Regional Rail (RUR) & North-South Rail Link (NSRL)

[Charlie_mta]

The more I think about it, the more I believe a Waltham viaduct may be able to complement the village square well. It doesn’t necessarily need to be an imposing divide like Winchester. I think you can genuinely create good storefront use out of it, as Ratmeister has posted in another thread. The Waltham Common is bound by buildings across the street from it in almost it’s entirety, and this wouldn’t be too much different. Plus, on the south side of the tracks there isn’t anything oriented directly towards the park.

I’m actually mildly satisfied with TM for even bringing this up, they often neglect to point out that the frequency of trains traveling over busy grade crossings creates an inherent danger. Another grade crossing we’ve talked about before is West Medford. That too, I believe, would be a prime candidate for an elevated track. If these exist in other communities within 128 (albeit built a long time ago) that means there’s precedent for it.

Pick your poison, trains crossing your downtown streets every 7.5 mins on average (15mins both directions) or an elevated track with opportunity to activate the street. What creates a bigger divide? Which option is safer?

I don't get the public's paranoia about elevated rail. Yes, the old elevated OL through Charlestown was in a wrong location above a narrow street through residential neighborhoods, but that's no reason to unilaterally ban elevated rail to hell forever.

 

[Tallguy]

I'd add to this uncluttering the approach to NS and SS. I think in a previous transitmatters report they mentioned that the entire mess of switches can be upgraded from 10mph to 25mph for relatively low cost and effort. This allows trains to clear the switches much faster and increase terminal capacity as well as shaving several full minutes off every trip. That seems like way-too-low hanging fruit that should've been completed 20 years ago if true, but I'm sure theres some other complicating factors here right?

The complicating factor is that we are talking about the T.

 

[Java King]

The more I think about it, the more I believe a Waltham viaduct may be able to complement the village square well. It doesn’t necessarily need to be an imposing divide like Winchester. I think you can genuinely create good storefront use out of it, as Ratmeister has posted in another thread. The Waltham Common is bound by buildings across the street from it in almost it’s entirety, and this wouldn’t be too much different. Plus, on the south side of the tracks there isn’t anything oriented directly towards the park.

I’m actually mildly satisfied with TM for even bringing this up, they often neglect to point out that the frequency of trains traveling over busy grade crossings creates an inherent danger. Another grade crossing we’ve talked about before is West Medford. That too, I believe, would be a prime candidate for an elevated track. If these exist in other communities within 128 (albeit built a long time ago) that means there’s precedent for it.

Pick your poison, trains crossing your downtown streets every 7.5 mins on average (15mins both directions) or an elevated track with opportunity to activate the street. What creates a bigger divide? Which option is safer?

I've always thought the Winchester viaduct and elevated station was one of the coolest stations in the system. The stone piers made Winchester feel like being in an old village in the UK. However, I haven't been there recently to see the changes to the station, but the renderings look nice.

I worked on Route 128 in Waltham for 14 years. It was a real pain to go have lunch downtown, but we made an outing about once a month to a restaurant on Moody Street or to sit by the river. I think a viaduct could enhance the area quite a bit if designed correctly.

 

[Java King]

I wasn't sure which thread to post, but this seems like the most appropriate. We are all upset that the MBTA hasn't moved quickly enough into a Regional Rail system, however it's also important to realize how far we have progressed in 30 years! I give to you an article from Passenger Train Journal from March of 1993. Thirty years ago! It's about the potential expansion of the MBTA rail network.

We have achieved Worcester extension, Newburyport, Old Colony, and (almost) Fall River and New Bedford in the last 30 years! Look at the photos of South Station in the article. No bus terminal!

They speak about the Central Artery Rail Link instead of calling it North-South link.

We are NOT where we need to be, but it's also encouraging to see how far we have come! It's just critically important to keep our infrastructure in good working order and maintain resources and stations, so we don't have station closures like Ashland, Lynn, South Attleboro, etc. that are fairly "new" in relation to the entire system.

