Seaport Transportation

[Arlington]

Woo hoo! Free Silver Line *from* Logan has boosted by paid ridership *to* the Airport.

T officials say that, since June, the number of riders on Silver Line buses to the airport has increased 70 percent on weekdays to 3,228. On Sundays, ridership is up 38 percent to 2,477. Ridership on the Blue Line, meanwhile, has held steady, suggesting the free Silver Line buses are not siphoning passengers away from the airport subway station.

A bold transit experiment seems to be working

 

[Matthew]

I remember meeting some friends who arrived via free Silver Line and they said they were going to use it on the way back because now "they knew it."

I told them that Green -> Blue was faster, but they decided to stick to the way they went before.

 

[Shepard]

No doubt I'll soon hear why this can't ever happen, but I'm wondering whether a Red Line branch to the Seaport is the most logical investment. The "Dorchester Tunnel" aligns under Summer Street from South Station to the middle of Fort Point Channel, before suddenly turning in a bore under the middle the Channel (and from there to Broadway Station going cut-and-cover under Dorchester Ave).

I'd propose extending the Summer Street alignment as a new branch under Fort Point Channel, and coming up to grade right after Melcher St. Then, travel over Summer in the Seaport as an elevated line. "Fort Point Station" just after A Street, and "Seaport / BCEC Station" at World Trade Center Ave. Take some underused Pappas land as eminent domain for a turnaround before the Summer Street causeway (or, traverse the causeway Longfellow-style for City Point).

 

[bigeman312]

No doubt I'll soon hear why this can't ever happen, but I'm wondering whether a Red Line branch to the Seaport is the most logical investment. The "Dorchester Tunnel" aligns under Summer Street from South Station to the middle of Fort Point Channel, before suddenly turning in a bore under the middle the Channel (and from the to Broadway Station going cut-and-cover under Dorchester Ave).

I'd propose extending the Summer Street alignment as a new branch under Fort Point Channel, and coming up to grade right after Melcher St. Then, travel over Summer in the Seaport as an elevated line. "Fort Point Station" just after A Street, and "Seaport / BCEC Station" at World Trade Center Ave. Take some underused Pappas land as eminent domain for a turnaround before the Summer Street causeway.

I don't like the idea of any of our heavy rail lines having three branches on an end due to headway restriction. Without increasing the fleet AND investing in major signal improvements, we would be looking at 2/3 the frequency on the Ashmont and Braintree branches, as well as 1.5X the headways.

I understand that the Red Line can handle better headways than it currently utilizes, but it SHOULD have better headways than it currently utilizes. The most important thing for the Red Line right now would be to improve frequency, and this would seem to fly in the face of that goal.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

There are so many tunnels criss-crossing each other at South Station that spurring is impossible here. And definitely impossible if you ever want to build the N-S Link because that takes the last available reserved space to split between tunnels. The only way in for branching is from the south off Columbia Jct. using the Cabot Yard leads. And that's not useful for downtown unless you feed it to Aquarium and North Station on one of the N-S Link's 2 bores.


The only solutions here are making the existing Red trunk higher-capacity and more efficient:

-- Re-signaling to moving-block CBTC that allows for 2-minute headways, and supplemental car order to support it. NYC is installing that on the 7 train, the first 'big' route that's getting the treatment. With the 7 train extension to the Hudson Yards development that's exactly the kind of "unsexy" improvement that starts getting more attention by the BCEC when they start comparing their transit with new Manhattan developments and asking "why can't we get things like that?"

-- Red-Blue. Because that's the only way to save the crippling dwell times at DTX and Park for the people needing to make the double-transfer.

-- Park and DTX ped movement mitigation. Time for an engineering study to see if the far-end emergency exit on the Park Red platform can be re-shafted into a dedicated Red-level headhouse on the Common to take a load off the Green stairs and let trains close doors faster.

-- Engineering study on that long sought-after DTX-State pedestrian passageway, likewise to take a ped load off the transfers.



Taken together--with re-signaling and Red-Blue at top of the list--this is what's going to have the most dramatic impact on Seaport transportation. Until there's billions available to bring LRT into the Transitway the focus really does have to be on de-clogging Red and increasing its throughput. That is the traffic pump the neighborhood is wholly reliant on. And even when the Transitway connector gets built Red transfers are probably still going to be the plurality share of Seaport traffic.

