Silver Line - Phase III / BRT in Boston

I don't see why a Silver Line converted to rail would need to go to the airport. An express bus going from South Station directly into the TW tunnel and to the airport ("Airport Express") could make the trip in under ten minutes, and nobody would care that it's a bus if it connects Logan with the heart of the city and vice versa so quickly.

A rail Sliver Line could be more useful for other purposes. I think that a rail Silver Line would, on the south side, serve the Seaport via the SL tunnel (obviously) and then go from there into residential Southie - perhaps cut-and-cover under (or even street running on) L Street, East Broadway, and Dorchester Street to terminate at Andrew. Much of residential Southie is still very bus dependent.

(On the north side I think a rail Silver Line would best serve the Navy Yard via Greenway and North Station, but that's not as relevant to this discussion.)
 
Arborway, you have a good, easy to implement idea. You should try to have it heard by the decision makers.
 
The Ted is only two lanes each way, and doesn't have a breakdown lane (if it had one, it could double as an exclusive bus lane or a bike lane)
 
Interstates are required to be 2 lanes in each direction with a 10' wide breakdown lane. However, underwater tunnels are exempt from having a standard size breakdown lane because of cost. The complete standards are in AASHTO DS-5, but I'm not paying $24 for it.
 
TMcLaughlin said:
Interstates are required to be 2 lanes in each direction with a 10' wide breakdown lane. However, underwater tunnels are exempt from having a standard size breakdown lane because of cost. The complete standards are in AASHTO DS-5, but I'm not paying $24 for it.
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Are there exemptions for experimental use or something? Seems to me there's somewhere in Texas that's trying a mixed use scenario (rail in the center, HOV next, travel with bike on the rim). I understand why there are standards, but without an avenue (heh, so to speak!) to try new things, is it possible to ever break away from a paradigm that's proven unsustainable?
 
This is getting further off-topic, but west of the Mississippi there are many Interstate highways where bicycles are allowed on the shoulder. In California I even remember signs on I-280 and elsewhere saying "BIKES MUST EXIT HERE".
 
Ron Newman said:
This is getting further off-topic, but west of the Mississippi there are many Interstate highways where bicycles are allowed on the shoulder. In California I even remember signs on I-280 and elsewhere saying "BIKES MUST EXIT HERE".
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Bikes are allowed on highways when no alternate route exists.
 
bbfen said:
Are there exemptions for experimental use or something? Seems to me there's somewhere in Texas that's trying a mixed use scenario (rail in the center, HOV next, travel with bike on the rim). I understand why there are standards, but without an avenue (heh, so to speak!) to try new things, is it possible to ever break away from a paradigm that's proven unsustainable?
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Rail isn't that unusual. Look at Chicago. Bikes on the other hand... you couldn't pay me enough to ride a bike on a road where cars are going 75, even if there's a breakdown lane in between!

Back on topic, kinda: I always thought the TWT should've been at least 3 tubes wide. Could've used the center tube for either rail or HOV. Of course then we wouldn't be having this conversation.
 
The particulars are very different. The floating bridge is really three parallel spans, one of which they intend to convert to light rail. The tracks and LRVs would still be physically separated from the cars. And the cars would still have multiple lanes available in each direction. To physically separate tracks and trains from the cars in the Williams tunnel would require reducing car access to a single lane each direction. I believe that is the issue preventing this option in Boston.
 
Only marginally less dead than the Urban Ring. But it would genuinely surprise me if the project came back to life at some time in the next decade. The T is so broke and broken that it can't make it work. Emerson is completely against it. They don't trust the T to snake a tunnel between the foundations of their buildings and not destroy the campus in the process.

I heard anecdotally that school reps went to a planning meeting some time back where they saw plans for a Silver Line entrance in the Little Building, replacing the Dunkin' Donuts. Emerson hadn't been informed of this. It did not go over well. At all.

City Hall is split. The Seaport is being built as a suburban office park, but the developers out there aren't going to be thrilled to have the SL terminate at South Station forever. The SL4 surface connector is a joke. On the other hand, Emerson has poured hundreds of millions into redeveloping the Theatre District, and is now inching its way into Downtown Crossing. Everything they propose fits with what Menino wants, and as far as the student impact on the surrounding area goes, the school pretty much flies under the radar. One gets the idea that The Powers That Be in Government Center are less than enthusiastic about provoking Emerson any further than they already have.

The school was resistant to Phase 3 for some time, but by last year the word was essentially, "Kill the project. Now. We mean it."

