Why not just have that Silver Line run up to North Station? Would give you a direct North-South Station connection and allow passengers at North to get the one-connection trip to Logan.
Traffic.
You could also attract orange and glx passengers who only want to do one transfer, along with CR riders from the northern lines.
It would be quicker for all but the worst traffic times.
JeffDowntown
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As noted above Traffic -- you can't get there from here today.
But also the Silver Line is buried under Dewey Square at South Station -- in the transitway. You cannot drive from there to North Station.
fattony
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I propose expanding the Logan Express concept. We have a few from outlying areas and one from Back Bay. I agree that adding one at North Station - specifically to attract CM riders - is a good idea. The Green-Blue trip is 40 minutes (e.g. to Terminal C). A bus could do it in 10-20 depending on traffic.
I also think the SL1 is completely broken at this point and could be replaced by a Logan Express at the surface. The SL1 trip (e.g. to Terminal C) is 20 minutes w/o traffic and in my experience it takes 30-45 with traffic. A surface route from SS could bring that down to 10 minutes w/o traffic and maybe 15-20 with traffic.
JeffDowntown
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The challenge at South Station is locating a pickup/drop-off point for a high frequency Logan Express type bus. Curb space is really at a premium around South Station.
Also, this run already exists on all the regional bus lines who run Logan/SS/Outlying Destination or reverse on virtually every regional run out of the South Station Bus Terminal.
And the run SS to Logan is hardly on the surface; it is via the I-90 HOV and Ted Williams tunnels. That is why it can be fast(er).
Shepard
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I agree SL1 is untenable. It should be a Logan Express surface route. Curb space at South Station is a problem that can be solved. Run the line in a bus lane down Summer with a couple stops along the way into the TWT. (And yes, to the OP's point, this is the model they should have from North Station as well.)
Right now, with SL1 in the transitway, so much time is wasted chugging through the dilapidated tunnel, the mode change, and twisting-twirling around the TWT entrance, which literally involves doubling back on a third of the transitway route.
As for the transitway itself... I don't feel like it will ever be useful even for Seaport routes until it can be made to connect with other lines downtown... ideally as a GL branch, which we've discussed here much before.
Right now, with SL1 in the transitway, so much time is wasted chugging through the dilapidated tunnel, the mode change, and twisting-twirling around the TWT entrance, which literally involves doubling back on a third of the transitway route.
As for the transitway itself... I don't feel like it will ever be useful even for Seaport routes until it can be made to connect with other lines downtown... ideally as a GL branch, which we've discussed here much before.
F-Line to Dudley
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SL1 would work better if the Green Line were run into the Transitway, because then the trolleys would become load-bearing for intra-Seaport traffic allowing SL1 more room to breathe in its specialty role. Dwells stink to high heaven on that bus because you've got a mix of air travelers clogging up the egresses with luggage and normal SL2 riders doing quick on-off trips. Which means that there has to be an intricate dance of shifting luggage around at every stop that becomes torturous (especially when there's standees), whereas under ideal circumstances you wouldn't be doing that for hardly anyone until getting to the first terminal stop.
Throw in the stupid D St. light, the power switch, the ramp insanity, and that dirt road -caliber pavement and it all adds up. But the route is not being helped by the fact that the Seaport has so quickly outgrown single 60-foot buses, the headways are all gapped out worse than native tunnel capacity by the light + power switch...and therefore the specialist route SL1 has to be a generalist and act load-bearing for a wider-than Airport audience.
I think that'll fix itself if you can get Type 10 trolleys with major crowd-swallowing capacity in there supplanting SL2 on a smoother rail ride, signalize the tunnel, bury under D St., and not have to power-switch on trolleys while doing very rapid power switch on next-gen buses. Then I think there'll be some separation in where the audiences go...some of it psychological because they know "trolley = to/from Downtown; bus = to/from Logan".
