Reasonable Transit Pitches

Riverway Island/Kent Square/Aspinwall/Francis St/Netherlands: a new infill for Longwood

I've referenced this idea sporadically over the last couple of years, and in fact it isn't even originally mine. @davem quietly included it on his crayon map over ten years ago! But in any case, this is a proposal for a Green Line infill station between Longwood and Brookline Village, near the Brookline Water & Sewer building, just off of Netherlands Road, about 750 feet (as the crow flies) from the intersection of Brookline Ave & Francis St:

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An infill here would significantly improve access to the southern half of Longwood Medical Area from the D Line. It may also relieve some congestion from the E Line, as the hospitals along Francis St would now be accessible from both the D and E, rather than being largely covered by the E today.

That's the idea in a nutshell. Let's talk details.

First, what's wrong with the status quo?

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The D's Longwood station sits just north of Longwood Ave, which bisects LMA down the middle. If it's centrally located, then shouldn't that be enough?

However, when we layer in data from OnTheMap, we see that jobs are asymmetrically concentrated in Longwood's southwestern half:

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In particular, Brigham & Women's -- Longwood's single largest employer -- is as far as possible from Longwood station. This becomes clearer when we layer on the 10 minute walksheds:

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Brigham, Children's, and Harvard Medical School all sit more than 10 minutes away from Longwood station.

An infill closes that gap significantly:

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I went through and measured Google's estimated walking time to the main entrances of various Longwood hospitals, from the extant Longwood, Longwood Medical Area, and Brigham Circle stations. As we can see, Brigham and Children's are much easier to access from the E, and the western campus of Beth Israel, plus the nearby Yawkey and Joslin Centers, aren't particularly easily accessed from any line.
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Adding in an infill at Netherlands Road fills that gap:

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The D and E would both have stops at Longwood Ave and Francis St under this proposal. If we choose the best stop from each line for each hospital, we see that Netherlands Road beats Longwood station across the board, even if only slightly for Children's and HMS:

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The main question here is feasibility. The ROW itself is almost but not quite tangent. Both parcels to the east are owned by the City of Brookline. To the west, the Kent Street Apartments get a bit close to the tracks, but the northern western parcel has large parking lots separating the buildings and ROWs. The proximity to the Muddy River (and the Emerald Necklace) is a bit of a wild card, but, all in all, it shouldn't be the most challenging site for an infill.

One interesting wrinkle is that Riverway has no crosswalk at this location. (Something to be aware of if you are looking to check my math.) I can't imagine it would be an enormous challenge to add a crosswalk, but I suppose there's always room for surprises.

Finally: what's in a name? DaveM called this station "Riverway Island", which seems to be a name that realtors have suggested to create a distinct "neighborhood" here. "Aspinwall" is a nearby cross-street (though some distance away). "Kent Square" is just on the other side of Kent Street in Brookline, though would sound quite similar to the nearby Kent Street station on the C Line. "Francis St" actually exists on both sides of the station: Brookline has one just to the north, and Longwood's is less than 400 feet away; given Francis St's prominence within Longwood Medical Area, this would probably be the best name in terms of being readily identifiable.

But I find "Netherlands" (or "Netherlands Road") to be a delightfully absurd name, all the moreso because its titular street is a minor one, less than 1,000 feet long. On the other hand, that still beats out the street for which one of our most famous and most prominent stations is named.
 
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Idea: Leverage East-West Rail to enable same-day trips from Boston to Toronto, Montreal, and Burlington VT with a transfer at Albany

Boston's options for direct or at least same-day trips to destinations to the W and N are limited. The Downeaster is a great service for reaching Portland, ME but what about Toronto? Montreal? Burlington VT? You can reach these places from Boston by train today, if you're willing to do an overnight in lovely Albany (which I am only sort of mocking! There's beautiful architecture in Albany and I'm on my way there on the Maple Leaf as I'm typing this). The reason for the overnight layover is that all the relevant services here - Adirondack, Maple Leaf, and the Ethan Allen Express, run only once daily. And the Lake Shore Limited coming westward from Boston, arrives in Albany station at 6:10pm, after all the connecting services have already come through:

Maple Leaf to Toronto - 9:50am
Adirondack to Montreal - 9:50am
Ethan Allen Express to Burlington VT - 4:49pm

So how can this be fixed? It would be wonderful to see direct services added to connect Boston to Toronto, Montreal, and Burlington VT by running them through Albany. But I think that's probably God-Mode territory.

Or, maybe someday the Maple Leaf, Adirondack, and Ethan Allen Express could get a second daily train. Or some or all of those 3 routes could get a NYC/BOS split at Albany added, like the Lake Shore Limited does today. But I those options fall into the "crazy pitch" territory as there is likely not enough demand to justify the cost for it right now.

So the reasonable pitch would be to connect Boston with Toronto, Montreal, and Burlington VT with a transfer in Albany instead. Because when East-West Rail is completed, it's expected to bring 2 or 3 additional daily trains connecting Boston to Albany. Would it be possible for these new trains to be timed so a 1-2hr layover going from whatever-Amtrak-names-East-West-Rail to the Maple Leaf, Adirondack, or the Ethan Allen Express?

