New England Revolution Stadium | 173 Alford Street | Boston-Everett

A number of folks seem to believe that a light-rail/tram/streetcar line won't work for a stadium. Yet, we have the Green Line to Kenmore/Fenway which will be about the same size as a north american soccer stadium.

Many European cities with football stadiums with capacities of 40-50k operate just fine with a single tram line serving their stadium. A station needs to be set-up to let through a 5 or 6 crush loaded trams followed by a number of full but not crush loaded trams in the space of 10 to 20 minutes, but, peak of peak capacity isn't as unmanagable as that. A crush loaded eurotram may have up to 600 passengers. In 10 to 20 minutes, you could move 5-7k people and the remainder leave early, going a different route, or are headed to different destinations.

I do struggle to imagine just how a BRT would move the same amount of people though -- just imagining that there may need to be a number of bus bays and fairly confusing express service just to serve the stadium flows. IIRC SilverLine buses cap out at 75-80 riders per bus. You could have buses departing 2 a minute, but, favorably that's just a 160 riders per minute. or maybe 3,200 riders in 20 if you can keep up that throughput with 40 bus departures in 20 minutes.
 
as02143 said:
I do struggle to imagine just how a BRT would move the same amount of people though -- just imagining that there may need to be a number of bus bays and fairly confusing express service just to serve the stadium flows. IIRC SilverLine buses cap out at 75-80 riders per bus. You could have buses departing 2 a minute, but, favorably that's just a 160 riders per minute. or maybe 3,200 riders in 20 if you can keep up that throughput with 40 bus departures in 20 minutes.
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People touched on this earlier... depending on where the stadium was located it wouldn't be an unreasonable walk to Sullivan or Assembly. It may not be all that safe as currently constructed but that's something that could be fixed. Busses would be there to give people an additional outlet but most people would just walk.
 
as02143 said:
A number of folks seem to believe that a light-rail/tram/streetcar line won't work for a stadium. Yet, we have the Green Line to Kenmore/Fenway which will be about the same size as a north american soccer stadium.

Many European cities with football stadiums with capacities of 40-50k operate just fine with a single tram line serving their stadium. A station needs to be set-up to let through a 5 or 6 crush loaded trams followed by a number of full but not crush loaded trams in the space of 10 to 20 minutes, but, peak of peak capacity isn't as unmanagable as that. A crush loaded eurotram may have up to 600 passengers. In 10 to 20 minutes, you could move 5-7k people and the remainder leave early, going a different route, or are headed to different destinations.

I do struggle to imagine just how a BRT would move the same amount of people though -- just imagining that there may need to be a number of bus bays and fairly confusing express service just to serve the stadium flows. IIRC SilverLine buses cap out at 75-80 riders per bus. You could have buses departing 2 a minute, but, favorably that's just a 160 riders per minute. or maybe 3,200 riders in 20 if you can keep up that throughput with 40 bus departures in 20 minutes.
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Look at Old Trafford. One of the most famous soccer stadiums in the world. It sits adjacent to a number of surface parking lots and a rail yard. You have a tram stop that's a 3-4 minute walk and then if I am remembering correctly a light rail line that's a 15 minute walk. They seem to have little issue handling 60k plus fans for every game. The one I went to was sold out and the stadium was pretty much full when the game began.
 
KentXie said:
As long as the LRT or tram doesn't run on the Green Line. The Green Line can barely handle Red Sox loads
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Type 10s will be implemented by the time a LRT extension is under construction in Everett..
 
I love the location as long as there is a subway stop at it - No silver line joke either.

I’m sure the cost prohibitive and lack of imagination the T has will make this fairly reasonable idea a “crazy transit pitch” but

What is wrong with an Orange line spur? The Red line goes to Dorchester & Braintree; the Green Line goes to Union Sq & Medford.

A spur would break off at Sullivan and stop directly in between the stadium and Encore. Then go underground for 1 or 2 more stops - which to me would take off a lot of pressure from the system and driver tidership

But hell even be a 1 stop spur is fine.

Although to be honest - I’m not sure why they can’t pedestrian bridge to Assembly.
 
Been discussed on the various transit threads quite a bit, but, general consensus seems to be that you can't branch before Malden/Oak Grove as before the would totally kill the headways and balance north of Sullivan - essentially going from a potential 4 minute headway to 8 minutes at best.
 
If the spur is done right couldn't some buses be rerouted from MC to a stop on the spur thus solving the headways problem? Even pushing forward the one stop extension on the GL in Medford with some buses rerouted out that way.
 
mass88 said:
Look at Old Trafford. One of the most famous soccer stadiums in the world. It sits adjacent to a number of surface parking lots and a rail yard. You have a tram stop that's a 3-4 minute walk and then if I am remembering correctly a light rail line that's a 15 minute walk. They seem to have little issue handling 60k plus fans for every game. The one I went to was sold out and the stadium was pretty much full when the game began.
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But you folks are all talking about smooth service by a serious European tram operator.

