F-Line to Dudley
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Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)
It didn't with SL Phase III. So that is a known-known here. The wider BRT tunnel didn't kill it. It was going to be crappy speed, a much longer tunnel than LRT, tear the living shit out of the Common, and require an entirely new Boylston station to be built underneath the existing one. But the utility relocation and building foundation mitigation was the killer, and that would've been the same with an LRT tunnel.
Like I said before, if they want to get this done in our lifetimes they have to choose the recycle/reuse trajectory that sticks to as much existing subway infrastructure as possible; doubles up the usage of as much infrastructure as possible (i.e. provisioning for Washington St. light rail); and cuts-and-covers under as high a % of pre-cleared, well-documented urban renewal land as possible. That means Tremont Tunnel to South End, existing Boylston station with no greater impacts than taking down the platform fences and ADA'ing it, the blocks around Tufts that were all blowed up in the 60's, and the Pike Canyon/NEC/Marginal Rd. that were all totally made over in 1965. Take your best shot at a trajectory from one side of the Pike canyon or the other. There's quite a few ways to slice and dice it.
But give up the notion that a direct, straight-line shot is ever going to possible with enough brainstorming. It's been brainstormed many times before. And it gets stopped dead by the same problems that completely and totally overwhelm the value of constructing any tunnel through there. That cost vs. benefit calculation has pretty much been answered. The fact that there are orders-of-magnitude cheaper connections like the reuse-on-roundabout-routing Tremont/South End trajectory that still makes good time to the Transitway and still hit Orange transfers en route deflates the last "at any cost" arguments of doing a manifest destiny dig on a straight line.
Besides, with how dog-slow the Silver Line turned out to be through the Transitway I bet an LRV through the South End still matches or beats the defective-by-design Phase III BRT tunnel. So a mapmaking compromise is still going to perform with better travel time and capacity than the actual monstrosity they were all set to build us on a "direct" routing.
Well, you don't dig up the streets just to fix utilities. When you are done you have a subway which:
A) Links green line central subway to SS (CR, Amtrak)
B) Adds a red-green transfer to lighten the load on Park
C) Knits together a zillion of Boston's major business, hotel, tourist and entertainment districts (LMA, Fenway, BB, Theater, FiDi, Waterfront) with a single transfer to absolutely everywhere.
The question is: when you factor the benefits of fixed utilities into the equation, does the price of the subway look more attractive.
It didn't with SL Phase III. So that is a known-known here. The wider BRT tunnel didn't kill it. It was going to be crappy speed, a much longer tunnel than LRT, tear the living shit out of the Common, and require an entirely new Boylston station to be built underneath the existing one. But the utility relocation and building foundation mitigation was the killer, and that would've been the same with an LRT tunnel.
Like I said before, if they want to get this done in our lifetimes they have to choose the recycle/reuse trajectory that sticks to as much existing subway infrastructure as possible; doubles up the usage of as much infrastructure as possible (i.e. provisioning for Washington St. light rail); and cuts-and-covers under as high a % of pre-cleared, well-documented urban renewal land as possible. That means Tremont Tunnel to South End, existing Boylston station with no greater impacts than taking down the platform fences and ADA'ing it, the blocks around Tufts that were all blowed up in the 60's, and the Pike Canyon/NEC/Marginal Rd. that were all totally made over in 1965. Take your best shot at a trajectory from one side of the Pike canyon or the other. There's quite a few ways to slice and dice it.
But give up the notion that a direct, straight-line shot is ever going to possible with enough brainstorming. It's been brainstormed many times before. And it gets stopped dead by the same problems that completely and totally overwhelm the value of constructing any tunnel through there. That cost vs. benefit calculation has pretty much been answered. The fact that there are orders-of-magnitude cheaper connections like the reuse-on-roundabout-routing Tremont/South End trajectory that still makes good time to the Transitway and still hit Orange transfers en route deflates the last "at any cost" arguments of doing a manifest destiny dig on a straight line.
Besides, with how dog-slow the Silver Line turned out to be through the Transitway I bet an LRV through the South End still matches or beats the defective-by-design Phase III BRT tunnel. So a mapmaking compromise is still going to perform with better travel time and capacity than the actual monstrosity they were all set to build us on a "direct" routing.