Seaport Transportation

[F-Line to Dudley]

Makes sense, F-Line, but I was actually thinking along these lines:

Yellow segments are those where a more involved engineering solution is required, but most of it may be fairly easy cut-and-cover to link the Seaport directly with Back Bay.

I like this because it not only serves as an important radial link, but also serves Dudley as well, parallels a very high ridership stretch of the #1 and #66 buses, while also giving an important link between the Seaport and Back Bay.

That doesn't solve the problem because you still miss SS and lose a huge chunk of the ridership that will always prefer a thru link on the Transitway because of that terminal. It's also fugly as hell routing for a downtown link that requires a long backtrack to Ruggles on an Orange Line that bends entirely back on itself for a trip that takes 20 minutes longer than a Green-to-Transitway link. And it cooks up some budding congestion problems on downtown Orange. All at a pornographic sum of money that still duplicates existing stops for its severe routing faults. That's just not going to work at all. Track 61/Haul Rd. is a shitty, shitty transit corridor for missing SS under any permutation. The DMU plan is a desperation stopgap for the BCEC until the state can be flogged and beaten into completing the Transitway link. It's not anyone's idea of a long-term prospect.


I also can't see this subway working as a first leg of an Urban Ring Phase III tunnel, because tunneling west through Longwood and Brookline to connect the segments under full grade separation is virtually impossible. And thus it is virtually impossible to create an UR that could ever run on heavy rail. So while Melnea Cass and Mass Ave. connector are somewhat easier digs, spending that much money still requires having a clear and compelling mission statement. This doesn't. If the UR can't be a complete-circuit tunnel I don't even see a subway here being merited for LRT or BRT. Dudley/Ruggles-Southie on a Melnea Cass transit reservation + Haul Rd. is eminently doable on an express bus. Bring on the CT4 route...yesterday...and install those bus lanes and signal priority on Melnea Cass if that's such a pressing need.

 

[Deetroyt]

Sorry to bump this thread, but was digging thru the BCEC expansion plans and was curious if Track 61 (or other transportation improvements) were brought to the area, are there any plans to develop the parcels north of Summer St, on either side of D st.? This is right in front of the convention center and would seem to be a perfect place to add the hotel rooms they're lacking. From what I can tell, there doesn't seem to be any highway tunnels beneath, so they seem to just be empty parcels. Wondering if anyone here has any idea if these parcels are privately owned and if theres been any discussion about building on them. Also I realize this may not be the best thread for post, perhaps mods could move this to a BCEC expansion thread if one exists.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Here's a concept I have for light rail from Back Bay station to South Boston, mostly a surface line except where it utilizes the existing Silver Line Tunnel, with a short extension to south of Kneeland Street. The yellow line is an alternative tunnel connection to the Green D Line.

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msi...ll=42.346809,-71.043777&spn=0.020046,0.042272

 

[Proposition Joe]

Well this is a bad idea: City Looks to Re-Open Northern Avenue Bridge to Cars

 

[Scalziand]

Seriously? That bridge would take a lot of work to make it suitable for traffic again, even if it was a good idea.

 

[bostoneophyte]

The "South Boston Waterfront Sustainable Transportation Plan" now has its own website: http://www.sbwaterfrontmobility.org

 

[Deetroyt]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

THAT would've completely fucked the schedules, created horrible bunching, and probably kneecapped the capacity of the existing Transitway to lower than what it is now. It's defective by design in addition to being a good billion or two dollars more expensive to build as BRT vs. trolley. Trolleys through the abandoned tunnel would probably be able to hit 30+ MPH because it's a long straightaway, and would be able to make the Essex/Atlantic turn into the Transitway much faster than a bus because the turning angle would be a bit wider for trolley tracks vs. artic buses on tires. Depending on how you tunnel through or around the block from the corner of Essex/Surface/Chinatown Park to the Central Subway hook-in, so long as the construction doesn't include ugly hacks like another Boylston curve speeds are going to be a good 2-3x that of the bus. Think Huntington tunnel, because the connecting tunnel will be a relatively uncongested branch compared to the Central Subway with hardly any occupied signal blocks mid-tunnel restricting speeds or forcing pauses. It'll have no effect at all if a trolley pulls behind an SL1 bus at the South Station platform and has to crawl out to the end of the line at Silver Line Way.

