Reasonable Transit Pitches

added 2 new bus routes
"63" from Lechmere to Kenmore, branching off from the 61 route at river st and western ave, to central sq, running along Prospect St and Broadway to Kendall/MIT, and then down Third st in to Lechmere Station and the Cambridgeside Galleria, also creating a Lechmere - Kendall connection serving the deep East Cambridge area.

an extension of the 79 Arlington - Alewife route down to the Fresh Pond Mall on non-peak hours (because why not have a transit connection to a mall?)

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/viewer?mid=zHBKbWS6THfI.k_4BCN1stuT8
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Of course, painting a couple dozen more city buses with the aqua "C" logo, tweaking a few traffic light timings, and ADA'ing a bunch of curb juts and cuts isn't sexy stuff. Can't have that. That doesn't impress the suburbanites like a unicorn vehicle purchase or giant glass headhouse does.
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No, but Bev Scott likes buses. Quick, get that list to her!
 
Biggest bang per buck improvement to the MBTA system: signs at the bottom of all escalators reading "stand right, walk left." Tell me I'm wrong!
 
underground said:
Biggest bang per buck improvement to the MBTA system: signs at the bottom of all escalators reading "stand right, walk left." Tell me I'm wrong!
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I'm surprised no one has been shoved to their deaths down all 100 ft. of Porter escalator after blithely yakking away with a friend or gaggle of friends standing double-wide completely oblivious to the four-dozen strong cauldron of bubbling commuter rage standing behind all the way up to the top getting increasingly agitated about making their train. I mean...that's not even a Boston faux-pas. That kind of escalator behavior doesn't fly at the East Sprawlsberry, Missouri megamall either. I have no idea why people (read: undergrads) do that here.
 
I know a number of options have been thrown around, but what are people's thoughts on the most likely ultimate solution to servicing the LMA? It's pretty obvious that buses simply aren't going to cut it, at least not on the surface. Yet, it seems that any line - bus, L or HRT - that runs to the hospitals must also run to Ruggles - and then either to Kenmore or to BU. The fact that Ruggles is located at, well, at Ruggles, instead of Roxbury Crossing, seems to make for an impossible route for a tunnel - no matter which way you cut it, there's a lot of sharp, right angle turns (Ruggles -> Huntington -> Longwood -> Brookline Ave inbound, etc). Is it even imaginable that a tunnel would be cut under Whittier or under the LMA, rather than just running under the street? I put this under reasonable because I wonder what the most realistic solution is for bringing transit to the LMA and, if applicable, to this leg of the Urban Ring.

Edit -I guess the even bigger question is, does this area really need to have a station right in the middle of it (IE at Brookline & Longwood or thereabouts), or would something more peripheral that simply cut a new route (like following the 695 corridor under the Fenway) suffice?
 
FK4 said:
I know a number of options have been thrown around, but what are people's thoughts on the most likely ultimate solution to servicing the LMA? It's pretty obvious that buses simply aren't going to cut it, at least not on the surface. Yet, it seems that any line - bus, L or HRT - that runs to the hospitals must also run to Ruggles - and then either to Kenmore or to BU. The fact that Ruggles is located at, well, at Ruggles, instead of Roxbury Crossing, seems to make for an impossible route for a tunnel - no matter which way you cut it, there's a lot of sharp, right angle turns (Ruggles -> Huntington -> Longwood -> Brookline Ave inbound, etc). Is it even imaginable that a tunnel would be cut under Whittier or under the LMA, rather than just running under the street? I put this under reasonable because I wonder what the most realistic solution is for bringing transit to the LMA and, if applicable, to this leg of the Urban Ring.

Edit -I guess the even bigger question is, does this area really need to have a station right in the middle of it (IE at Brookline & Longwood or thereabouts), or would something more peripheral that simply cut a new route (like following the 695 corridor under the Fenway) suffice?
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LMA does have several RT stops as is. MFA, LMA, and Brigham Circle on the E and Longwood on the D are all easy walking distance to different sectors of the LMA. What's missing is a circumferential connection, most essentially to Harvard/Kendall. The most "reasonable" way to connect it via rail to Cambridge is with the "boomerang" Urban Ring idea that's been banded about for a long time.

