in one unified structure with the redone Back St. retaining wall the tunnel acts as a flood barrier + spillway fortifying Back & Beacon from a Charles Basin flood. Without breaching the transit line. 2-for 1 infrastructure FTW!!!

  • Other station goes in the Storrow EB Mass Ave. cut. Added depth + hillsides serve up the width for station + egresses up to street level. Increase in depth sets trajectory for slipping under Muddy River into Kenmore.

  • Continue same depth. Turn at Charlesgate East to slip under Muddy diagonally, using metal-shield tunneling to shiv roof underneath Muddy River without disturbing the river. Put a pump room to protect the Mass Ave. station and the whole deeper cut between Mass Ave. and Beacon St. from Charles flooding.

  • Stay same depth and curve onto Beacon at Charlesgate West intersection. Deep-bore to Kenmore instead of cut-and-cover to avoid impacts to old buildings and slip under the 2 current levels (mezzanine/trolley loop + GL station) of Kenmore station.

  • Put platforms under Beacon at about Raleigh St. in front of Myles Standish Hall, offset from the GL station which is slotted under Comm Ave. Blue station's northernmost limits are right where the solid lane stripe ends at the Comm Ave./Beacon merge, in front of the falafel shop. Possible option to do a Blue-only egress next to Myles close-ish to the Bay State Rd. split.
    • Why offset like this? Lessons learned from past boondoggles like Silver Line Phase III's failed design show that underpinning old structures with new construction is a cost/mitigation killer, so you want to keep the widest part of the Blue level from touching under the footprint of the Green level and mash back down to your narrowest possible width when it's time to pass under the levels upstairs.

  • Bisect diagonally under Kenmore Green level and upstairs mezzanine with minimal-width 2-track tunnel, per the golden rule of structural underpinning. Then after safely clearing the upstairs footprint widen out slightly for an Alewife-style three tail-track yard in a unified bore. Terminate tunnel under Brookline Ave. intersection with a bare wall.



Muddy River approach to Kenmore is the only truly delicate construction at high price. Cut-and-cover exiting Charles Circle slightly complicated. The rest is far and away the cheapest per- tunneling foot subway constructed in Boston since the Ashmont Branch was covered over in a cut between Fields Corner and Ashmont, because of the not-quite-subsurface recycling of the Storrow EB roadpack and the verbatim recycling of the auto tunnel for Esplanade station.


But this can only happen if the parkway gets the heave-ho. You simply can't waterproof it from Charles Basin in a more vulnerable sea level rise/dam-topping era by being completely subterranean along the riverbank. The tunnel construction must double as a self-regulating passive flood barrier, and the only way to do that is to bolt it to the Back St. retaining wall on the Storrow EB roadpack in a partially raised box.
 
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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.
 
D has lots of pedestrian grade crossings that would have to be dealt with for conversion to blue. It also would preclude any green extension to Needham that might be required in teh future to replace the Needham CR line if those slots are needed for NEC traffic.
 
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