Reasonable Transit Pitches

Re: "Urban Ring"

I feel there is a lot of unutilized land around Dudley and Roxbury Crossing that is never discussed as possible options for getting people from Rox to LMA. A few possibilities:
- In my mind I see the LMA part as a loop that runs Francis->Brookline->Longwood->St Alphonsus->back to Tremont (put BRT lanes on Tremont by removing parking)
- What about running BRT down Malcolm X? Its horribly wide and way underused.
-And/or, in concert with redevelopment of the projects by Ruggles, taking a BRT ROW that would run along the Orange between Ruggles and Roxbury Crossing
- also in concert with redevelopment, the reuse pf Ward St as a BRT only corridor, and extend it to Columbus (?bridge over Columbus and ram it through Madison Park? ... maybe the last part is a crazy pitch)
 
HOV2 or HOT-Surtoll lane on 1A through Sumner/Callahan at rush hour, if necessary as contra flow (like Lincoln Tunnel bus lane).

Would speed all Haymarket buses from Eastie, Revere, & Chelsea as well as Airport taxi/kiss-and-ride traffic, and make possible a NS-Haymarket-Airport BRT/silver line (possibly tie to Gateway SL @ Airport BL)
 
Not sure if it's been discussed before, but: railstituting the Silver Lie. The MBTA had a study examining it as well as a horde of other ideas, like opening new commuter rail stations or extending various commuter lines one stop farther out, but it sandbagged the Washington Street light rail option by assigning it a ridiculously low number of new riders - 130, out of 34,000 total transit riders. The Tremont Street Subway has a portal pointing in that direction, so the construction would be entirely or almost entirely at-grade, on the street. The Green Line trunk it feeds is four-tracked, so it wouldn't interfere with Green Line capacity.

Potentially trains could even split south of Dudley, with some going to Forest Hills, restoring the old Washington Street Elevated but on the street, and some to Mattapan, railstituting the 28. But for a start, have trains going as far as Dudley.
 
Alon said:
Not sure if it's been discussed before, but: railstituting the Silver Lie. The MBTA had a study examining it as well as a horde of other ideas, like opening new commuter rail stations or extending various commuter lines one stop farther out, but it sandbagged the Washington Street light rail option by assigning it a ridiculously low number of new riders - 130, out of 34,000 total transit riders. The Tremont Street Subway has a portal pointing in that direction, so the construction would be entirely or almost entirely at-grade, on the street. The Green Line trunk it feeds is four-tracked, so it wouldn't interfere with Green Line capacity.

Potentially trains could even split south of Dudley, with some going to Forest Hills, restoring the old Washington Street Elevated but on the street, and some to Mattapan, railstituting the 28. But for a start, have trains going as far as Dudley.
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It's been discussed extensively Crazy Transit Pitches. Lots of ideas pitched around. Feel free to dig some of them up and get the conversation rolling again.

We always stall out over where the turnaround for the SL bus tunnel is. As well as the debate over accepting the cost of a tunnel under Essex versus a more round-about but comparatively easier tunneling around Chinatown, setting up several other GL extensions.
 
Alon said:
Not sure if it's been discussed before, but: railstituting the Silver Lie. The MBTA had a study examining it as well as a horde of other ideas, like opening new commuter rail stations or extending various commuter lines one stop farther out, but it sandbagged the Washington Street light rail option by assigning it a ridiculously low number of new riders - 130, out of 34,000 total transit riders. The Tremont Street Subway has a portal pointing in that direction, so the construction would be entirely or almost entirely at-grade, on the street. The Green Line trunk it feeds is four-tracked, so it wouldn't interfere with Green Line capacity.

Potentially trains could even split south of Dudley, with some going to Forest Hills, restoring the old Washington Street Elevated but on the street, and some to Mattapan, railstituting the 28. But for a start, have trains going as far as Dudley.
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Alon, you can use the search function for forum-wide searches, as well as thread-specific searches. I hope I'm not telling you anything that seems too obvious, but searching within Reasonable Transit Pitches, or Crazy Transit Pitches, as well as site-wide, will yield some amazing info. We have discussed many proposals that you would find interesting. In particular, F-Line to Dudley and Winstonoboogie have some very valuable input (as well as others). Feel free to add a new twist to a revived proposal!
 
Apparently, there is a community meeting today to discuss Blue Line to Red Line Connector with an extension that would replace the Green Line's D Branch to Riverside.
 
kevtron2000 said:
Apparently, there is a community meeting today to discuss Blue Line to Red Line Connector with an extension that would replace the Green Line's D Branch to Riverside.
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I still don't understand where the demand is for this in the short term when BLX to Lynn has been delayed for decades. Given the state of infrastructure right now, and the looming Olympics, it's a waste to devote any resources which could be spent on legit transportation planning and advocacy.
 