  • LRV Urban Ring on Grand Junction to B and/or LRV Spur from Harvard through Allston to B
  • Bury the B to the BU Bridge
  • Feed UR trains from BU Bridge/Harvard toward Kenmore
  • Rework loops at Kenmore to allow B-inbound to D-outbound
  • Swing UR trains from Kenmore to Brookline Village
  • Either surface connection or a buried E-Line to Brookline Village
  • Swing UR trains back up Huntington

To get to the Orange Line is more difficult. Tunneling under Tremont from Brigham to RoxXing is a non-starter. Maybe a junction could be possible at Ruggles St, or maybe under one of the urban renewal housing projects between Huntington and Tremont. Then getting to Dudley after than is a whole other beast. I tackle it on my fantasy map by portaling the UR at Melnea Cass, and running in a reservation to Washington, then turning off MCBlvd and street-running to a loop at Dudley.

Not that much of this is "reasonable", but it's probably the easiest way to ever get rail access on the Harvard/MIT->BU/Kenmore->LMA->Orange Line->Dudley corridor
 
Longwood would've been helped a lot if the T completed the Crosstown bus rollout right through to Route CT9. It's grouped under Urban Ring Phase I...but, really, it was just completing the mid-90's CT program with some Key Bus Improvements features like ADA'ing the major stops and doing a little light signal priority. Ops-based, very little pure capital funding.

Shortest-term that's really the thing that's going to make the most immediate impact for these destinations. And the project they can most quickly pull out of mothballs and start implementing if they were so motivated. Urban Ring Phase II, even if got prioritized for funding in a way they haven't been willing to before, is years and years and years of EIS'ing, engineering, and paperwork before the first shovel goes in the ground. The CT#'s can start as soon as they have enough fleet and crewbase capacity to run the extra routes, and they can chug through the ADA'ing and barebones signal priority incrementally as they go along...long after the routes start running.

Calling it "Urban Ring Phase I" really didn't do it any favors. It made it too easy to kill the other CT#'s in tandem with UR Phase II. When, really, if you'd just called it "Crosstown Bus Phase II" in continuation of the 1990's project they'd have fewer plausible outs for not doing it and we'd probably have gotten a few more of those routes by now.
 
In my mind, a rail urban ring that serves the Longwood area on a through-routing would probably need to travel the alignment I'm showing below - the proposal here uses existing infrastructure and also recycles existing proposals to create one single UR alignment. What's new here is prying Fenway away from DCR and turning it into a dedicated transitway, and street running on several other roads - most of them wide enough to accommodate dedicated lanes.

aFVTXEg.jpg
 
^ I'm assuming there is no possibility to shift the Fenway north towards the Muddy river due to the environmental impact?
 
Fenway's not going to be given up for a transit corridor. Landmark Center and Simmons + Emmanuel + Wentworth + Wheelock campuses primary access routes depend too much on it. The most road-taking they could do there is a lane-drop for a bike lane or sidewalk/cycle track widening. Definitely not a transit reservation. Olmstead's handiwork is also not going to be narrowed at all to carve out reservation space. It's been cannibalized too much over the decades by MDC/DCR in the name of "...but we need the transportation space real bad!". The line has to get drawn somewhere, and if that means the T can't take what it needs to prevent MassDOT from taking more of what it doesn't need...so be it. Special exceptions and playing favorites is what got the city's grand park system chewed up in the first place.

And if you're thinking LRT could take a left lane on each one-way on opposite ends of the park...two widely separated single tracks that can't cross over is not nearly enough redundancy for a high service-density route like this. Service suspends for a much longer time in event of a disablement they don't have options to shiv out on a crossover and tow in the direction of least-resistance. And a longer-duration outage on one track will quickly imbalance the car supply in the opposite direction until that service decays to cascading delays. Single-tracking streetcars is usually only a good idea on seldom-used connectors where there's a lot of nearby track redundancy.