People don't love having to transfer trains, so this would generate less demand then direct service would. But it does have the virtue of being far more like to actually be built. Additionally, Albany-Rensselaer station has good amenities: a large and warm building with plenty of seating, restrooms, Amtrak staff for customer service, a cafe, and a convenience store. And if it were a 2hr transfer, some more experienced travelers would consider taking the city bus from the train station downtown to walk around or get lunch (it takes about 30mins roundtrip on the bus).
 
Idea: Leverage East-West Rail to enable same-day trips from Boston to Toronto, Montreal, and Burlington VT with a transfer at Albany

Boston's options for direct or at least same-day trips to destinations to the W and N are limited. The Downeaster is a great service for reaching Portland, ME but what about Toronto? Montreal? Burlington VT? You can reach these places from Boston by train today, if you're willing to do an overnight in lovely Albany (which I am only sort of mocking! There's beautiful architecture in Albany and I'm on my way there on the Maple Leaf as I'm typing this). The reason for the overnight layover is that all the relevant services here - Adirondack, Maple Leaf, and the Ethan Allen Express, run only once daily. And the Lake Shore Limited coming westward from Boston, arrives in Albany station at 6:10pm, after all the connecting services have already come through:

Maple Leaf to Toronto - 9:50am
Adirondack to Montreal - 9:50am
Ethan Allen Express to Burlington VT - 4:49pm

So how can this be fixed? It would be wonderful to see direct services added to connect Boston to Toronto, Montreal, and Burlington VT by running them through Albany. But I think that's probably God-Mode territory.

Or, maybe someday the Maple Leaf, Adirondack, and Ethan Allen Express could get a second daily train. Or some or all of those 3 routes could get a NYC/BOS split at Albany added, like the Lake Shore Limited does today. But I those options fall into the "crazy pitch" territory as there is likely not enough demand to justify the cost for it right now.

So the reasonable pitch would be to connect Boston with Toronto, Montreal, and Burlington VT with a transfer in Albany instead. Because when East-West Rail is completed, it's expected to bring 2 or 3 additional daily trains connecting Boston to Albany. Would it be possible for these new trains to be timed so a 1-2hr layover going from whatever-Amtrak-names-East-West-Rail to the Maple Leaf, Adirondack, or the Ethan Allen Express?

People don't love having to transfer trains, so this would generate less demand then direct service would. But it does have the virtue of being far more like to actually be built. Additionally, Albany-Rensselaer station has good amenities: a large and warm building with plenty of seating, restrooms, Amtrak staff for customer service, a cafe, and a convenience store. And if it were a 2hr transfer, some more experienced travelers would consider taking the city bus from the train station downtown to walk around or get lunch (it takes about 30mins roundtrip on the bus).
A Boston - Toronto Amtrak route on existing trackage shouldn’t be crazy, let alone “god mode.”

The hurdles are all self-created political problems. The infrastructure is already there.
 
A Boston - Toronto Amtrak route on existing trackage shouldn’t be crazy, let alone “god mode.”

The hurdles are all self-created political problems. The infrastructure is already there.
More Albany lash-ups would require enough capital funding to uprate the track class to Albany from Class 3/59 MPH to Class 4/79 MPH. It's planned Worcester-Springfield and will shrink Boston-Springfield travel times from 2:28 to 2:03, but you'd need a MA funding dump to do Springfield-state line and a NY appropriation to do state line-Schodack so SPG-ALB can shrink from 2:23 to closer to 2:00. The Lake Shore Ltd. will be better with the paid-for WOR-SPG upgrades, down from 5:05 BOS-ALB to about 4:40, but you need to get that down closer to 4:05-4:10 if anybody's going to ride it in serious quantity. Greyhound's travel times range from as little as 3:20 BOS-ALB to as much as 4:45 (owing to the great uncertainty of Pike traffic by time-of-day), so the train needs to split the middle range for its superior schedule certainty to really draw.


For a Maple Leaf Boston section this is going to be especially key, because to make a 9:50am arrival in Albany the train would have to depart Boston before 5:00am when all connecting transit is closed for the night. Those track class upgrades are pretty much necessary to make it happen at all. And even then the departure comes so soon after the T opens for the day that it's questionable that any connections are makeable before the train has to leave, severely limiting the Boston audience for such a service. I have my doubts; it's questionable whether you'd even be able to complete a rapid transit transfer to South Station before the Amtrak train would have to leave. We might be waiting until when/if New York State and VIA Rail agree to fund a second later-in-the-day Maple Leaf slot to make it work.

For Montreal and Burlington, it's key that we enact the NNEIRI service development plan which does a 9:03 direct between Boston and Montreal (faster if the Canadians ever uprate their track speeds) and also coordinates an Inland Route (Boston-New Haven) slot to cross-platform transfer to the existing Vermonter at Springfield, and a cross-platform transfer to a new expansion New Haven-Montreal slot. The Adirondack has the same problem as the Maple Leaf of a too-early departure time from Boston to effectively support a Boston section, as well as being quite a bit longer on the clock vs. the NNEIRI direct because of the additional distance. The NNEIRI plan also hits Burlington directly via the Essex Junction stop (which is a city bus ride from dead-center Downtown Burlington), so the one direct slot + the 2 timed SPG transfers pools ridership targets much better than flooding the zone with a bunch more Albany lash-ups diluted by audience.
 

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