We're talking about a branch of the Green Line. That apples to turds in comparison.
 
I think the orange line spur conversation makes an incorrect assumption that it’s the most desirable option and thus we should figure out the engineering and operational difficulties it imposes.

But what justification is there exactly for a heavy rail spur here? 17 home MLS games? That’s the only time light rail capacity is going to be pushed and as has been mentioned type 10s will be on the tracks before something like this got done. A direct link from Chelsea to downtown already exists. No, there needs to be serious TOD as well as at least a redesign of sweester circle to capture the density north of 16 before heavy rail makes any kind of sense cost/benefit wise
 
KCasiglio said:
But what justification is there exactly for a heavy rail spur here? 17 home MLS games?
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...it's not the stadium. The stadium gets the funding mechanism and popular attention focus.

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I think the people who are speculating the heavy rail spur is imaging the spur goes beyond the stadium area but into the areas that should have heavy rail. I mean ones who are making maps and list out speculative stations are listing stations more than just Encore/Stadium.
 
Vagabond said:
...it's not the stadium. The stadium gets the funding mechanism and popular attention focus.

View attachment 26654
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Just as an aside those seem rather suspect - at least Boston jumped out at me. Forgetting the population jump to 675k, it looks like they are dividing by all of the City's area, including the ocean, which is ~89 sq mi. That makes no sense, as they should be using just the land area which is ~48.34 sq mi,putting the actual population density at close to 14,000/sq mi. Everett also seems like the population number is out of date and they also didn't take out the water area. Current density is more around 14,300/sq mi.

edit: atrocious grammar
 
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bakgwailo said:
Just as an aside those seem rather suspect - at least Boston jumped out at me. Forgetting the population jump to 675k, it looks like they are dividing by all of the City's area, including the ocean, which is ~89 sq mi. That makes no sense, as the should be using just the land area which is ~48.34 sq mi,putting the actual population density at close to 14,000/sq mi. Everett also seems like it the population number is out data and they didn't take out the water area. Current density is more around 14,300/sq mi.
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Have fun! https://donahue.umass.edu/business-...es-program/census-2020-data-for-massachusetts
 
ant8904 said:
I think the people who are speculating the heavy rail spur is imaging the spur goes beyond the stadium area but into the areas that should have heavy rail. I mean ones who are making maps and list out speculative stations are listing stations more than just Encore/Stadium.
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I understand that, but that means one of the 3 following routes:

Up broadway into Everett, where we’re solidly in crazy transit pitches territory

Following the commuter rail to Chelsea, where the RoW is as I described

Following the northern strand rail trail, which others have documented in great detail the extensive grade crossing issues

Which is all to restate my original point: without serious TOD development and a rebuilt sweester circle heavy rail will not deliver the returns to justify the costs and serious engineering/operational challenges.
 
bakgwailo said:
Just as an aside those seem rather suspect - at least Boston jumped out at me. Forgetting the population jump to 675k, it looks like they are dividing by all of the City's area, including the ocean, which is ~89 sq mi. That makes no sense, as the should be using just the land area which is ~48.34 sq mi,putting the actual population density at close to 14,000/sq mi. Everett also seems like it the population number is out data and they didn't take out the water area. Current density is more around 14,300/sq mi.
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Strange point: For some reason Boston reports its city area including ocean. San Francisco does not. (Different ocean ownership laws?) In true land area they are basically the same.
 
KCasiglio said:
I understand that, but that means one of the 3 following routes:

Up broadway into Everett, where we’re solidly in crazy transit pitches territory
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Why is going under broadway crazy-ville? They were doing cut-and-cover tunnels 100 years ago. Can’t be that logistically difficult in 2022, right?
 
Blackbird said:
Why is going under broadway crazy-ville? They were doing cut-and-cover tunnels 100 years ago. Can’t be that logistically difficult in 2022, right?
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Too big, to expensive, and too difficult to reasonably qualify as a Reasonable transit pitch, not divorced enough from reality to qualify for the God Mode thread. It's not particularly Crazy in terms of not requiring particularly novel engineering, but definitely Crazy in terms of which thread category it fits in based on the current defined criteria for each thread.
 
Blackbird said:
Why is going under broadway crazy-ville? They were doing cut-and-cover tunnels 100 years ago. Can’t be that logistically difficult in 2022, right?
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I wouldn’t call that route crazy based on engineering (probably only the northern strand route fits that bill) but a cut and cover tunnel through the main thoroughfare of Everett would be crazy disruptive and operations crazy for the same reason any pre-Malden spur would be.

The issue at hand isn’t feasibility but what makes the most sense for this area as it is/will be when there’s an MLS stadium. I don’t think it takes a formal study to recognize that an orange line spur isn’t going to be that. BRT? Green line? Non-green light rail? I think reasonable cases can be made and reasonable people have their preferences in lieu of hard numbers, but this isn’t the time/place for crayoning what our built to a ‘finished’ state systems would look like
 
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