The as-is UR Phase II pretty much gets it right without much need to re-conceptualize any of it. LRT > BRT on the north half where all the grade separation is, but we knew that and the official proposal doesn't prevent it. The patchwork of street widths on the south half makes BRT > LRT for all practical purposes, but we knew that and knew that any modal transition to rail would happen here far far later than the north half. We know that virtually no one will ride the Ring circuit as a one-seat, and that the ridership will churn over at every quadrant when the service cycles through enough selection of transfer stations. We know it's likely to have a blend of service patterns with lots of overlap, and that no one service pattern will have to be load-bearing for every quadrant all the time. We know because of the blended service patterns that spur routes are in-play: Harvard and JFK. And possibly others...if the north half is LRT and the E goes back to Forest Hills, then a Cambridge-Kenmore-Forest Hills service pattern is in-play. We know from the mythical 28X proposal and Blue Hill Ave. bus lane capability that a Mattapan spur can be in play. We know a SE quadrant through Southie puts the Ted and Logan Airport mixed patterns in-play.

Use your imagination on the blending, because the trunkline build(s) serve it up and neither the LRT north nor (likely) BRT south are fixed routes in the sense that the current Green and Silver Lines are a set of fixed routes on unchanging branch schedules.
 
There's easily enough room on the Fenway for a (two-way) transit reservation and enough room for a lane of cars as well. If that crimps vehicle capacity too much, then make the other side of the fens two-way to regain some of the counterflow.

This idea isn't carving up the fens any further, just redistributing what's already been carved.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Fenway's not going to be given up for a transit corridor...........Special exceptions and playing favorites is what got the city's grand park system chewed up in the first place.
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Agreed. Seems like it would never happen. And shouldn't.

F-Line to Dudley said:
if the north half is LRT and the E goes back to Forest Hills, then a Cambridge-Kenmore-Forest Hills service pattern is in-play.
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I think restoring the Arborway E would be a huge waste of money and a lopsided benefit to a neighborhood that already has a subway line, albeit on the outskirts. The only benefit I could see would be if it had the Brookline Village connection so folks in Forest Hills could get to Longwood Station.

F-Line to Dudley said:
The as-is UR Phase II pretty much gets it right without much need to re-conceptualize any of it. LRT > BRT on the north half where all the grade separation is, but we knew that and the official proposal doesn't prevent it. The patchwork of street widths on the south half makes BRT > LRT for all practical purposes, but we knew that and knew that any modal transition to rail would happen here far far later than the north half.
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Well, this is my real question from earlier, though - a significant transit need is getting people from south of the LMA to the LMA itself. The Ruggles/Tremont corridor is just too congested to move vehicles efficiently, and with the narrow streets, I dont have confidence that any amount of engineering will change that. Couple that with that part of town's growth in the next 20 years, and I dont see a viable surface route from Ruggles or Roxbury Crossing to the LMA - or any north-south connection for this southern part of the Ring. Although it seems unlikely that we will get anything more than surface BRT for a very long time on this corridor, eventually - some day - there is going to have to be an underground connection from the Orange Line (and maybe Dudley), heading north to LMA. My question is, when this ultimately happens, what would be the routing of the tunnel?

BussesAin'tTrains said:
  • LRV Urban Ring on Grand Junction to B and/or LRV Spur from Harvard through Allston to B
  • Bury the B to the BU Bridge
  • Feed UR trains from BU Bridge/Harvard toward Kenmore
  • Rework loops at Kenmore to allow B-inbound to D-outbound
  • Swing UR trains from Kenmore to Brookline Village
  • Either surface connection or a buried E-Line to Brookline Village
  • Swing UR trains back up Huntington

To get to the Orange Line is more difficult. Tunneling under Tremont from Brigham to RoxXing is a non-starter. Maybe a junction could be possible at Ruggles St, or maybe under one of the urban renewal housing projects between Huntington and Tremont. Then getting to Dudley after than is a whole other beast. I tackle it on my fantasy map by portaling the UR at Melnea Cass, and running in a reservation to Washington, then turning off MCBlvd and street-running to a loop at Dudley.

Not that much of this is "reasonable", but it's probably the easiest way to ever get rail access on the Harvard/MIT->BU/Kenmore->LMA->Orange Line->Dudley corridor
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Connection at least as far as the Orange Line seems critical to me. Eventually. And why is a Tremont tunnel a non-starter?
 
