Red Line Extension to Mattapan

Scott said:
It does not take a citation to point out that eliminating 4 trolley stops will require people who now take the trolley to take a bus and fly-overs at Capen and Central Ave will never, ever be built
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Check the ridership on the consolidated stops, which you CAN cite from the Blue Book. Milton and Central Ave., the only two of any significance, pool at the combined station. The others are literally the lowest-ridership stops on the entire rapid transit system totaling fewer riders combined than some faceless outer C-line stop and whose walking access to the nearest consolidated stop is well within rapid transit averages.

You cannot have new-install HRT grade crossings of any kind, so both grade crossings MUST be eliminated by law.


If you're going to snarkily proclaim these beliefs about what is always/never and forever, at least get your basic-most facts straight first.
 
I am not being snarky, I am telling the truth.
 
You can back off with the personal attacks. I only expressed an opinion and gave reasons why I felt that way
 
Scott said:
It does not take a citation to point out that eliminating 4 trolley stops will require people who now take the trolley to take a bus and fly-overs at Capen and Central Ave will never, ever be built
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Of the eliminated stations, only Valley Road is more than 1/4 mile from Milton or Mattapan. They won't take a bus, they'll walk. I live a quarter-mile from Central and I don't need a trolley or bus on Prospect Street to get me there.
 
Scott said:
You can back off with the personal attacks. I only expressed an opinion and gave reasons why I felt that way
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No. You dismissed the need for factual citation. That's not expressing an opinion, it's open hostility to addressing evidence by claiming your personal belief speaks for all. You're doing it in the odometer tax thread, too.

You've been around this site too many years; you know full well that behavior doesn't fly on aB.
 
Scott said:
You can back off with the personal attacks. I only expressed an opinion and gave reasons why I felt that way
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Either you were expressing an opinion, or telling the truth. An opinion may conform to truth, to be sure, but at that point, we usually do not consider it an opinion anymore. Which means its no longer defensible on grounds that opinions are defensible on: their inherent subjectivity.
 
That would be true if people stuck to the facts. Saying it is physically possible to bridge Capen Street is a fact. Claiming it is just a minor detail is an opinion
 
Scott said:
That would be true if people stuck to the facts. Saying it is physically possible to bridge Capen Street is a fact. Claiming it is just a minor detail is an opinion
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Why is it a fact? Say SOMETHING with evidence supporting that assertion if you expect your closely-held belief to hold any credence. There's reams of engineering evidence supporting feasibility; what's yours to the contrary?

You're not doing that. You're trying to duck it by making a circular argument out of parrotting that same belief over and over. That doesn't work here.
 
Scott said:
That would be true if people stuck to the facts. Saying it is physically possible to bridge Capen Street is a fact. Claiming it is just a minor detail is an opinion
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🤦🏻‍♂️
This is like managing my classroom of 8th-graders...

I may be missing it, but no one claimed that eliminating grade-crossings would be 'minor'. They are, in fact, one of the major elements of a trolley-subwaycar conversion.

Let's sum up: Scott, you stated an opinion based on, I suppose, your own personal context knowledge, which is that there will be neighborhood opposition to a conversion due to aesthetic and logistical reasons. F-Line stated counter-evidence that the neighborhood specifically requested conversion be among study options. Bakgwailo provided further anecdotal evidence that neighborhood feelings aren't so clear cut.

That's when this devolved. Scott, F-Line asked for more evidence than your say so. You responded saying that more evidence isn't needed to demonstrate that people will need to use other modes to the subway and also that flyovers would "never, ever" be built. To be very clear, those statements absolutely do require evidence. Equilibria, for example, provided evidence that the stations in question are close enough to others that most of the (limited per F-Line's Blue Book data) riders would just walk to the nearest station. To be very clear, you offered *no* evidence for your statement that the grade-crossings will "never ever" be eliminated.

You're backpedaling and creating tangents, and then you're derailing the thread by calling out people who are pointing out the holes in your argument (and yes, you made an argumentative statement... you can't change that by backpedaling and saying that it's "just an opinion").

Look, this is a web-forum. We don't need to adhere to formal rules of debate, but I will require honest engagement in argumentation and a certain amount of grace when anyone makes an unsupported statement and gets challenged. If that happens to you, either offer evidence, back down in the face of opposing evidence, or admit that your argument was just actually your unsupported opinion and you will not be swayed by any evidence so that people can avoid spending their time beating their heads against a wall...
 
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I am not taking the bait George. I tried not to respond to F-line because he was personalizing a post that was not in any way aimed at him and hurling insults.
You shouldn't support that.
 
Scott said:
I am not taking the bait George. I tried not to respond to F-line because he was personalizing a post that was not in any way aimed at him and hurling insults.
You shouldn't support that.
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No bait. Told it as I saw it. I also saw no hurled insults. I maybe see what could ungenerously be interpreted as an insult, but to me it fits in standard frustrated forum debate banter. Please try to follow my advice on how to conduct argumentation on this board going forward. Take any more replies to DMs please. I'll moderate anything else posted here.
 