F-line, is MassDOT/MBTA/whoever aware of these ideas in this post and other threads of the Tremont tunnel and Pike/Marginal cut for connecting Central Subway with transitway (and the related ideas of Washington st. greenline, potential connection with D line, etc.)? In other words, if 10 billion dollars landed in their lap tomorrow, would they still go ahead with the awful SL Phase III idea, or has it been scrapped because they realize how stupid it is? Was the Tremont Tunnel and Marginal st. cut studied as thoroughly as the Essex St. idea? Or is the Essex st. idea still the plan for moving forward if $$ magically appeared?


And I realize this is off topic and should probably be asked in the appropriate transit thread but I coudln't help but comment after reading F-line's post

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

F-line, is MassDOT/MBTA/whoever aware of these ideas in this post and other threads of the Tremont tunnel and Pike/Marginal cut for connecting Central Subway with transitway (and the related ideas of Washington st. greenline, potential connection with D line, etc.)? In other words, if 10 billion dollars landed in their lap tomorrow, would they still go ahead with the awful SL Phase III idea, or has it been scrapped because they realize how stupid it is? Was the Tremont Tunnel and Marginal st. cut studied as thoroughly as the Essex St. idea? Or is the Essex st. idea still the plan for moving forward if $$ magically appeared?


And I realize this is off topic and should probably be asked in the appropriate transit thread but I coudln't help but comment after reading F-line's post

I don't know what exactly was analyzed as far as LRT alignments, because that was so early on in the feasibility studies. LRT would've been gamed out for the sake of populating a feasibility study with 3 or 4 build alternatives, for the same reasons GLX had some kooky alternatives like a Blue or Orange Line flavor in its scoping study. Those Silver Line docs are probably well over 20 years old by this point and would have to be physically checked out from the State Transportation Library to even see a diagram of a possible LRT alignment. Before there was such a thing as a PDF, or a public Internet to host it on. I don't think I've ever seen an actual point-by-point description of what the options were...just heard them vaguely alluded to on half-decade-old RR.net threads from posters old enough to have read the study when it came out.

All I can say is the community meetings for the Orange Line El replacement way back in '86-87 were already floating the electric bus replacement. Washington St. was already being shotgunned with the Big Dig the second Congress appropriated funding for the Ted. Menino right upon taking office had already bitched about the unsightliness of overhead wires, so the dual-mode Frankenbuses were pretty much the hell or high water decision by '95 or so. So you're talking a decision that had pretty much been a political fait accompli 30 years ago to push BRT at the expense of other modes. Then politically maneuvered over 20 years ago to be the only approvable alternative, rendering any other alternatives un-serious. Then beaten into the public's heads with relentless hype 15-18 years ago that BRT was the miracle mode. The project managers who worked on Washington St. were not shy about saying that it should've been LRT from Day 1, and that the Phase 3 turkey would be the death of the project. Not shy about saying their bosses also believed that too but were overruled by the political appointees at the top. But the entire birth of the Silver Line was pre-fitted to a preordained outcome. Presumably determined by whoever had the most to profit from that preordained outcome.

Whatever it did say in the final study for the LRT alternatives wasn't taken much more seriously than the notion of wrapping the Blue Line out to West Medford. They call those "non-preferred" alternatives, but you might as well just call it what it is: a placebo.



That was pretty much the state of affairs when I first set foot in this town in Summer '96 to enroll at BU..."The Silver Line: it'll be the greatest thing ever, so deal with it because it's not like you have a choice in the matter!" There was no discussion of whether it should've been in that configuration, or whether Washington St. had any business being a contiguous line with the Seaport and Airport. That was just the inevitability that was sold...resistance was futile. And the community engagement, such that it was, had almost a confrontational tone to it. BRT really was the hip new shiny thing in the mid-90's for pols who wanted their pockets gratuitously greased with transportation pork while talking loudly at their constituents.

That same year I moved here from CT was the same year ex- and soon-to-be repeat- con Gov. John Rowland formally moved to have the Griffin Line Hartford-Bradley Airport light rail plan killed when it was on the eve of qualifying for fed fast starts money. He shifted all the resources to busway studies on what are today active rail corridors. And ultimately rigging the Hartford West corridor study on I-84 traffic mitigation to a preordained conclusion of that $1B BRT white elephant they're now building. Not coincidentally with a bunch of his favorite contractors getting 2 decades worth of no-bid contracts to gouge that state with. I hazily remember doing a social studies group work project back in Middle School in like 1992 on the economic impacts of the Griffin Line if they would just get around to building the fucking thing. It was covered in the Hartford Courant like 3x a week...what the hell is the Capitol debating about the Griffin Line now and why the hell is this like passing a kidney stone? So...show up at BU 18 years ago and read the Globe every morning at Shelton Hall and what do I see but this same exact political kabuki dance over BRT, just different names/places/"branding". Like a Mad Libs sheet.