It is nice to start a conversation about a riverbank Blue Line extension if only because it would put the idea on the state's radar so that it can be done in 50 years or so instead of never.
 
Getting into crazy transit pitch territory, but the value of a western Blue Line extension isn't to take over the D Line (a line through low-density residential and small villages well suited for light rail and with a large light rail maintenance facility on it) but getting to Kenmore and then heading to denser territory along US-20.
 
A heavy rail D makes no sense because of the density of settlement, it will never fill a heavy rail consist... hell it barely fills a 3 car GL train. Now sending it along the Pike... that had some potential.

Going east to Lynn should happen way before anything west of Charles though.
 
Is there/has there ever been a plan to extend Harvey Street in North Cambridge to the Russell Field Alewife entrance and for an alternative busway? Potentially better for busses coming from the Mass Ave direction, avoiding the ABP all together.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Is there/has there ever been a plan to extend Harvey Street in North Cambridge to the Russell Field Alewife entrance and for an alternative busway? Potentially better for busses coming from the Mass Ave direction, avoiding the ABP all together.
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No. The Red Line tunnel is on the straightest path and doesn't have enough of a load-bearing roof to take a street on top of it in this spot. And the fenced-in area the Community Path snakes around to reach Russel Field is a depressed-elevation marsh connected underground to the Alewife Brook water system. Which is why the Red Line leaks like a sieve in this exact spot. You might have an opportunity if the W.R. Grace factory on Whittemore ever went away and got demolished, opening up a path for Harvey to swerve in that direction fully clear of the Red tunnel. But W.R. Grace is a very healthy business. You can see by the size of those parking lots how many people that complex employs, and they are quite very happy to stay at that location with the transit + highway + path access and all the explosive growth in the area.
 
Where is the Red Line tunnel exactly? Google Maps has it making a shallow S-curve under Russell field to get on alignment with the station, is that accurate?

My thought was that, if the Google route for Red is correct, the busses could travel along the edge of the W.R. Grace property and loop just north of the back entrance. Just popped in my head since I've been biking to work from Union to Lexington via the trail system and always notice the stub end of Harvey.

Wasn't there talk of some talk of an alternate bus route to Alewife at some point, or did I make that up?
 
davem said:
A heavy rail D makes no sense because of the density of settlement, it will never fill a heavy rail consist... hell it barely fills a 3 car GL train. Now sending it along the Pike... that had some potential.

Going east to Lynn should happen way before anything west of Charles though.
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As I understand it, the path of least resistance from an engineering standpoint is to send the Blue Line over one of the Storrow Drive carriageways, which is also probably the only trade-off that will get that godforsaken traffic sewer reconfigured into something more pleasant and appropriate for the Esplanade.

Ideally you do both at the same time but I'm not prepared to say "don't expand to Kenmore even if literally everything is ready to go for Blue over Storrow because Lynn must come first." Past Kenmore? Sure, don't do anything until trains are running to Lynn. To Kenmore is a separate issue.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Where is the Red Line tunnel exactly? Google Maps has it making a shallow S-curve under Russell field to get on alignment with the station, is that accurate?

My thought was that, if the Google route for Red is correct, the busses could travel along the edge of the W.R. Grace property and loop just north of the back entrance. Just popped in my head since I've been biking to work from Union to Lexington via the trail system and always notice the stub end of Harvey.

Wasn't there talk of some talk of an alternate bus route to Alewife at some point, or did I make that up?
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Google hasn't added the Red tunnel's footprint on Maps view yet, but you might be correct. The problem with Grace is that the only connection that avoids the swamp requires eminent domain of their rear loading yard, which they don't have a lot of options for moving because of the adjacent fenced-in substation in the parking lot.

Harvey St. residents are also going to be justifiably pissed about their street becoming a racetrack to Mass Ave. I live in that area; way, way too narrow, to closely-abutted, and too many children in the area to handle the traffic. I would oppose that idea if I had a vote in the matter.

Busway was going to be built off to the side of the parkway splitting parkway and Seagrave Rd. so it's a straight protected shot to Mass Ave. I'm not sure how the inbound interface would work...if that would flank the other side and merge for short distance onto the parkway or if they'd do something else (and I don't know what that possibly could be). Only thing that's been established is "we need something here bad".
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
As I understand it, the path of least resistance from an engineering standpoint is to send the Blue Line over one of the Storrow Drive carriageways, which is also probably the only trade-off that will get that godforsaken traffic sewer reconfigured into something more pleasant and appropriate for the Esplanade.