Ultimately the Transitway probably has capacity for 2 trolley branches (the SL2 drop-in replacement and option for branch to City Point), and 2 bus branches (SL1 + either SL3 or Urban Ring southeast quadrant from Dudley Sq. via Haul Road). Though I suppose if the Urban Ring NE quadrant is built as trolley you could probably just merge SL1/3 into a single route whose last stop is Logan Blue+Green Station and allow for free transfer behind prepayment, since most of the Chelsea ridership on SL3 is going to migrate northward onto the new rapid transit connection. Balance is where that capacity ends up topping out in the Transitway, as you want the trolleys to be the crowd-swallowers moving people to/from downtown and the neighborhood while the buses act as specialists: 1 airport circulator and 1 outside-downtown radial circulator. The Transitway as we know it (and SL Phase III as we conceptually knew it as a dog-slow BRT dig) have no such balance.
It's redeemable, but lord is it going to be expensive. Still have to do it though, because downtown circulation is going to choke on its growth if you can't take a train from NS-Haymarket-GC-Park-Boylston to South Station and the Seaport. Red-Blue might buy a decade of relief before the transfer platforms all get swamped again, so I hope like hell this is another "Oh, crap! We really shouldn't have taken this off the CIP!" moment in-wait.
Cut and cover on the B line to bury it below ground from Kenmore out to Washington Street. Eliminate Sutherland, Warren, Pleasant, Saint Paul and Griggs stops.
Cut and cover on the C line to bury it below ground from Kenmore out to Cleveland Circle. Eliminate Fairbanks, Saint Paul, Hawes and Brandon Hall stops.
Cut and cover to bury the E line from Symphony out to Heath Street. Eliminate Fenwood Road, Back of the Hill and Mission Park stops.
Add a stop on the Braintree line at Morrissey Blvd near Boston Bowl.
Cut and cover on the C line to bury it below ground from Kenmore out to Cleveland Circle. Eliminate Fairbanks, Saint Paul, Hawes and Brandon Hall stops.
Cut and cover to bury the E line from Symphony out to Heath Street. Eliminate Fenwood Road, Back of the Hill and Mission Park stops.
Add a stop on the Braintree line at Morrissey Blvd near Boston Bowl.
You know - that is less than 3 miles of cut and cover - crazy how that probably isn't possible at a reasonable price.
Yes, please. Will probably take some major private developer/party moving into the area to make it happen, though.
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Fairly cheap to BU West. At most to Packards. The hills in Brighton are a PITA. Let's recenter the reservation and fix Comm Ave instead.
Fairly cheap due to the clear reservation, but why? Actually do signal priority and the C line won't have many problems. Maybe there's a 1 or 2 stop consolidations that can be done.
Easy to do it to Brigham. Hard to do beyond it with no cleared reservation. Surface line west of Brigham keeps potential expansion for D-E connector at Brookline Village open.
Port Norfolk. Get her done.
F-Line to Dudley
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Note that if you're doing Urban Ring on the Grand Junction as light rail, you probably are burying the B at least as far as Amory St. to allow the Ring to act as a Green Line appendage. There'd be a BU East subway stop, a flying junction at BU Bridge for the B/UR split, and portals on the BU Bridge hillside for the Ring and the Amory/St. Paul block for the B.
Going further is probably a major surplus-to-requirement.
- There isn't a need for major load-bearing traffic past the Ring split.
- You've also successfully bypassed the BU Bridge traffic lights, the single biggest roadway time chew on the entire B route.
- Remaining B surface stops number only 11-13 (depending on what else gets consolidated east of Warren St.), right in line with all other branches for dispatching's sake. The B no longer has an off-scale number of stops to traverse.
- If Comm Ave. Phase III centers the reservation on the Packards-Warren stretch, it would be highly feasible to install a Blandford-style turnback yard on the block past Harvard Ave. for short-turns. That's additional traffic management flexibility for the highest-ridership portion of the line.
This definitely serves no purpose because unlike the B, D, or E there's no additional major traffic loads you could put on the C. It functions fine as a surface line, only needing some judicious consolidation of [pick one] Kent or Hawes, Brandon Hall, and Dean Rd. 10 reservation stops is a nice, taut roster.
Mostly yes, with some asterisks.