So chances are they're going to have to do a fresh study on their LRT linkage options if it comes down to 1) the Seaport MUST be direct-connected to downtown or things will stagnate and/or choke on their own congestion; 2) no, seriously, this isn't optional and it has to be a direct; and 3) you studied--with increasing desperation--like 8 different BRT alignments for getting to Boylston each as defective as the last, it's time to choose path of least resistance. Only then are you going to see diagrams showing whether all or some of the old tunnel is reusable, how the tunnels slip around the Orange Line, how it gets on alignment to Essex St. at Chinatown Park/Surface Rd. (the only insertion point into the Transitway), whether you go for a jog around the South End or do something sooner to get around the block, etc., etc. Possibly some of that is already contained in the original scoping report in some binder in the Transportation Library, but any of those alignments would have to be updated for new facts discovered in the last 20+ years about what lurks underground (which they know intimately now from all the failed attempts to engineer the BRT tunnel), and updated for all the new building construction since then.

 

[stick n move]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

The seaport HAS to have rail transit here and the fact that nothing has come out after the master plans were released really surprised me. Its wonderful seeing all of the new development here but in no way is this area connected enough to sustain this growth, and its going to be a harsh reality in 5-10 years if nothing is done to solve this problem. When all is said and done the seaport will be even bigger than the downtown of some other well known cities in this country and if this problem is addressed now we wont have to face the consequences of that in the future.

 

[fattony]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

The seaport HAS to have rail transit here and the fact that nothing has come out after the master plans were released really surprised me. Its wonderful seeing all of the new development here but in no way is this area connected enough to sustain this growth, and its going to be a harsh reality in 5-10 years if nothing is done to solve this problem. When all is said and done the seaport will be even bigger than the downtown of some other well known cities in this country and if this problem is addressed now we wont have to face the consequences of that in the future.

I'm just curious - what exactly do you think is going to happen? Auto congestion will be high, but that is nothing special to the Seaport. The Silver Line and surface buses will be packed all the time? Also happens throughout the city. Its not like the companies paying to build these buildings (Vertex, PwC, etc) are going to move out in 5 years. The condo owners aren't going to flood the market trying sell them off because traffic is bad - they'll all end up underwater in a heartbeat.

I'm not saying that I don't want rail down there, I'm just playing devil's advocate for what the real consequences will be. If any aB poster started with a clean sheet of paper and could create a fresh transit network for Greater Boston, we'd have 3-4 times more rail infrastructure than we have now. And yet the city not only functions, it is booming.

So, what is the doomsday scenario from no rail in the Seaport? The worst I can imagine is a "no one goes there anymore, it is too crowded" problem - which is to say it will boom with or without rail.

 

[chumbolly]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

Here's my suggestion for improved rail connections, which I think I posted a few years back. Electric, battery powered street trolley running from Blackfan across the old Northern Ave bridge, up Atlantic (eating up some of the James Hook site to make the turn), across the Washington Street bridge, hang a right through the Navel yard and turn around somewhere near Spaulding. Make it hop on, hop off, no charge for the tourists. It would allow cruise ship passengers Freedom Trail walkers and Aquarium visitors the ability to zip over to the Constitution, visit the ICA, and get a beer at Harpoon. And it would take North Station from being so close yet so far to just plain close.

Get Fidelity, PwC, Vertex, the other companies currently running or planning to run shuttles from North Station to the Seaport, the cruise lines and the god damn convention center authority to kick in some money. This line would not interconnect with the Green Line, so no bizarro specs would be needed. Just buy some off the shelf Spanish trolleys and run with it.

Then fix the Silver Line later.

 

[underground]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

Also happens throughout the city.

You're not wrong, but where else is there so much concentrated growth happening in an area where the only transportation alternative to the handful of already congested roads and already congested single transit line is walking a half mile to a mile plus up to another transit line? I mean, at least in the Fenway the development is comparably smaller, they have a bunch of buses, the D, C, and E of the Green, a new commuter rail station, and Ruggles isn't that far away.

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

Solutions:

#1 Trolley running from IP right down the middle of the seaport Over the bridge (San Fran Style)

#2 How about a Monorail connected near the Aquarium across the water running a 3 or 4 stops down the Seaport, Courthouse, Vertex, Pier 6- Remy's all the way down.

There should have been two hard-rail stops in the Seaport. Not sure if we can convert the Silverline Bus underground tunnel to a hard rail access.
I think F-Line for Dudley said no SHOT.