If it gets replaced, it will most likely be replaced with a Silverline type system, which will be fine if the traffic crossings are synced in the buses favor; unlike D Street. (Opinion)
 
dhawkins said:
If it gets replaced, it will most likely be replaced with a Silverline type system, which will be fine if the traffic crossings are synced in the buses favor; unlike D Street. (Opinion)
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Now, that (busway conversion) was already floated prior as a future option back when the line was shut down for a long time for Ashmont Viaduct reconstruction...and it was nuked from orbit by howls of protest from the communities who saw it as a trojan horse. The state already took its litmus test of that option. You don't see it highlighted amongst the options being seriously considered now because they know it would put them in a world of pain to re-energize the opposition that staunchly. It got a little hairy for them a decade ago; with the bullseye now on further-reaching questions about the line's future the decibel level shouted over the busway option is likely to be even higher than it was last time.

Besides, amongst all this talk of what vehicles supposedly can and can't fit on an ex-RR trackbed where--in the state's words--every extra 2-4 feet of extra slack is far too precious to attempt to reach for...buses are the absolute worst-fitting of them all. So if they really are against HRT enough to try to cut it off at the pass from ever being studied (and let's remember, a paper study is so far all this is)...it runs a risk of boomeranging straight back into their faces to shift focus to any notions of a busway which would be pushing the envelope even further on extra ROW buffer they'd need to seek. Tactically I don't think they risk that; it's stretching the credulity of their original dimensional claim (already contradicted by the BTC docs that EGE cited) so blatantly it's liable to backfire. Though it would be hilarious if another violently opposed crack at the busway game ended up accidentally nullifying their dimensional truthiness about HRT and forcing that conversion front-and-center on the table in the study to their horror. Hilarious...but also unlikely to go that way because they're being risk-averse. But being risk-averse means the busway idea gets waaaaaaaaay more muted play than it did a dozen years ago, because of its certainty of riling up the residents. They're on their safest ground making the least effort for the money just trying to foist the Type 9's on an otherwise unmodified corridor, and hoping they can get away without any bigger service-improvement asks.
 
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I'd like to return to the medium page that kicked off this thread, since I find pictures really helpful.

In particular, I like the walkshed picture by Sky Rose where:
400m = .25miles = 4 to 5 minute walk
800m = .5 miles = 8 to 10 minute walk
1200m = .75 miles = 12 to 15 minute walk (I've added this, since it is roughly the walk to Alewife that people from Lake St / Capitol Theater have in East Arlington...a bit taxing as a daily walk, but a very easy bike ride on a $150 "beater bike", particularly when you have a good multiuse path to bike on, as both here (Neponsit Trail) and at Alewife (Minuteman & Fitchburg Cutoff))

red-line-extension-to-mattapan-b7351aa782e
1*A0TyoKRA_1Ag5J5pRqT_dg.png

Source: Medium.com/@skyqrose

The justification for expanding the walkshed and saying that two HRT stations work nearly as well as 6 is simple:
1) by eliminating the time and shlep of a change at Ashmont, the new service is "worth walking 400m farther" to.
1a) Assuming trains every 5 minutes, the average connecting wait from trolley to heavy rail is 2.5minutes...the time it takes to walk another 200m
1b) There's friction, distance and fuss in the change that isn't measured in time, and that accounts for [gets converted to / cashed out as] the other 200m [of walking]
1c) Boarding a big train at Milton or Mattapan means less competition to seat yourself in a seat you're happy with
1d) Current Valley Road users can at least use the Neponsit Trail to walk in to the milton stop,

Yes, Valley Road users would have cause to complain...but not much

Everyone else ends up about equal or better off for reasons 1a thru 1c

Things Sky Rose didn't consider:
2) The Neponsit Trail(s) make a nice walkshed on both sides of the Neponsit (both the Valley Road side and the north side)
3) Crazy pitch: you could have autonomous EV shuttles plying the Neponsit paths here doing the "last quarter mile"
 
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And Valley's the lowest-ridership stop on all of rapid transit, so the only place on the whole line with a walkshed concern...has its concern limited to a literal few dozen daily riders only.
 
Eh, even from that map I think parts of the Butler/Cedar Grove current walk shed lose out (like me, for instance) that go from 1/4 access to half a mile or more to either the combined Milton stop or Ashmont. I would 100% welcome, though, a walking path from Cedar Grove to Ashmont.
 
bakgwailo said:
Eh, even from that map I think parts of the Butler/Cedar Grove current walk shed lose out (like me, for instance) that go from 1/4 access to half a mile or more to either the combined Milton stop or Ashmont. I would 100% welcome, though, a walking path from Cedar Grove to Ashmont.
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Of course there are always going to winners and losers in any restructuring. In this case I think the beneficiaries vastly outnumber those who will lose out. I agree that those losses can be mitigated by things like improving access in other ways.
 
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