There is substantial potential to make the E a load-bearing line. Elimination of the Copley Jct. bottleneck in favor of a new routing that hits Back Bay Station is a major (if expensive) boon to downtown circulation. BBY is the most overloaded Orange Line stop, a situation that's only going to get worse if Regional Rail pumps up a lot of Purple frequencies. It's very likely a second rapid transit touch is going to be necessary here within the next 25 years.
Figure it goes like this.
- Boylston outer tracks (shared with Washington St. light rail and Seaport/Transitway light rail).
- quad-track Tufts Medical Ctr. GL station under Eliot Norton Park, concourse-linked to Orange Line station. E-outbound/E-inbound on one island platform fed from the old Lenox St./Egleston tracks, Dudley-outbound/Dudley-inbound on the other island fed from the old City Point tracks. Seaport/Transitway built sharing the Washington platform if it's built using this alignment
- Tunnel continues under Tremont St., E tracks turn west under Marginal Rd. and Pike onramp. Dudley tracks turn east (and Seaport, if it uses this alignment).
- Cross under Pike, shift into Back Bay on alignment TBD (underneath Worcester Line tracks may work, with lower-level station)
- Turn onto Huntington, rejoin existing E tunnel at end of curve before Prudential Station.
- Disuse Copley Jct. for regular service, but retain as alt. routing.
Now...with Back Bay in tow you're carrying some serious ridership out onto Huntington. But also, there's potential to "alt-spine" the Central Subway with parallel grade separation to really super-size the Green Line. The targets in that scenario are:
- E-to-D run-thrus
- E-to-Kenmore Loop transfer connectivity where the halves of the Urban Ring meet
- D/E-to-Dudley run-thrus...if Silver Line-Washington is converted to light rail. This can help compensate for the fact that the south-half Urban Ring likely can't be light rail and will have to live in mixed traffic on lower-capacity BRT vehicles.
- D/E-to-Seaport run-thrus...IF the Transitway light-rail link-up happens to go through the same South End junction as the Dudley Sq. line. (TBD...we haven't even revisited the wreckage of Silver Line Phase III yet).
Now...what's not going to happen is burial of anything under South Huntington.
- For one, the tunnel is probably going to exit the Huntington footprint en route to the D long before it gets to the S. Huntington intersection.
- Confines are so tight that the only way to branch S. Huntington is with an at-grade junction at tight curves. For all the effort just expended to get rid of Copley Jct. and create a high-performance "alt spine", it's counterproductive to introduce a brand new at-grade traffic clog.
- The lion's share of ridership is on Huntington-proper, with S. Huntington being negligible-share. With the hookups to Back Bay and other modes the Huntington ridership is going to explode even more, but S. Huntington probably will remain a bit player.
- Can thread service from EITHER traditional E trains via Brookline Village, OR by D trains from Kenmore...increasing service flexibility and improving JP transit a lot.
- The Brookline Village back-track to Riverway is fewer traffic lights and shorter street-running distance than the current E from Brigham to Riverway, so likely a slight improvement in transit time.
- Given the total grade separation from either feeder, travel time from JP to downtown improves massively.
- Hugely improved throughput increases the impetus for re-extending to Hyde Sq. (if that hasn't already been done) and Forest Hills.
YES - Bury the E on Huntington for big-time traffic routings.
NO - Don't bury S. Huntington because no big-time traffic routings.
ADD - D-to-E linkage when you bury.
ADD - Copley Jct. replacement via Back Bay that's compatible with--at-minimum--thru-running to Dudley and--TBD--thru-running to Seaport.
Some call it "Port Norfolk", some call it "Neponset". Any way you call it, it's a no-brainer that really should've been greenlit already as part of all this new cars + signal replacement performance optimization. With the upcoming improvements they can add the stop and still make equal time to Braintree as today.
Route some rush northern commuter rail trains through the Grand Junction tracks. Add a stop, dosn't have to be anything fancy, near Kendall.
You could route inbound trains through grand junction towards Worcester in the morning and outbound trains towards the northern rail lines in the evening.
