I think we very much agree that expanded bus service to AH is the short term compromise, however, I can't see a world in which it is ever feasible to destroy the bikeway for a light rail line in place of the heavy rail extension. Why would the local politics support a forced transfer? Why would we spend the money on vehicle procurement, trackage, storage, and maintenance on a single use line for approximately five miles when we could spend equal or slightly more to just extend the red line to one of the largest roadways and growing business hubs in the metro? You're being precious about how we spend capital while also presenting an idea that wastes it in the long run. I'm not talking about stopping just in Lexington Center. I'm talking about going to Hartwell Ave, to 128. 11% of Alewife's ridership is people using "The Grid" shuttles offered by the 128 Business Council. Without a forced connection to a bus, how much of our network could be improved by connecting jobs on 128 to downtown through the places where people live? Also, how do you expect transit oriented density to spring up in car dependent places? We built all of these suburbs by extending train and streetcar lines there first and the communities grew around them. Why do it backwards now?
More than that, why would station spacing be radically different from every other line north or south of the CBD? There are four stations in Lexington (whether you choose to infill them later or not): Maple Street, Lexington Center, North Lexington (at Bedford St), and Hartwell Ave (the only non-Historic station because it was a swamp then just like Alewife was). The Orange line extension north was going to add in stations beyond what the commuter rail already has. Now, go back and look at each of those 4 stations, the land around them (Land that has already been rezoned for higher density in 3/4 of those spaces) and compare it to land availability around Orient Heights and explain to me why is that comparison is useful at all? The utility of Orient Heights is boxed in by Belle Isle Marsh, The Chelsea River, and climate change. None of the Lexington stations are hemmed in by that level of geography. Before you come down hard on Maple St, here's the full 2023 zoning map where you can see that Mass Ave and all of its offshoots are already zoned for dual family and even the development north of the recreation area is multi family even though it is zoned for single family.
That's my point though: it's the same argument. Mattapan deserves the red line, Milton arguably does as well but Milton doesn't want density so we build it anyways. Roslindale wants the Orange line and density but West Roxbury and Needham don't, so we build it anyways. Arlington has density and 128 north has commercial density, Lexington is open to densifying, so we build it anyways. There's a housing crisis and a willing partner and you're basically saying, "toss it on the heap." I would rather spend money on places where we are connecting actual opportunities rather than opportunities that are great on the map but are politically a failure.
Here's a controversial example: Electrification of the commuter rail and the North/South Rail link. I am compelled to state that I firmly believe that these two items are the absolute priority of transit funding in Massachusetts. With that said, do we really believe that the majority of communities on or adjacent to the stations are going to utilize the upgrade and alter their zoning, local transit, and movement patterns? Look at the communities that are against the zoning mandate or the ones that complied in bad faith (upzoning already dense areas so that they didn't have to build much)? It's the commuter rail communities by an incredibly large margin. Given that the ridership projections assumed unlimited parking, what do you expect is going to happen in those communities to get riders to the train? Not much. For every Salem and Acton is a North Reading or a Scituate.