 

[Shepard]

There are so many tunnels criss-crossing each other at South Station that spurring is impossible here. And definitely impossible if you ever want to build the N-S Link because that takes the last available reserved space to split between tunnels.

Not true, as far as I can tell. The spur here comes off essentially under the Summer Street bridge, quite a ways away from South Station, and far enough away from any NS Link bores.

 

[Shepard]

I don't like the idea of any of our heavy rail lines having three branches on an end due to headway restriction. Without increasing the fleet AND investing in major signal improvements, we would be looking at 2/3 the frequency on the Ashmont and Braintree branches, as well as 1.5X the headways.

The frequency problem is a good point, but there's room to get creative: for example, terminate Braintree service at JFK UMass to require a cross-platform transfer, then turn and double back around from the yard. That way you won't diminish service on the mainline. This can be done in just peak or off-peak times. (And yes, I'm aware this requires a reworking of the JFK platforms.)

 

[davem]

Just connect the damn silver line to the green line already. Either via Essex St or the south bay routing along the Pike we've all talked about around there.

The Green Line is better to do anyway, because it still leaves the option open to have dual mode buses run through the tunnel to the airport and elsewhere.

 

[MBTAddict]

-- Park and DTX ped movement mitigation. Time for an engineering study to see if the far-end emergency exit on the Park Red platform can be re-shafted into a dedicated Red-level headhouse on the Common to take a load off the Green stairs and let trains close doors faster.

I love this idea and would love to see a new headhouse in the style of the current Park Street entrances, albeit in a smaller scale, in this location.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Not true, as far as I can tell. The spur here comes off essentially under the Summer Street bridge, quite a ways away from South Station, and far enough away from any NS Link bores.

No. Red curves underneath the office building between SS and Dot. Ave. where it swoops under the Channel. To spur off there while avoiding the building foundation means branching mid-curve and following a cross-Channel trajectory to under narrow Necco Ct. on the other side...not Summer. Good luck with those building impacts. Then you have to S-curve the opposite direction towards Congress to avoid the fast-approaching Pike tunnel. Which sends you into direct conflict with the Transitway.

Can you take different paths? Maybe. If you want such sharp curves that the whole spur will be dog-slow and not have enough straight areas to put enough station platforms for it to make a difference.

Any way you fight with it on a map it's an absolutely terrible and low-performance routing that's going to gum up the mainline subway to hell and not do what it's supposed to when it reaches the Seaport side. The engineering report for that will get justifiably thrown in the trash when they see what a dog any permutation of this will be..

The frequency problem is a good point, but there's room to get creative: for example, terminate Braintree service at JFK UMass to require a cross-platform transfer, then turn and double back around from the yard. That way you won't diminish service on the mainline. This can be done in just peak or off-peak times. (And yes, I'm aware this requires a reworking of the JFK platforms.)

That will get nuked from orbit by Braintree Branch riders who get sacked with transit loss. No Crazy Transit Pitch is ever worth it if it flunks the "do no harm" test, and you couldn't draw up a more flagrantly harmful service plan than that. Inflicting mandatory transfers on either branch inconveniences 30,000 daily Braintree riders or 24,000 daily Ashmont + Mattapan riders who get the shaft here. That is probably more negatively impacted riders per day than the total daily ridership you would gain with a Seaport. The residential density between Quincy/Braintree or Dorchester/Mattapan vs. the Seaport is stratospherically different, even though the branches stretch that ridership out on through a lot more stations and track miles than the Seaport.

What happens if you do that is that JFK gets so crowded and unmanageable that Quincy takes to their cars en masse and you can kiss what 2% of functioning is left on the Southeast Expressway and Morrissey Blvd. at rush goodbye.

 

[George_Apley]

Just connect the damn silver line to the green line already. Either via Essex St or the south bay routing along the Pike we've all talked about around there.

The Green Line is better to do anyway, because it still leaves the option open to have dual mode buses run through the tunnel to the airport and elsewhere.

Right? No need to reinvent the wheel with wild ideas about a third southbound Red Line branch, when tying the transitway into the Green Line system is a no-brainer.

 

[George_Apley]

-- Park and DTX ped movement mitigation. Time for an engineering study to see if the far-end emergency exit on the Park Red platform can be re-shafted into a dedicated Red-level headhouse on the Common to take a load off the Green stairs and let trains close doors faster.