FK4 said:
Connection at least as far as the Orange Line seems critical to me. Eventually. And why is a Tremont tunnel a non-starter?
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It's a narrow street with old, close-to-street abutters, plus goodness knows what's lurking beneath. Very difficult junction and utility build and potentially disastrous mitigation issues. A split further up E (around Ruggles was my idea) would still be difficult, but a lot of that land seems to have been wiped clean by urban renewal (although I might be wrong about that). Then you get the desired Ruggles connection. It's not "reasonable" by any means, but you're not getting circumferential rail through there in any easy way.
 
Yeah. Operative phrase is "a really really long time from now". If us amateur Google Mappers can't even Crazy Transit Pitch a wild guess at a routing that even kinda sorta maybe-but-probably-not looks a little bit plausible...just picture how hard this is going to be for the engineers who have to sit at a drafting desk and square this extreme degree of difficulty with every last inch of detail of the mitigation apocalypse it's going to be underneath such narrow streets.


In no way is that even in the same universe as Phase II. That's like the Phase III--or Phase VI--megaproject. Probably when we're all dead.
 
Completely Reasonable:

Gold Line: A free bus from Logan Airport Silver Line stops to North Station and Haymarket Station and back, continuously, all day.

Since Haymarket and North Stations are mostly transit destinations, you can pretty much assume that either people walked to the Gold Line or they, in fact, already paid the T for the first leg of their trip (by CR, bus, or subway)
 
Arlington said:
Completely Reasonable:

Gold Line: A free bus from Logan Airport Silver Line stops to North Station and Haymarket Station and back, continuously, all day.
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Agreed, its amazing this doesn't exist already - there's no practical way to link a northside CR trip to the airport, and this gives it to you with no new concrete and minimal congestion.

Let me offer an additional routing on this theme -a silver line branch that stops at airport station (not the terminals) and then ducks into the Sumner tunnel to ping at North Station (and vice versa on the return). The bus'd have to do a quick jaunt up to Bennington st to access 1A. (until you eventually build a couple slip ramps at airport station itself...)

That gives you one seat from NS to the seaport, in addition to improving northside access to the airport itself.



...maybe Massport would be willing to do this as a 'Logan Express North Station'...in fact, I've seen the Back Bay Logan Express routed through the Sumner occasionally in the evening rush hour....

...and if they were really feeling their oats they could continue it down storrow / embankment road to Charles MGH for a northside redline connection....
 
I like this idea - Opportunity for a 10-15 minute bus ride vs a 30-40 minutes T ride with a transfer.

Skip Haymarket and run a simple route - Sumner - New Chardon - Merrimac - Stop on Causeway opposite the Garden - Right onto Beverly and then straight into the Callahan tunnel. Trying to loop in Haymarket adds 5-10 minutes round trip trying to get through 3-4 light cycles just going around the block. Anyone on the Orange/Green can easily get to North Station and your biggest takers are likely going to be Commuter Rail traffic that avoids a Blue Transfer.

I don't think you need to make it free to get the desired ridership - I'd price it at the standard fare but with a free transfer for anyone with a paid ticket.

Also - why not brand it as Logan Express? That's the name applied to the suburban locations but also appears to be catching on for the Back Bay bus.

Some added benefit to running it now while Government Center is closed as well
 
CSTH said:
That gives you one seat from NS to the seaport, in addition to improving northside access to the airport itself.
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While not frequent or available on the weekends I believe the #4 bus serves this route.
 
Would restoring the Eastern Route to its former glory be a "reasonable" pitch if it was justified by shutting down the Merrimac River Bridge in Haverhill entirely for a complete replacement?

Downeasters and freights via the Eastern until the bridge is replaced, no lengthy shutdowns of each half of the bridge, quick entire replacement ensuring lasting longevity, reduced cost of rehabbing the bridge, etc.

And, of course, there's the obvious benefit of what happens *after* the bridge is replaced: Newburyport Line permanently extended to Portsmouth.
 
Pitch: Back Bay Logan Express that runs past 10 p.m.

Seriously.. I wanted to use it, but my flight landed at 10. Sigh.
 
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