bigeman312
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2012
- Messages
- 2,249
- Reaction score
- 2,042
One of the biggest bang-for-buck projects in terms of concrete has to be Newton Corner and a second West Newton platform. Just building the stations and running diesel trains every 15 minutes at peak could kill the 501/504 (which pretty much overlap the 57, although the 501 works in a strange way) and cut back the 505 to West Newton. Even under BNRD 501, 504, and 505 are planned to be operated every 15 minutes at peak.
I'd also add OLX to Roslindale to the list. The Roslindale Village-Forest Hills segment is overserved, and not having to run all the bus routes on the southwest side could provide room for network rationalization.
View attachment 33771
I 100% agree with this and want to add onto this comment. OLX to Roslindale Village is such a great project proposal.
Here, I'm going to add on to this pitch with a pitch for an infill stop between Roslindale Village and Forest Hills.
Roslindale Village is 1.4 track miles past Forest Hills, which would make it the second longest segment between stops on the Orange Line (behind only the Wellington - Malden Center stretch that has regular calls for an infill stop). The area between Forest Hills and Roslindale Village is densely populated (except for the Arboretum, of course). In fact the census tract that spans the sub-neighborhood between Forest Hills and Roslindale Village has a population density of 18.7k per square mile. This is more densely populated than the census tracts for all Orange Line stops north of North Station (as of 2020).
This densely populated sub-neighborhood would still necessitate bus service in the case of an OL+1 to Roslindale Village, given the relatively long gap between Roslindale Village and Forest Hills. Maybe that just looks like the 32, 34, 35, and 36, for example. Still a big win to be able to cut the 30, 34E, 40, 50, and 51 back to Roslindale Village, for example, but without much ability to keep trimming. By adding an infill stop at South Street (I'll name this station 'Aroretum' here), you'd have more flexibility to free up more bus resources. Arboretum Station would be 0.7 track miles from each of Roslindale Village and Forest Hills, which is still appropriately longer than most Orange Line stop segments, including every one from Green Street through Community College.
Arboretum Station could also serve as a much more effective access point to the Arboretum than Forest Hills Station.