Biggest problem would be some of the street crossing. For busy ones like Main Street and Broadway you'd probably want to either bury the road or bury the rail. Though I think the best option could be to elevate the commuter rail.
Haverhill Line could be a good option, as it stops in Malden. Newburyport/Rockport would also work well for that.
I'd propose adding a stop at Sullivan or Assembly for the Newburyport/Rockport lines. Assembly would be best IMHO, as it's seeing more development/jobs compared to Sullivan. Although Sullivan is a bus hub.
You could do it the other away around for the Worcester line. Biggest issue is that grand junction is single tracked, so it would be hard to have service both ways. Anyway Kendall is a huge jobs center and I do think commuter rail service would do well.
You could route inbound trains through grand junction towards Worcester in the morning and outbound trains towards the northern rail lines in the evening.
Biggest problem would be some of the street crossing. For busy ones like Main Street and Broadway you'd probably want to either bury the road or bury the rail. Though I think the best option could be to elevate the commuter rail.
Haverhill Line could be a good option, as it stops in Malden. Newburyport/Rockport would also work well for that.
I'd propose adding a stop at Sullivan or Assembly for the Newburyport/Rockport lines. Assembly would be best IMHO, as it's seeing more development/jobs compared to Sullivan. Although Sullivan is a bus hub.
You could do it the other away around for the Worcester line. Biggest issue is that grand junction is single tracked, so it would be hard to have service both ways. Anyway Kendall is a huge jobs center and I do think commuter rail service would do well.
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It's stuck at street level at Main St for the foreseeable future. Can't tunnel because of the Red Line and can't elevate since a building straddles the tracks just south of Main St.
F Line has gone through in great detail why commuter rail over the Grand Junction is a middling option at best. For one, Kendall is a big jobs center for sure, but simply doesn’t compare to Downtown. Hell, just look at the skylines— if nothing else it’s a simple numbers game. Plus, the Orange Line lacks any capacity to pick up extra commuters at Sullivan or even Malden. Light rail, or maaaaaaybe a low frequency commuter rail shuttle between Sullivan and West Station, makes more sense. (And even the shuttle is meh. Unless you’re gonna do timed transfers, ideally at both ends, the low frequency would kill any ridership, since local travel will still be preferable by any number of alternative routes.)
I guess you could keep it as a level crossing. There aren't any bus lines there.
I was mixing it up with Mass Ave, which is too busy to have level crossings and is an important bus route.
You could elevate it through Binney and Broadway, with an elevated station in that area. But yes that building is the biggest obstacle to my plan, and would require a grade crossing.
A Worcester Line to Beverly type service would honestly work pretty well for frequent service. The big issues you'd run into though are the single tracking on Grand Junction, plus the single track in downtown Salem. I'm sure though that Allston/Brighton to Kendall would be a very popular route on rail if it could be served. And the Newburyport/Rockport line could use more frequent service, as it's one of the higher ridership lines.
North Station isin't a great spot for job access. Yah the downtown offices and parts of east Cambridge are within walking distance, but for most it's a long walk. Right next to North station there isin't much.
It's not as good as South Station and Back Bay station, which are both right in the middle of huge job centers. I'm willing to bet that a much higher precentage of north station riders have to transfer to orange/green/bus versus south station ones.
South Station, even moreso than North Station, suffers from capacity constraints. So you could run more trains on say the Worcester line and have some go to Grand Junction.
North Station will be helped (with capacity) when they finally replace those drawbridges.
There are definitely a lot of people who work in Kendall along the Worcester line. You wouldn't need to go any further than the Square though. OTOH ridership outside of peak commuter time would be zero basically.
Getting these people to give up their cars, especially if they have free parking might be tough.
Getting these people to give up their cars, especially if they have free parking might be tough.
F-Line to Dudley
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Exactly this has been studied. All your questions answered here: https://archives.lib.state.ma.us/bi...35555/ocn934710112.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
Of course anything more than just the commute-direction Worcester trips, such as what the state is nebulously floating in the RER study, needs a fresh GJ corridor re-study. The significant impacts at the grade crossings in the 2012 WOR-NS study get a whole lot thornier as soon as you're talking all-day bidirectional traffic.