 

[fattony]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

You're not wrong, but where else is there so much concentrated growth happening in an area where the only transportation alternative to the handful of already congested roads and already congested single transit line is walking a half mile to a mile plus up to another transit line? I mean, at least in the Fenway the development is comparably smaller, they have a bunch of buses, the D, C, and E of the Green, a new commuter rail station, and Ruggles isn't that far away.

<still playing devil's advocate, trying to poke holes, not be a jerk>

So the only alternative to using the grade separated BRT line that goes into the heart of the district is to walk 1/2-1 mile to an HRT, CR, Amtrak, and bus transit hub? Um... boo hoo?

You can describe Kendall Square in almost exactly the same way, except replace the transit hub with a normal HRT stop and replace the grade separated BRT line with nothing. The only way Kendall is choking on its own success is that so many companies want to be there that the rents have grown as high or higher than downtown Boston.

</still playing devil's advocate, trying to poke holes, not be a jerk>

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

I'm just curious - what exactly do you think is going to happen? Auto congestion will be high, but that is nothing special to the Seaport. The Silver Line and surface buses will be packed all the time? Also happens throughout the city. Its not like the companies paying to build these buildings (Vertex, PwC, etc) are going to move out in 5 years. The condo owners aren't going to flood the market trying sell them off because traffic is bad - they'll all end up underwater in a heartbeat.

I'm not saying that I don't want rail down there, I'm just playing devil's advocate for what the real consequences will be. If any aB poster started with a clean sheet of paper and could create a fresh transit network for Greater Boston, we'd have 3-4 times more rail infrastructure than we have now. And yet the city not only functions, it is booming.

So, what is the doomsday scenario from no rail in the Seaport? The worst I can imagine is a "no one goes there anymore, it is too crowded" problem - which is to say it will boom with or without rail.

It's a circulation issue more than a Seaport-specific issue. The Red Line is ridiculously over-capacity, so making everyone do the Park or DTX transfer dance to get anywhere to or from the Seaport murders all of downtown transit. The dwells are excessive on both levels of Park because of the transfer hordes, DTX is decaying fast, and the SS Red platform (already kinda bad at peakmost commute) is the next domino to fall. You can re-signal the Red Line all you want and make it flow like buttah everywhere else, but if that 1-2 stop transfer chokepoint keeps getting unlimited new riders thrown at it you will never be able to clear the platforms fast enough to run more train frequencies. Which in turn makes it harder to clear the platforms fast enough because there aren't enough frequencies, and the problem starts snowballing on itself 10 times over. You can quantify how fast that day is coming with the crowds in the Seaport. They can't get anywhere else downtown without taking the Red Line.

This is the transit analogue to the old elevated Central Artery, where the zigzag 'transfer' to the Airport tunnels at the halfway point between major interchanges created a runaway chokepoint that collapsed on itself before the thing was even 20 years old. There had to be a Ted built to send the Pike directly to Logan in order to save 93 and make the Callahan and Sumner serve more appropriate north-facing loads. That's the future we're looking at with the downtown transfer stops if there is no relief valve spreading that transfer traffic around and away from SS/DTX/Park.

Even Red-Blue would buy South Station a lot more time to figure itself out by prying off a lot of riders on the Park-GC transfer zigzag, to great benefit of the Green Line as well as Red. But the state just successfully repealed it out of the TIP, like it did with SL Phase III. So there you go...nothing. Nothing, and the oversaturation point that cripples the entire rapid transit system is approaching faster than even the biggest doomsday predictions ever figured. ONE of these two radial circulation big-bucks connecting tunnels has to get built. Red-Blue's the far easier one, but if not Red-Blue then this. It can't be neither. It can't be some novelty hack like the tarted-up surface SL stop at SS. This will be a downright hellish city to commute in if it's neither and we waste another 20 years of navel-gazing about how it's neither.

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

Does DOT or the state have any real plans for making BOSTON MBTA TRANSIT GRID Better?

 

[Equilibria]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

You can describe Kendall Square in almost exactly the same way, except replace the transit hub with a normal HRT stop and replace the grade separated BRT line with nothing. The only way Kendall is choking on its own success is that so many companies want to be there that the rents have grown as high or higher than downtown Boston.

I'm not sure that Kendall, bracketed as it is by Red and Green Line stops (Lechmere really also serves a section of Kendall, as does Central) is the best example. You're probably talking more than a mile to SS from D Street and the area around BofA pavilion. For comparison purposes, that's the distance from Boston Landing to Packard's Corner, and I don't think that even with the CR stop anyone here would say that's adequately served.