 

[jklo]

I don't get the public's paranoia about elevated rail. Yes, the old elevated OL through Charlestown was in a wrong location above a narrow street through residential neighborhoods, but that's no reason to unilaterally ban elevated rail to hell forever.

It's ugly. IMO I think you could have done it 20 years ago when the Moody St area was sketchy but not now. NIMBYs will do their thing.

 

[BosMaineiac]

I've always thought the Winchester viaduct and elevated station was one of the coolest stations in the system. The stone piers made Winchester feel like being in an old village in the UK. However, I haven't been there recently to see the changes to the station, but the renderings look nice.

True, the new station renderings do look nice. I was saying that more as an example of a starker divide, where the viaduct cuts right through the core. The one in Waltham would be more adjacent.

 

[TheRatmeister]

I'm replying to the discussion about TransitMatters' Fitchburg Line report here -- it really isn't about "current Commuter Rail operations" at all. Preceding posts linked below.











The more I think about it and look at it, the more gobsmacked I am that they just casually propose a Berlin-style viaduct along downtown Waltham. That's, like, a huge change to that public space, with impacts well beyond the scope of improving frequencies and dwell times. I'm reminded of something I said in the God-mode thread: Thou Shalt Not Destroy The Aesthetic Of The Village.

I wish they had instead offered some specifics on how to rework Waltham station to enable higher frequencies. The current design places the "inbound" platform on the single track segment and squished between Moody and Elm Streets, meaning that a stopped train is always going to block Moody St (as far as I can tell). Something like what @F-Line to Dudley proposed would be much more valuable and actionable:

Also, while it's not particularly "sexy", we'd also need plans to reshape the mildly-terrifying setup at Lincoln station:
View attachment 43127

(Photo credit to John Phelan on Wikimedia Commons)

^ This design is supposed to accommodate a train every 15 minutes on each track?

I also in general am struck at the lack of a holistic approach to some of their proposals. I'd argue that the best way to increase access to jobs at Brickbottom, Union Square, and Alewife is to extend the Green Line to Fresh Pond. Then Porter becomes the transfer hub -- Red to Harvard, Kendall and Alewife, Green to Brickbottom, Union, and Fresh Pond, with regional rail trains running express to North Station in <5 minutes, relieving crowding on both Red and Green.

I really need to "put up or shut up" here, so I'll just say that in my opinion the better strategy would be to focus on how to get 15-min headways within 128 in the next three years, by focusing on:

• Waltham rebuild
• High-levels at Porter
• A short-turn location
• Rolling stock needs
• Optionally, high-level rebuilds of the other within-128 stations

Electrification, full-highs everywhere, new infills... all of these are great, but they pale in comparison to the simple yet enormous benefit of Just Running The Trains More Often.

(Maybe 15-minute headways aren't achievable without full-highs everywhere, I don't know -- but if so I'd want to see that analysis please.)

For 15 minute headways I think DMUs at minimum would be required, and at that point we're just replacing the whole fleet with vehicles that would cost more than EMUs. Better to put that money towards electrification and just get it done. As for high level platforms, I think it's probably required. Low platforms increase boarding times by a lot, around 2 minutes at times. With high platforms this could be reduced to like, 30 seconds at less busy stops, along with improvements like automatic doors that would no longer require conductors.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Also, while it's not particularly "sexy", we'd also need plans to reshape the mildly-terrifying setup at Lincoln station:
View attachment 43127

(Photo credit to John Phelan on Wikimedia Commons)

^ This design is supposed to accommodate a train every 15 minutes on each track?

Lincoln's not hard at all. Take the outbound side platform north of Lincoln Rd. and raise it to a full-high 800-footer, and slap a new inbound platform opposite it on same side of Lincoln Rd. Discontinue the kooky "inbound" platform that requires walking across the tracks, and be left with just a prefab station north of the crossing. It would be the single cheapest upgraded station to do on the whole Fitchburg Line because of its layout simplicity.