Thru-routing from the GJ through the throat of Boston Engine Terminal and onto the Eastern/Western Routes definitely is too big an ask. Way too much interference to fight through around BET now that the Green Line carhouse is going to be chopping down the number of available tracks on that side. And then the whole issue of the GJ's very limited capacity. The RER study's own option for thru-routing Fitchburg trains onto the Eastern/Western may also fall apart when freight slots and Downeaster trainset deadheads around the NW side of BET get factored in.
Sullivan is requested by the RER study because it's such a major bus hub, and is accessible from both CR routes. As true RER service levels are going to strongly enhance last-mile connectivity, the Yellow Line presence tips the scales extremely strongly in favor of Sullivan over Assembly.
I'm not exactly sure how they plan to build such a station in hella tight confines between I-93 support pegs unless they moved/replaced those supports. Orange Line station also can't shift any to create more room on the CR side since the OL viaduct touching down right by the foot of the station. But if these is going to accompany real RER service levels the upside will be worth it to construct new 'bow-legged' 93 deck supports to create the room, and re-anchor the highway while demolishing the obstructing pegs. Whereas at current service levels such invasive construction is too iffy a cost-benefit proposition.
The GJ can be double-tracked end-to-end. But the problem is it's a slow trip through the curves, and the junction with the Fitchburg Line marks the start of the northside terminal district slow zone. So there's really nothing better to be had on it than 25 MPH...maybe a brief 30-35 on the Cambridgeport straightaway before crossing the river and turning onto the incline to the Worcester Line slows it down all over again. Travel times from South Station to Kendall on Red and Back Bay to North Station on Orange are not a whole lot different than a West-Kendall-NS jog on the Grand Junction at all times of day when the subway is well-functioning. It's only at peak when Red/Orange are being dragged down by acute load that the WOR-NS study really showed unique demand over keeping a strong singular spine to BBY/SS.
I mean, the WOR-NS study was affirmative in there being peak-hour demand...so it's absolutely viable. RER is iffier just because the crossing impacts are so much worse and it's not clear with the speeds and terminal district being such clogs that real Urban Rail headways could be sustained over the branch.
But any such uses are merely stopgaps from an Urban Ring conversion that has to happen someday if you want really dense, high-capacity service on this corridor. The RR mode just has too many inherent limitations to perform well on the available geometry and with what territory is sitting beyond the mainline junctions.
F-Line to Dudley
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You can outright close Binney since it's a nonessential crossing. I would almost bet on it getting closed if anything whatsoever happens with passenger service on the GJ. But no others--not Mass Ave., not Main, not Broadway, not Cambridge St., not Medford St.--can be eliminated on the RR mode because you simply don't have enough incline room to get up and down in time. This is in essence the problem.
On a bus or trolley these crossings don't hurt so much because you can stick a signal phase on the ROW and share cycles between road traffic and ROW traffic. This is especially beneficial at Main & Broadway where the ROW crosses at existing traffic lights where grafting on the transit signal is as easy as grafting on a new left-turn phase. Cambridge St. and Medford St. are close enough to existing signals that very minor finessing can allow the same signal-sharing.
No such relief on an FRA RR, because the train always has the right of way. At the Kendall Station you can maybe install a DTMF switch for scrambling signal priority during a station stop...but that only helps dump a road queue at one crossing only and only in the direction the train is traveling. Everything else you can try is just purely reactive queue-dumping after the crossing gates have lifted. It's an extremely limited bag of recovery tricks before Mass Ave. and Broadway simply lock up from too many trains crossing and can no longer cope.
F-Line to Dudley
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Access to equipment means that anything that enters the GJ is going to be tethered to the Boston Engine Terminal train supply as a rule, and thus they're going to be running to the foot of North Station anyway as an ops necessity. It doesn't matter if Kendall>>NS on ridership and NS smells like a loss leader; they're going to stop at the terminal regardless because that's where home base is. Especially if this Worcester demand is primarily on-peak and replicates the WOR-NS study for running strictly peak-direction with no reverse-commuting slots.