A mile walk to transit just isn't going to cut it, and waiting for bus transfer, however grade-separated, isn't attractive to lawyers, stock traders and biomed researchers. I think the worst-case isn't that the district dies, but that all the professional employees who work at places like PwC and Goodwin Procter will drive to the office. That's just fine with the companies - they have underground parking and the neighborhood has freeway access. Meanwhile, Seaport, Congress and Summer remain the auto-centric highways they are now to accommodate the real or perceived traffic. It's not a killer, but it's not meeting the potential of the neighborhood.

That's why the Harbor Trolley, however good an idea, shouldn't take priority over transit access that brings workers to work. A lot of those employees probably live in Brookline, Newton and the South End. It's more important from an urbanist perspective to pull them off the road than to get the tourists to the USS Constitution.

 

[Shepard]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

I'm just curious - what exactly do you think is going to happen?

I think that private shuttle buses will be the future of Seaport "transit" once the parking lots disappear and all these businesses finally move in.

Why? Look at Longwood. The LMA has quite a dense transit network especially at the edges and indeed with buses, but lacks quick and easy connectivity to the Red Line, C Line, etc. The LMA shuttle fleet solves that for MASCO members (which is most of the main LMA employers).

Seaport is worse on two fronts: 1) Connectivity is far worse, with two transfers required for anywhere other than the Red Line and airport, and 2) A MASCO-like organization probably won't develop among the disparate businesses that occupy the Seaport.

I therefore think we'll see a fairly redundant fleet of private shuttles developing which connect to North Station, Kendall, Harvard, Back Bay, Coolidge Corner, and maybe some private park-and-rides further afield (MASCO for example runs a route to a Chestnut Hill synagogue pay-for-parking lot).

 

[fattony]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

A lot of those employees probably live in Brookline, Newton and the South End.

And how many of them are moving to the Seaport itself, not to mention DTX, Chinatown, Leather District, and Southie? You don't plan for how things are today, you plan for how things are going to be, right?

I thought the theory of the Seaport was to be a live/work/play district. You don't need to transport people in and out of the place where they already are.

<still playing devil's advocate>

 

[fattony]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

It's a circulation issue more than a Seaport-specific issue. The Red Line is ridiculously over-capacity, so making everyone do the Park or DTX transfer dance to get anywhere to or from the Seaport murders all of downtown transit. The dwells are excessive on both levels of Park because of the transfer hordes, DTX is decaying fast, and the SS Red platform (already kinda bad at peakmost commute) is the next domino to fall. You can re-signal the Red Line all you want and make it flow like buttah everywhere else, but if that 1-2 stop transfer chokepoint keeps getting unlimited new riders thrown at it you will never be able to clear the platforms fast enough to run more train frequencies. Which in turn makes it harder to clear the platforms fast enough because there aren't enough frequencies, and the problem starts snowballing on itself 10 times over. You can quantify how fast that day is coming with the crowds in the Seaport. They can't get anywhere else downtown without taking the Red Line.

This is the transit analogue to the old elevated Central Artery, where the zigzag 'transfer' to the Airport tunnels at the halfway point between major interchanges created a runaway chokepoint that collapsed on itself before the thing was even 20 years old. There had to be a Ted built to send the Pike directly to Logan in order to save 93 and make the Callahan and Sumner serve more appropriate north-facing loads. That's the future we're looking at with the downtown transfer stops if there is no relief valve spreading that transfer traffic around and away from SS/DTX/Park.

Even Red-Blue would buy South Station a lot more time to figure itself out by prying off a lot of riders on the Park-GC transfer zigzag, to great benefit of the Green Line as well as Red. But the state just successfully repealed it out of the TIP, like it did with SL Phase III. So there you go...nothing. Nothing, and the oversaturation point that cripples the entire rapid transit system is approaching faster than even the biggest doomsday predictions ever figured. ONE of these two radial circulation big-bucks connecting tunnels has to get built. Red-Blue's the far easier one, but if not Red-Blue then this. It can't be neither. It can't be some novelty hack like the tarted-up surface SL stop at SS. This will be a downright hellish city to commute in if it's neither and we waste another 20 years of navel-gazing about how it's neither.

So the problem is more that the SL has no connections other than SS rather than the capacity of the SL itself? Now THAT is an argument I can understand on its face more so than "lawyers don't ride busses, even if they are underground" so we need to build a train. Lawyers ride the Green Line which in many ways is worst than the SL. They'll ride the Silver as well.