For the other stops, you definitely need 100% high-level boarding inside 128 to activate the automatic doors on all coaches and speed boarding/alighting for the :15 service. That requires:

• Porter - Extend platform +100 ft., widen south end to MAAB-regulation 12 ft. width for islands (there's plenty of side room to re-space the tracks), and raise.
• Belmont Center - 800 ft. full-high side platforms east of the station building, change rump-of-platform in front of building into egress, ADA the egresses, snake Fitchburg Cutoff path extension behind outbound platform on ex- Track 3 & 4 berths.
• Waverley - Elevators and upgraded stairs, raise in-place, extend to both directions to net 800 ft. (possible retaining wall work).
• Waltham Center - Abandon the Moody-Elm block platform, double-track, lengthen and raise the outbound platform west of Moody (change parking row from angled to parallel for the double-track infill tie-in), put new inbound platform opposite the outbound likewise west of Moody, DTMF switch so the engineer can raise the gates while the train is at a stop, queue-dumping signal upgrades to Moody-Carter and Elm-Carter lights. Consider upgrading this alley as a south-of-crossing spanning street between Moody-Elm. It's already used unofficially for that purpose, so might as well double-up Carter and make it official. One-way in the prevailing-load or most 'difficult' direction if it's too narrow.
• Brandeis - Raise in-place. It's already 800 ft. on both sides.
• Weston/128 - The all-important Weston-consolidation, highway Pn'R, and terminating stop for :15 service. Near the Biogen campus at Route 20 where it's been studied.

And *ONLY* then can you start weighing the pros/cons of infills. TM is really jumping the gun by a lot there.

Outbound from there you're only seeing :30 minute service, so it's not going to hurt as bad if Concord (maximal engineering difficulty) has to go last-in-queue for high-levels and the clearance-route outer stations lag a little because of the freight passing solutions. It'll hurt a little to have the auto doors turned off after the 128 station or Lincoln for the door trap flips...so the goal of complete level boarding still needs to be a galvanizing force...but it can be managed with incrementalsm for those :30 schedules.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

The more I think about it and look at it, the more gobsmacked I am that they just casually propose a Berlin-style viaduct along downtown Waltham. That's, like, a huge change to that public space, with impacts well beyond the scope of improving frequencies and dwell times. I'm reminded of something I said in the God-mode thread: Thou Shalt Not Destroy The Aesthetic Of The Village.

That's where this stubborn and impractical insistence on 100 MPH track backs them into a corner. Whether or not Waltham Center is a station stop on any schedule (and remember, the Northern Tier pax rail study is proposing a Boston-North Adams train that does indeed skip here), the railroad in their plan is to be upgraded to FRA Class 6. That nukes each and every quiet zone grade crossing on the corridor...and the Fitchburg has a LOT of quiet crossings. It would cost a fortune to upgrade the crossing protection at Elm/Moody to reinstate the quiet crossing, and indeed it may even be impossible to keep that status. Solution?...lean hard into a gigantic $200M+ viaduct.

But it doesn't stop there. Fitchburg has the highest quantity of total grade crossings on the entire system due to its length, and almost certainly the highest number of quiet crossings since the towns en route have been very aggressive in applying for that. TM's cost estimates don't take into account *any* of the crossing upgrade costs to run Class 6 speed, both in the absolute upgrades for having any crossing and for the upgrades required to reinstate a quiet crossing. In addition to not accounting for the costs of the track class upgrades and maint premiums, the costs of superelevating the curves so the G-forces at those speeds are more tolerable for customer comfort, and the extra costs of the premium-class EMU's required to run those speeds. Their insistence that 100 MPH must...be...so on every single one of these reports is the Achilles heel of their whole effort. It's an instant mega cost blowout sprayed across every line on the system, which runs head-first into some very hard blockers around the system's most difficult grade crossings. And they're insisting on it when :30 travel times to Route 128 and 1:00 travel times to I-495 are the sweet spot for equal-or-better commutes to cars, something that can and (on some lines, with current sucky diesel ops) IS done with plain old existing Class 4/80 MPH track. They've never really justified why that must...be...so. It just, in their words, must.