Not to take this off topic, but would such an entrance need to be ADA'd or is the existing elevator enough to satisfy the law?

 

[The EGE]

Not to take this off topic, but would such an entrance need to be ADA'd or is the existing elevator enough to satisfy the law?

Even if it did need to be, shivving an elevator on that platform shouldn't be terribly difficult. You're not dealing with nearby building foundations and the like, nor the Green Line level. Just a straight shot to the surface.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Even if it did need to be, shivving an elevator on that platform shouldn't be terribly difficult. You're not dealing with nearby building foundations and the like, nor the Green Line level. Just a straight shot to the surface.

There might be engineering blockers. I have no clue what's above the roof or what sacred forgotten burial grounds are between there and the emergency hatch. But the flow problems on the Park platforms are so bad with everything bunched to the GL and Winter St. concourse stairs all on one extreme end of the platform. Trains can't even close the doors properly the way people line half the platforms shoulder-to-shoulder trudging to the stairs. All while the far end is nearly empty. Can't widen the Green stairs, can't widen the Red platforms...so the only solution is to get that foot traffic to disperse a bit more in opposite directions instead of all piling one way.

They have to at least answer the feasibility question once and for all whether they can:

-- Widen the emergency exit shaft for stairs + escalators.
-- Shaft an elevator.
-- Put a narrow concourse above the 3 platforms for reaching each (sort of like the underpass between Green platforms).
-- Notch the walls for stairs to the side platforms and add a center elevator.
-- Small headhouse with couple of Charlie gates by the doors. Nothing fancy...like the second set of Green-level doors at the far end of that level.


So...small, but enough to spread passengers the full length of the platform, get the non-Green passengers taking the direct exit, loosening up the increasingly dangerous logjams by the stairs, and lowering train dwell times so the doors can close much faster.


Structural analysis and inventory...give a ballpark answer whether it's feasible...proceed to more detailed drafting if there's no big blockers. That's it. If it can't happen then re-double the efforts on helping DTX's flow problems so it's a 1-station clog instead of 2.

 

[davem]

^ I've thought about that red-line entrance before.


I don't think there are any buried treasures in that part of the common either, it has pretty much always been a lawn in that area for cattle. The burial grounds were always roughly where they are, the issue is just that nothing was documented so there are more unmarked graves in that general area than are known. But they wouldn't have been all the way on the other side of the common.

 

[JeffDowntown]

-- Engineering study on that long sought-after DTX-State pedestrian passageway, likewise to take a ped load off the transfers.

The DTX to State ped connection seems like one of the easiest possible moves. What is it about 20 feet from the State Orange Forest Hills platform to the DTX Orange Oak Grove platform? I think there might be an electrical room in the way though.

 

[Matthew]

Good time to chime in about the South Boston Waterfront Sustainable Transportation plan:

http://www.sbwaterfrontmobility.org/

We encourage your comments and suggestions on this draft document. Please submit your thoughts by December 31, 2014. You can use the Comment Form on this page to share your thoughts, mail them to Rachel Hammerman, Regina Villa Associates, 51 Franklin Street, Suite 400, Boston, MA 02110-1301, or email them (rhammerman@reginavilla.com). We will be publishing the final plan in January.

 

[whighlander]

Good time to chime in about the South Boston Waterfront Sustainable Transportation plan:

http://www.sbwaterfrontmobility.org/

Why delay -- the priority ought to be:
1) the digging under D st
2) new underground Sliverline way station
3) private Silver Line connection to Ted Williams Tunnel
4) with air rights construction above existing Silver Line Way station to pay for it all

 

[Shepard]

^ lipstick on a pig. SL waterfront needs greater connectivity beyond its stub end at South Station.

 

[HenryAlan]

^ lipstick on a pig. SL waterfront needs greater connectivity beyond its stub end at South Station.

True, but this should still happen:

Why delay -- the priority ought to be:
1) the digging under D st
2) new underground Sliverline way station
3) private Silver Line connection to Ted Williams Tunnel
4) with air rights construction above existing Silver Line Way station to pay for it all

It's achievable and does help a fair amount. The connectivity argument rides on evidence that the line itself is useful for its limited geographic scope. Whiglander's recommendation makes it more useful in the Seaport, which should make for a stronger case to extend connections beyond the Seaport.