Reasonable Transit Pitches

cozzyd said:
It seems crazy to me to have the UR without an easy red line connection.
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It can't be done. They're 1000 ft. away from each other, can't bury the UR because of the RL tunnel, can't move the RL station underneath the UR because the requisite station width wouldn't fit between building pilings, can't relocate the Grand Junction ROW without blowing up like 10 very tall/new/mission-critical buildings.

No crazy transit pitch is ever going to unite the two unless there's a tap-on/tap-off timed transfer that allows for hoofing it down the block without getting dinged for another subway fare. I would imagine such a UR stop is going to be called "MIT/Cambridge Center" or something like that as distinction from RL "Kendall/MIT" and the "Cambridge Center" subscript would get expunged from the RL station.


They serve different ridership patterns, anyway. This section of the Ring doesn't augment the RL so much as it augments the Green Line and supersizes the CT2 route commensurate with the exploding growth in the area. Anyone who needs the Red Line is going to keep taking the Red Line there in ever-increasing numbers. That's why downtown transfer relief and raw RL throughput are the first-and-foremost priorities above all else.
 
^ If the traffic would really exist, connect the two via a pedestrian tunnel with moving walkways. Plenty of examples of this in other cities.
 
Question about a Harvard Green Line connection: If the GL were able to recycle the Brattle Tunnel, would it loop anywhere, or switch cabs and just reverse?
 
Almost certainly reverse. A loop would require a lot of difficult-to-impossible construction, especially since beyond the empty tunnel spaces lies the current Red Line tunnel. No need for a loop.
 
That's what I figured. Only wondering since GL tends to loop. Does Riverside loop into the yard, or just reverse out of the station?
 
Not that I have any data on the topic, but I suspect reversing is significantly faster than looping. I've watched trains do this at Riverside and it takes forever. At Alewife, the trains can head back out in 3 minutes. Obviously, this varies with the geometry of the loop.
 
Equilibria said:
Not that I have any data on the topic, but I suspect reversing is significantly faster than looping. I've watched trains do this at Riverside and it takes forever. At Alewife, the trains can head back out in 3 minutes. Obviously, this varies with the geometry of the loop.
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A loop can handle of higher frequency of service, but the time it takes to go around the loop adds to the total trip length for the equipment and the loop takes up more space than a cross-back. At Riverside, the default is to loop the trains, but if a train is running late, it will be crossed back at the Grove St. cross-over. If they start to cross too many trains at Grove St., especially in the peak, things will start to back-up to Woodland.
 
They could turn back trains by the time they empty out and people get on. When a train pulls in, an operator is waiting at the inbound end of the platform. Doors open, that operator hops in while the operator that got the train there gets off. The new operator brings the train inbound while the previous operator walks down to the other end of the platform.

You could turn trains in under a minute. But headways are slack enough that this isn't needed.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
They could turn back trains by the time they empty out and people get on. When a train pulls in, an operator is waiting at the inbound end of the platform. Doors open, that operator hops in while the operator that got the train there gets off. The new operator brings the train inbound while the previous operator walks down to the other end of the platform.

You could turn trains in under a minute. But headways are slack enough that this isn't needed.
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Only a few situations where loops are really needed:

-- High-traffic turning areas where there's no pocket track or layover and traffic would get outright blocked if a train failed to restart properly after changing ends. Pretty much just Park and GC loops qualify in that category as places where it's doubleplusbad to have restart problems.

-- Places like Heath where the shape of the property or the flow of mixed-running traffic fits a loop much better than a stub. See also shared busways like the never-used Forest Hills GL platforms.

-- Primary maint facilities where single-ended work equipment like snowplows, etc. have to get turned around to point one direction or the other or cars have some reason for going into the shop pointed one particular direction. Riverside (Green), Cabot (Red), Wellington (Orange), and Orient Heights (Blue) all have loops for mostly maintenance-related reasons.


Other than that, it's pretty much a relic from the days of single-ended trolleys like present-day Mattapan or the Bowdoin Loop relic from when Blue was still trolley. Or ancient heavy rail relics from 90+ years ago like Ashmont/Codman Yard where the first-generation HRT trains were less of a pain to loop than change ends + restart (Red used to loop in the yards at Ashmont and Harvard, Orange at Sullivan and Dudley for its first decade prior to the FH and Everett extensions, Blue at Bowdoin and Maverick when it was first converted to HRT).
 
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Red Line trains have to be looped at Ashmont from time to time so that the wheel flange will wear evenly. The loop at Cabot isn't used as much. Improper wheel flange wear is not an issue on the Blue Line, where trains get looped on every trip, or on the Orange Line, where the design of the access to the carhouse tracks at Wellington results in pairs changing orientation on a regular basis.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
They could turn back trains by the time they empty out and people get on. When a train pulls in, an operator is waiting at the inbound end of the platform. Doors open, that operator hops in while the operator that got the train there gets off. The new operator brings the train inbound while the previous operator walks down to the other end of the platform.