And, yeah, as noted the all-in-oneness of it is a stark, stark departure from the pick-and-choose/incrementalism of the original mission statement. 100 MPH systemwide is one hurdle that in all practicality cannot be because of such numerous physical constraints and such blowout costs the state probably can't bear, but they're making it inseparable from doing most anything. That's not going to influence decision-makers. I quibble with some of the minor proofreading errors in the reports and some of the nonsensical infill station sitings, but the inner bones of what they're proposing is so good and so compelling. So it's somewhat tragic that 100 MPH is the hill they've staked themselves to die on, because it's simply not realistic and it (unfairly) casts doubt on some of the much more realistic things they're proposing. If it were a pick-and-choose approach that wouldn't be such a liability, but it just doesn't work presented as non-optional proof-of-concept.

 

[Riverside]

The more I think about it, the more I believe a Waltham viaduct may be able to complement the village square well. It doesn’t necessarily need to be an imposing divide like Winchester. I think you can genuinely create good storefront use out of it, as Ratmeister has posted in another thread. The Waltham Common is bound by buildings across the street from it in almost it’s entirety, and this wouldn’t be too much different. Plus, on the south side of the tracks there isn’t anything oriented directly towards the park.

I’m actually mildly satisfied with TM for even bringing this up, they often neglect to point out that the frequency of trains traveling over busy grade crossings creates an inherent danger. Another grade crossing we’ve talked about before is West Medford. That too, I believe, would be a prime candidate for an elevated track. If these exist in other communities within 128 (albeit built a long time ago) that means there’s precedent for it.

Pick your poison, trains crossing your downtown streets every 7.5 mins on average (15mins both directions) or an elevated track with opportunity to activate the street. What creates a bigger divide? Which option is safer?

Yeah I mean, I guess I should be a little clearer: I'm not, per se, opposed to the idea of a viaduct. Like, yeah, there definitely are some cool possibilities there. I object to the way the idea is just tossed out there casually -- it's cart before the horse, and to me feels oddly tone-deaf. (Though I am now mentally reviewing my recent proposals over the years to see if I've been guilty of similar.)

I see your point about needing to consider frequencies at grade crossings, and from that perspective it seems encouraging that they've been thinking about it. But yeah, my take here is: if the frequency of grade crossings ever becomes onerous, I think that's when you look at reactivating the Waltham Highlands branch, and when you look seriously at a Green Line extension. Light rail can interface more nicely with grade crossings than mainline rail can, and grade separation -- if needed -- is that much less expensive since it can handle steeper grades and therefore be shorter overall.

Lincoln's not hard at all. Take the outbound side platform north of Lincoln Rd. and raise it to a full-high 800-footer, and slap a new inbound platform opposite it on same side of Lincoln Rd. Discontinue the kooky "inbound" platform that requires walking across the tracks, and be left with just a prefab station north of the crossing. It would be the single cheapest upgraded station to do on the whole Fitchburg Line because of its layout simplicity.


For the other stops, you definitely need 100% high-level boarding inside 128 to activate the automatic doors on all coaches and speed boarding/alighting for the :15 service. That requires:

• Porter - Extend platform +100 ft., widen south end to MAAB-regulation 12 ft. width for islands (there's plenty of side room to re-space the tracks), and raise.
• Belmont Center - 800 ft. full-high side platforms east of the station building, change rump-of-platform in front of building into egress, ADA the egresses, snake Fitchburg Cutoff path extension behind outbound platform on ex- Track 3 & 4 berths.
• Waverley - Elevators and upgraded stairs, raise in-place, extend to both directions to net 800 ft. (possible retaining wall work).
• Waltham Center - Abandon the Moody-Elm block platform, double-track, lengthen and raise the outbound platform west of Moody (change parking row from angled to parallel for the double-track infill tie-in), put new inbound platform opposite the outbound likewise west of Moody, DTMF switch so the engineer can raise the gates while the train is at a stop, queue-dumping signal upgrades to Moody-Carter and Elm-Carter lights. Consider upgrading this alley as a south-of-crossing spanning street between Moody-Elm. It's already used unofficially for that purpose, so might as well double-up Carter and make it official. One-way in the prevailing-load or most 'difficult' direction if it's too narrow.
• Brandeis - Raise in-place. It's already 800 ft. on both sides.
• Weston/128 - The all-important Weston-consolidation, highway Pn'R, and terminating stop for :15 service. Near the Biogen campus at Route 20 where it's been studied.

And *ONLY* then can you start weighing the pros/cons of infills. TM is really jumping the gun by a lot there.

Outbound from there you're only seeing :30 minute service, so it's not going to hurt as bad if Concord (maximal engineering difficulty) has to go last-in-queue for high-levels and the clearance-route outer stations lag a little because of the freight passing solutions. It'll hurt a little to have the auto doors turned off after the 128 station or Lincoln for the door trap flips...so the goal of complete level boarding still needs to be a galvanizing force...but it can be managed with incrementalsm for those :30 schedules.

Agree with all this -- and this is exactly what I wish were in the report. TM has some good people working for them, and they have at least a minor level of influence over transit policy in the region -- getting this in front of MassDOT would be much more valuable.

And yeah -- full agree about the 100 mph stuff.

For 15 minute headways I think DMUs at minimum would be required, and at that point we're just replacing the whole fleet with vehicles that would cost more than EMUs. Better to put that money towards electrification and just get it done. As for high level platforms, I think it's probably required. Low platforms increase boarding times by a lot, around 2 minutes at times. With high platforms this could be reduced to like, 30 seconds at less busy stops, along with improvements like automatic doors that would no longer require conductors.

Partial electrification to Weston/128 is actually something I think would be worth exploring on its own. Take a small set of EMUs (shared with Fairmount and Providence) and run them back and forth along the inner Fitchburg. Interweave 30 min long-haul diesel service from Fitchburg (maybe skipping a few stops depending), and use the layer cake to create turn-up-and-go frequencies at Waltham, Porter, and potentially others.

Unlike the Eastern Route, the inner Fitchburg could actually absorb an additional number of trains and short-turn them; the Eastern Route needs most if not all of its slots available for 30-min headways to both Newburyport and Rockport, so the service is always going to be at least 50% diesel. (There's a similar problem on the Lowell Line if Haverhill trains take the Wildcat.) The inner Fitchburg could potentially see 75% electric service, which is better than any other northside route. (Except maybe for Reading, but that has its own set of problems.)

 

[Tallguy]

Lincoln's not hard at all. Take the outbound side platform north of Lincoln Rd. and raise it to a full-high 800-footer, and slap a new inbound platform opposite it on same side of Lincoln Rd. Discontinue the kooky "inbound" platform that requires walking across the tracks, and be left with just a prefab station north of the crossing. It would be the single cheapest upgraded station to do on the whole Fitchburg Line because of its layout simplicity.


For the other stops, you definitely need 100% high-level boarding inside 128 to activate the automatic doors on all coaches and speed boarding/alighting for the :15 service. That requires:

• Porter - Extend platform +100 ft., widen south end to MAAB-regulation 12 ft. width for islands (there's plenty of side room to re-space the tracks), and raise.
• Belmont Center - 800 ft. full-high side platforms east of the station building, change rump-of-platform in front of building into egress, ADA the egresses, snake Fitchburg Cutoff path extension behind outbound platform on ex- Track 3 & 4 berths.
• Waverley - Elevators and upgraded stairs, raise in-place, extend to both directions to net 800 ft. (possible retaining wall work).
• Waltham Center - Abandon the Moody-Elm block platform, double-track, lengthen and raise the outbound platform west of Moody (change parking row from angled to parallel for the double-track infill tie-in), put new inbound platform opposite the outbound likewise west of Moody, DTMF switch so the engineer can raise the gates while the train is at a stop, queue-dumping signal upgrades to Moody-Carter and Elm-Carter lights. Consider upgrading this alley as a south-of-crossing spanning street between Moody-Elm. It's already used unofficially for that purpose, so might as well double-up Carter and make it official. One-way in the prevailing-load or most 'difficult' direction if it's too narrow.
• Brandeis - Raise in-place. It's already 800 ft. on both sides.
• Weston/128 - The all-important Weston-consolidation, highway Pn'R, and terminating stop for :15 service. Near the Biogen campus at Route 20 where it's been studied.

And *ONLY* then can you start weighing the pros/cons of infills. TM is really jumping the gun by a lot there.

Outbound from there you're only seeing :30 minute service, so it's not going to hurt as bad if Concord (maximal engineering difficulty) has to go last-in-queue for high-levels and the clearance-route outer stations lag a little because of the freight passing solutions. It'll hurt a little to have the auto doors turned off after the 128 station or Lincoln for the door trap flips...so the goal of complete level boarding still needs to be a galvanizing force...but it can be managed with incrementalsm for those :30 schedules.

There is absolutely no reason for 800ft platforms anywhere on the North Side. Ridership doesn't come close to justify them. Even with RR, the increase in frequency means that each train would probably carry the same number of people, even with greatly increased ridership.

And if the only excuse you can come up with is the lame interoperability argument that the T uses.....

 

[ritchiew]

In the Transit Matters report, they suggest an infill station at Union Square. Surely that was considered during the GLX, right? Was there some specific reason it was rejected then, or was it just the growing costs the whole project? I guess Union Square has also just changed a heck of a lot since GLX planning started.

. I'd argue that the best way to increase access to jobs at Brickbottom, Union Square, and Alewife is to extend the Green Line to Fresh Pond.

I agree, and I'm in favor of extending the Green Line. But also that extension could be an order of magnitude more expensive than an infill station at Union Square. And that infill station would be pretty good. The report mentions the number of jobs around, with lots more office and labs being built. Union Square is becoming a pretty big commuter destination. Plus it's already well connected with bus lines and a growing bike network. It'd be better for commuters would otherwise have to ride into North Station then backtrack to Lechmere or Union on the green line. Seems reasonable, for something 1/10th the cost of a new GLX.

 

[michaelw37]

There is absolutely no reason for 800ft platforms anywhere on the North Side. Ridership doesn't come close to justify them. Even with RR, the increase in frequency means that each train would probably carry the same number of people, even with greatly increased ridership.

And if the only excuse you can come up with is the lame interoperability argument that the T uses.....

The "excuse" is that adding length to high-level platforms is not at all the main driver of cost - UNLESS there is something in the way. Like, perhaps Waverley you would avoid it because as soon as you have to move the retaining wall, it's an order of magnitude more costly. But aside from those kinds of cases, once you've got contractors on site doing a high-level, having them stay on a few extra days to pour another few concrete panels into place is a rounding error when we are talking about things like electrification and new grade separations. In return, you get long-run future proofed stations, standardization in design, and simplified ops that are good for network effects. Even ConnDOT sees the advantage of maxing out high-level platforms and they are hardly a forward-thinking state transportation agency.

 

[michaelw37]

That's where this stubborn and impractical insistence on 100 MPH track backs them into a corner. Whether or not Waltham Center is a station stop on any schedule (and remember, the Northern Tier pax rail study is proposing a Boston-North Adams train that does indeed skip here), the railroad in their plan is to be upgraded to FRA Class 6. That nukes each and every quiet zone grade crossing on the corridor...and the Fitchburg has a LOT of quiet crossings. It would cost a fortune to upgrade the crossing protection at Elm/Moody to reinstate the quiet crossing, and indeed it may even be impossible to keep that status. Solution?...lean hard into a gigantic $200M+ viaduct.