Ideally you do both at the same time but I'm not prepared to say "don't expand to Kenmore even if literally everything is ready to go for Blue over Storrow because Lynn must come first." Past Kenmore? Sure, don't do anything until trains are running to Lynn. To Kenmore is a separate issue.
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If you bust down Storrow to 2-lane country road on the westbound carriageway the eastbound carriageway + road tunnel would be the Riverway footprint. Dig down to the bottom of the roadbed pack (incl. inside the road tunnel because you need about a foot's more height clearance, but the concrete floor probably does go down that far before reaching the rock ballast so that's trivial) and pour a box tunnel with roof level with the Back St. retaining wall, and landscape a grassy knoll on top of it with no load-bearing structures except for the street grid interfaces with "Storrow Lane". Roadway tunnel at the exit ramp would fit "Esplanade" station, and the deep cavity under Mass Ave. would fit that station and start your descent for the tunnel shiv under the Muddy River (I'm guessing metal-shielded insert with additional waterproofing) and the cross trajectory from Back St. to Beacon St. avoiding building foundations.

Cut-and-cover tunneling would be under the Embankment Rd. EB exit to Charles Circle, where one of the Charles MGH tail tracks would reach in front of the CVS. Then slice up the Embankment EB carriageway for a cut-and-cover to the road tunnel. More invasive and deeper dig under Beacon to "Kenmore Under", though the 3-lane width of the street and ultra-wide Beacon/Bay State Rd. split provides adequate buffer for avoiding building impacts. "Kenmore Under" can stub out at the Beacon/Comm Ave. merge in front of U Burger so the full station width doesn't have to underpin the Green level (i.e. platforms would span the Beacon/Raleigh intersection to basically the entrance of Cornwall's bar). Only whatever pair of storage tracks go further would actually slice diagonal under the Green level to keep the load-bearing footprint minimal.

Only tough tunneling here is the diagonal slip under the Muddy (which is going to need above-and-beyond waterproofing for the sea level rise era where Charles Dam can't empty the Basin as fast), under Beacon, and where it nicks the footprint of Kenmore station. On the Storrow EB carriageway it's way above the water table and the box tunnel's retaining wall sticking what's now about 3 ft. above the Storrow pavement acts as a flood wall if the Charles spills its banks. Embankment Rd. EB can have the crap torn out of its guts to impunity; there's not much in the way of utilities under the pavement of a de facto expressway that claimed ex-parkland. The Mass Ave. underpass retaining walls and auto tunnel are recyclable. And the Charles MGH tail tracks avoid all Charles Circle impacts.



It wouldn't be hard to build at all if post-Storrow era were achievable. It's mainly the wait for achieving the post-Storrow era that puts this out of current planning scope.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Reasonable (?) pitch: scrap the GLX maintenance facility plan, extend GLX Union Sq to Alewife, and place a massive facility in these parking lots along the Keolis MOW yard: https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=42.393596,-71.143373&spn=0.002864,0.005681&t=h&z=18

Alternative: expand Riverside yard into the parking lots and replace sprawling lots with a garage.
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GLX Maint has to be positioned near the line split to feed the north end expansion capacity. It doesn't work nearly as well with all the deadhead moves required 4 miles from the junction. With the Brickbottom positioning all their shift changes can go in or out of service at Lechmere. This is why Reservoir still exists instead of consolidating all facilities at a super-Riverside. Shift changes for 3 lines get run out of there and the only deadheading required is restocking or emptying Lake St. via Chestnut Hill Ave.


Alewife MoW isn't useless, either. All of the commuter rail track machines and hi-rail trucks live there and get maintained there in the garage instead of clogging up scarce storage track space around BET and requiring a separate garage/parking lot for the road/railers. They store an awful lot of stuff out there. And they can slip it down to BET or onto the Grand Junction for the southside well inside a train headway any hour of the day, which they couldn't do if it were anywhere else. Plus...Red Line = no need to make Fitchburg trains stop there for an employee shuttle from HQ.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Reasonable (?) pitch: scrap the GLX maintenance facility plan, extend GLX Union Sq to Alewife, and place a massive facility in these parking lots along the Keolis MOW yard: https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=42.393596,-71.143373&spn=0.002864,0.005681&t=h&z=18

Alternative: expand Riverside yard into the parking lots and replace sprawling lots with a garage.
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Building a new train yard next to an existing one within a city that already wants to have it is going to be sooooo much easier than building on near Alewife, especially given the extra costs of getting the Green Line to Alewife.

Riverside is already planning on building garages given the high demand. It makes more sense to have a yard closer to the majority of branches rather than far out at the end of one.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Which is why the Red Line leaks like a sieve in this exact spot.
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This is always something that amazed me... why they built a SUBWAY through wetlands. I knew the plan was to reach Rt 2 in Alewife long ago but most of the early plans involved running above ground. Was there a giant protest against an above ground terminal? It would have killed any route of the now popular bike/walking paths but those didn't come in until after the Red Line opened.
 
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