Emerson aside, the construction calls for dumping electrical utility rooms in the abandoned Tremont St. tunnels and cutting into them for pedestrian access between the Green and Silver platforms at Boylston. Effectively salting the earth against any future rail connections. The National Historic Landmark status of the tunnels would surely trigger a costly, and time-consuming lawsuit from somebody. Almost certainly with support from Roxbury residents who want them reopened for a rail link.

The Phase 2 tunnel doesn't set a good precedent, nor instill much confidence. It's too narrow to allow for buses to travel at speeds approaching that of even the Green Line. Speeds are faster on the street in mixed traffic than in the dedicated tunnel. Which screams design failure.

The tunnel wasn't paved properly, nor fixed when it became clear that the construction failed to provide a useable road surface. The decay is visible and accelerating. Which screams design / construction failure.

Any Phase 3 tunnel would be much longer than the one for Phase 2, be confined to a narrow footprint, and probably offer the same embarrassing ride quality and speed that Phase 2 does.

Which doesn't even get into the capacity issue. Spending nearly 2 billion on a line that would hold fewer passengers per vehicle than the Green Line, run more slowly, with horrible ride quality doesn't make a bit of sense.
 
Thanks, Arborway, for summing up the BRT issue.

Perhaps having time to take a second look at the viability of running huge, slow buses through our cramped and crowded, three-hundred year old downtown is the silver lining (no pun intended) to the MBTA's financial problems.
 
About a year ago I noticed the Silver Line tunnel was showing visible signs of deterioration beyond incessant water infiltration and terrible ride quality.

I happened to be at South Station yesterday and noticed that nothing has changed. Well, the decay is spreading, but nothing seems to have been done to fix it.

The Silver Line is unique in that it is much younger than the rest of the system, and is the first impression of Boston, our mass transit system and mass transit in general for thousands of people every year. This is not how things should be.

I forwarded these to the MBTA GM, and we'll see if anything comes of it.

silver1c.jpg

silver2n.jpg


If you'll note, the pavement is bulging upwards at frequent intervals. This is best indicated by following the yellow pavement marker. It remains a constant distance from the side of the curb, but visibly rises and falls with the deformations in the roadbed. Pavement is nominally angled along the Y axis for drainage. The X axis as we have here is reserved for speedbumps.
silver3.jpg

silver4e.jpg


Very, very glad Phase 3 is permanently on the back burner. This thing opened at the end of 2004.

If I had spent the better part of a billion on something like this, I think I would have gone for an extended warranty.
 
I think I read that the contractors for the big dig used lower quality concrete for the project, to pocket more money. And then I believe I heard that the state was going to sue the contractors. If any of that is true, than maybe this used the same concrete. Either way the contractor should be held responsible for this or at the very least we drag his name through the mud and deter future business for him.


I also noticed chunck of wall have fallen off the new tunnel that takes you from the leverett conector to storrow dr, right accross from the jail.
 
The upward bulging is the worst part. It feels like the bus is going over a washboard.
 
GW2500 said:
I think I read that the contractors for the big dig used lower quality concrete for the project, to pocket more money. And then I believe I heard that the state was going to sue the contractors. If any of that is true, than maybe this used the same concrete. Either way the contractor should be held responsible for this or at the very least we drag his name through the mud and deter future business for him.


I also noticed chunck of wall have fallen off the new tunnel that takes you from the leverett conector to storrow dr, right accross from the jail.
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You must have esp:
Prosecutors ?disappointed? by Big Dig fraud sentences

By Herald staff
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - Added 4h ago
A pair of former managers of concrete supplier Aggregate Industries Inc. were sentenced to probation on charges they defrauded the Big Dig, despite federal prosecutors? bid for ?lengthy? prison sentences.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns sentenced Robert Prosperi, 64, of Lynnfield and Gregory A. Stevenson, 53, of Furlong, Pa., to three years of probation with six months of electronic monitoring at home.

?The government is disappointed with the sentences in this case, and while it respects the court in this matter, the government does not believe the sentences reflect the seriousness of the offense or serve as a deterrent to others who might engage in similar conduct on public works projects in our commonwealth,? said U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, in a statement.


Prosecutors say that, between 1996 and 2005, Aggregate Industries delivered subpar batches of concrete to the Big Dig. Prosperi was the general manager of the company?s Ready Mix Concrete division while Stevenson served as operations manager.

The men were convicted in August, following a three-week trial, of 135 felonies including conspiracy to commit highway project fraud and mail fraud, conspiracy to defraud the government with respect to claims, making false statements in connection with highway projects, and mail fraud.

According to federal sentencing guidelines, which the court must consider, the defendants faced penalties ranging from about seven to nine years behind bars, prosecutors said.

The judge also hit Prosperi with a $15,000 fine and Stevenson a $5,000 fine.
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http://bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1257562&srvc=business&position=2
 
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