Somewhere on this forum, I read a post that you wrote about potentially extending the Green Line all the way to Waltham and taking over the Fitchburg ROW through the town center and around Brandeis, with the Fitchburg Line itself taking over the Mass Central ROW to bypass Waltham. I really liked your proposal then purely because I think Waltham can support rapid transit. But now thinking about it in the context of this report, I realize that the biggest benefit is maybe not the extension of rapid transit itself, but the benefit to regional rail ops. As you say, achieving 100 MPH is hard. But with your propsal, you can maybe get similar time savings with the Mass Central reroute. You could also prune some other stops on the inner Fitchburg with the Green Line taking them over.

On the rapid transit case alone, it's a far-future proposal. But like Needham conversion, I think it moves up in the pecking order when you consider implications for achieving regional rail. Especially if we're talking about big capital investments like a Waltham viaduct as the alternative.

 

[Teban54]

In the Transit Matters report, they suggest an infill station at Union Square. Surely that was considered during the GLX, right? Was there some specific reason it was rejected then, or was it just the growing costs the whole project? I guess Union Square has also just changed a heck of a lot since GLX planning started.

I agree, and I'm in favor of extending the Green Line. But also that extension could be an order of magnitude more expensive than an infill station at Union Square. And that infill station would be pretty good. The report mentions the number of jobs around, with lots more office and labs being built. Union Square is becoming a pretty big commuter destination. Plus it's already well connected with bus lines and a growing bike network. It'd be better for commuters would otherwise have to ride into North Station then backtrack to Lechmere or Union on the green line. Seems reasonable, for something 1/10th the cost of a new GLX.

FWIW, the backtracking won't be necessary in a world with GLX to Porter, which allows Fitchburg passengers to transfer at Porter towards Union Square.

I think GLX to Porter has enough merit on its own, beyond simply offering the Porter-Union Sq connection. Some of the benefits include:

• Porter-Lechmere connection, given the recent growth of Lechmere (which a Fitchburg infill can't do)
• Network redundancy: e.g. if Red Line is shut down south of Porter for whatever reason, passengers can transfer to Green Line towards downtown, instead of Fitchburg to North Station followed by another transfer. It also removes some traffic from the Red-Green transfer at Park St.
• Another station between Union Square and Porter to serve the local neighborhoods

While GLX to Porter will have non-trivial cost reconfiguring Porter station, I'd expect the benefits to be worth the cost.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

In the Transit Matters report, they suggest an infill station at Union Square. Surely that was considered during the GLX, right? Was there some specific reason it was rejected then, or was it just the growing costs the whole project? I guess Union Square has also just changed a heck of a lot since GLX planning started.

It was considered during the 2004 Program for Mass Transportation by Boston MPO. But that was when GLX was only proposed as one branch to Medford with 2 routing Alternatives:

• The branch to Medford as built today, with no Union representation whatsoever
• A "uni-branch" that went to Union along the Fitchburg Line as today but then turned down Webster Ave. in a subway, placed the Union station in the middle of the square as a subway station, and deep-bored under Prospect Hill to get back on-alignment to the Lowell Line by Gilman Sq.

The subway Alt. was ultimately rejected as too expensive, and the twin-fork line became the Preferred Alternative when the first comprehensive feasibility study was published. That pretty much KO'd the Union CR station plan. Here's the screenshot from the '04 PMT. Note that the write-up doesn't mention rapid transit at all, only "bus routes that connect with rapid transit lines". Ridership was not exactly awesome at CR frequencies.