You could turn trains in under a minute. But headways are slack enough that this isn't needed.
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On the MBTA, train motorpersons stay with the same equipment for most of their shift. When a Green Line car changes ends at North Station, the operator has to shut the car down, lock the cab, walk to the other end of the car, unlock the other cab, set up the controls from that end, and proceed out. That takes longer than going around a loop like at Government Center. If there is a back-up and two trains are changing ends at the North Station turn-back at the same time, a third train would have to wait, blocking the main line. That occasionally happens on the weekends now with both Riverside and Cleveland Circle cars crossing back at North Station in the off-peak. That's also the main reason why Riverside was not extended to North Station in the peak.
 
You'd have to go down Pearl to Granite inbound and up Brookline outbound. Brookline St's one way.
 
Ah yes, serving Fenway Park on game days... those days when I get the mass spammed alert: "Routes 8, 19, 65 re-routed due to game day traffic."

Hmm, I seem to recall that there was a bus route from Cambridge that once upon a time served Kenmore, temporarily, before being re-routed away. Maybe someone else remembers which one?

Anyway, although I suppose I would find this bus route idea occasionally useful, it does seem a bit marginal. I usually pick up a Hubway these days to go from Kenmore area to Harvard. But it's not that far to catch the 1 bus.
 
Matthew said:
Ah yes, serving Fenway Park on game days... those days when I get the mass spammed alert: "Routes 8, 19, 65 re-routed due to game day traffic."

Hmm, I seem to recall that there was a bus route from Cambridge that once upon a time served Kenmore, temporarily, before being re-routed away. Maybe someone else remembers which one?

Anyway, although I suppose I would find this bus route idea occasionally useful, it does seem a bit marginal. I usually pick up a Hubway these days to go from Kenmore area to Harvard. But it's not that far to catch the 1 bus.
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It was indeed the 1 that was rerouted via Kenmore when a weight restriction was placed on the Harvard (Mass Ave.) bridge in the 1980s. At first the buses ran non-stop through the detour via Kenmore and the B.U. Bridge, but then, when it was clear the detour would be in place for a long time, they added official stops because bus drivers were making unofficial "courtesy" stops at Route 57 stops on Comm Ave. any way. The 1 returned to the regular route after they made temporary repairs to the bridge but before the full rebuild of the bridge in the late 1980s. I can remember being on a Harvard-bound bus leaving Mass@Newbury the first day or two after the normal route resumed, and quite a few people intending to go from Dudley to Kenmore found themselves instead on a bus going straight on Mass Ave to the bridge, and were unable to get off until the bus reached the other side in Cambridge. They were not amused.
 
Yeah I thought it was the 1, but wasn't quite sure.

Gotta say, I do find it a little bit annoying that the 57 and the 1 don't connect. It's like: do I go on the Green Line for one stop (bleh) or just hoof it? I usually do the latter. And if I'm in Kenmore already...for sure. If I don't bike.
 
The lack of a Kenmore - Cambridge bus is ridiculous; it's one of the most glaring holes in the transit system. Kenmore to Harvard, Central, and MIT are both huge potential ridership draws.
 
The EGE said:
The lack of a Kenmore - Cambridge bus is ridiculous; it's one of the most glaring holes in the transit system. Kenmore to Harvard, Central, and MIT are both huge potential ridership draws.
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If they'd completed the Crosstown routes express bus rollout with Urban Ring Phase I, we would've had several routes covering exactly that. CT9 would've been the Harvard-Kenmore one scooping up the 57. CT7 would've been the major Kenmore-Kendall feeder. Nothing direct to Central, but looks like they were intending to split the difference by flanking it with both Harvard and Kendall expresses so the increased transfer frequencies lifted the tide indirectly at Central.

  • CT1 - Central Square (Cambridge) to Andrew Station via Massachusetts Avenue
  • CT2 - Sullivan Square to Ruggles via Union Square (Somerville), Kendall Square and Boston University Bridge
  • CT3 - Longwood Medical Area to Airport Station and terminals via Ruggles, Boston Medical Center, and Ted Williams Tunnel
  • CT4 - Ruggles Station to UMass Boston Campus via Dudley Square and Uphams Corner
  • CT5 - Logan Airport to Sullivan Square via Downtown Chelsea, Wellington, and Assembly Square
  • CT6 - Downtown Chelsea to Kendall/MIT via Community College and Lechmere
  • CT7 - Kendall/MIT to Franklin Park via Mass Ave Bridge, Kenmore, Longwood Medical Area, Ruggles, Dudley, and Grove Hall
  • CT8 - Sullivan Square to Longwood Medical Area via Union Square Somerville, Central Square Cambridge, Cambridgeport, Boston University Bridge, and Fenway Station
  • CT9 - Kenmore to Harvard Square via Commonwealth Ave and Allston
  • CT10 - Kenmore to JFK/UMass via Longwood Medical Area, Ruggles, and Boston Medical Center
  • CT11 - Longwood Medical Area to Fields Corner via Ruggles, Boston Medical Center, and Uphams Corner
  • EC1 - Anderson Regional Transportation Center to MIT at Mass Ave via Sullivan Square, Lechmere, and Kendall
  • EC2 - Riverside to Lechmere via Mass Pike, Central Square, and Kendall
  • EC3 - Natick to Copley Square via Mass Pike
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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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