Today the price tag would be much higher because of property acquisition required on the southerly side of the ROW to widen it for CR platforms. 5 adjacent parcels would have to have strips of land acquired to fit an 800 ft. platform, and as this is a hot redevelopment area the current industrial scuzz on those parcels is not likely to last long before new developers start massing large buildings snug against the tracks. I'm not sure if there are any such active proposals (paging @Dr. Rosen Rosen!), but they'd all have to start reserving space for the T's property acquisition if a companion Union CR station is ever going to be in the cards. And I doubt TransitMatters was considering that when they stanned for its inclusion.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Meanwhile, Alewife CR has always studied out a big loser on ridership. From the PMT:

Note that even back in '04 they were indeed banking on the now-realized TOD happening anyway, so the low ridership was inclusive of those plans. Even at Urban Rail frequencies it's likely to be the most anemic-ridership stop in the intra-128 :15 zone by a wide margin, because nobody's going to use it to transfer to the Red Line and Cambridgepark is much closer to the Red entrance. There's no way that it should've been included on the list of recommended infills.

 

[Riverside]

Somewhere on this forum, I read a post that you wrote about potentially extending the Green Line all the way to Waltham and taking over the Fitchburg ROW through the town center and around Brandeis, with the Fitchburg Line itself taking over the Mass Central ROW to bypass Waltham. I really liked your proposal then purely because I think Waltham can support rapid transit. But now thinking about it in the context of this report, I realize that the biggest benefit is maybe not the extension of rapid transit itself, but the benefit to regional rail ops. As you say, achieving 100 MPH is hard. But with your propsal, you can maybe get similar time savings with the Mass Central reroute. You could also prune some other stops on the inner Fitchburg with the Green Line taking them over.

On the rapid transit case alone, it's a far-future proposal. But like Needham conversion, I think it moves up in the pecking order when you consider implications for achieving regional rail. Especially if we're talking about big capital investments like a Waltham viaduct as the alternative.

That would be here: https://archboston.com/community/threads/crazy-transit-pitches.3664/page-211#post-388578

I agree with F-Line's original assessment at the time:

Keep in mind this will be one of the very last linear rapid transit expansions mounted on the priority pile, because :15 Fitchburg Line Urban Rail to 128 is 1-2 generation's worth of growth in itself before any added gear is necessary.

I mean, if Waltham really clamors for it, I'm sure it could move up the priority pile. I think it could also be built incrementally, with for example an intermediate build terminating at Belmont.

To be fair, it's worth noting that GLX-to-Weston is long -- about 8 miles from Porter. Assuming a reasonable cost-per-mile of $250M, that's $2B right there. And while more frequent, the service would also be slower.

(Quick mental sketch -- TM estimates 17 min from Weston/128 to Porter at 28 mph; assuming 15 min headways, on average a rider waits 7.5 min, for an average journey time of 24.5 minutes. Let's assume GLX does similarly to Riverside <> Brookline Village, which is a similar distance and number of stops and historically was about 24.5 minutes. Assuming headways of 8 minutes, on average a rider waits 4 mins, for a total journey of 28.5 minutes. So, potentially slower but could be comparable. In this scenario, GLX also makes more stops than the TM proposal, so there is improved access as well.)

All of which is just to say that maybe a Green Line Extension makes sense and maybe it doesn't.

 

[Teban54]

It was considered during the 2004 Program for Mass Transportation by Boston MPO. But that was when GLX was only proposed as one branch to Medford with 2 routing Alternatives:

• The branch to Medford as built today, with no Union representation whatsoever
• A "uni-branch" that went to Union along the Fitchburg Line as today but then turned down Webster Ave. in a subway, placed the Union station in the middle of the square as a subway station, and deep-bored under Prospect Hill to get back on-alignment to the Lowell Line by Gilman Sq.

The subway Alt. was ultimately rejected as too expensive, and the twin-fork line became the Preferred Alternative when the first comprehensive feasibility study was published.

Was the Union-to-Medford subway alt rejected due to too high of a cost in comparison to the other alts, or just by itself? I can't imagine that subway connecting the two ROWs being too long.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Was the Union-to-Medford subway alt rejected due to too high of a cost in comparison to the other alts, or just by itself? I can't imagine that subway connecting the two ROWs being too long.

I'm pleased that the two branch alternative was selected. It provides East Somerville with a GL station, and from Union Square provides a future opportunity for an extension westward.