Silver Line to Chelsea

[F-Line to Dudley]

I thought I wasn't permitted to dream that the Gateway would be extended (though I can't remember why I think that).

Beacham is cheap (and un-congested for now), but isn't there plenty of room on the railroad ROW right around to Wynn's (and Costco's) back door?

I'd like to see a Gold Ring (both clockwise and counter-clockwise):
Airport-Gateway-Wynn-Rt99-Haymarket-Callahan-Airport

There's plenty of room, but you have to switch sides of the ROW from south side to north side at 2nd because of the Everett Terminal freight spur. On BRT that means big honking flyover ramps that'll cost just as much individually as this whole Gateway build to Chelsea, and draw the ire of all the residents on Paris St. who'd have buses on a high ramp looking into their rear windows. Can't cross the RR tracks at a blind at-grade angle; that's a doubleplusbad idea. Can't go underneath in a duck-under on BRT because of an underground stream...only with trolleys where the inclines can be hella steep like the Wellington tunnel to compact it away from the underground stream. As long as this ROW is BRT-compatible, it has to be flyovers.

No amount of Wynn fun bux would cover that expense, and it's not an expense the state would consider only for an Everett extension. That's a real-deal Urban Ring commitment where you're building the flyovers in tandem with the Mystic River crossing to make the utilization worth the cost of the construction. So we're not going to see any further grade-separated busway extensions in the SL Gateway configuration...only for the UR.

Hence, take advantage of Beacham and any allowable bypass around the back access road of the Mall that shaves a couple traffic lights off the trip.

 

[davem]

A sullivan-chelsea-airport route would be ideal. Possibly better then the current incarnation of the SLX mall-SS routing.

 

[Upstruk]

There's plenty of room, but you have to switch sides of the ROW from south side to north side at 2nd because of the Everett Terminal freight spur. On BRT that means big honking flyover ramps that'll cost just as much individually as this whole Gateway build to Chelsea, and draw the ire of all the residents on Paris St. who'd have buses on a high ramp looking into their rear windows. Can't cross the RR tracks at a blind at-grade angle; that's a doubleplusbad idea. Can't go underneath in a duck-under on BRT because of an underground stream...only with trolleys where the inclines can be hella steep like the Wellington tunnel to compact it away from the underground stream. As long as this ROW is BRT-compatible, it has to be flyovers.

No amount of Wynn fun bux would cover that expense, and it's not an expense the state would consider only for an Everett extension. That's a real-deal Urban Ring commitment where you're building the flyovers in tandem with the Mystic River crossing to make the utilization worth the cost of the construction. So we're not going to see any further grade-separated busway extensions in the SL Gateway configuration...only for the UR.

Hence, take advantage of Beacham and any allowable bypass around the back access road of the Mall that shaves a couple traffic lights off the trip.[/QUOTE

Even on a freight spur they could not do an at grade crossing with the busway? Do you know how often the spur is used?

 

[davem]

^every.single.day

It's basically how the entire Boston area gets produce

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Can't go underneath in a duck-under on BRT because of an underground stream...only with trolleys where the inclines can be hella steep like the Wellington tunnel to compact it away from the underground stream. As long as this ROW is BRT-compatible, it has to be flyovers.

I'm confused.

http://greenlineextension.eot.state.../Topics/SchematicPubDesignGuidelns_042809.pdf lists a maximum grade of 6% for the Green Line on page 15.

http://www.proterra.com/the-proterr...iciency-gradeability-weight-and-acceleration/ says a (40') bus can handle a 15.5% grade.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

And a bus-only monthly is 20 bucks cheaper than the rapid transit pass needed for the Silver Line.

Does this actually make any sense? I'm under the impression that this incentivizes passengers to make themselves more expensive for the T to serve; operating costs per passenger for Ruggles - Downtown Crossing on the Orange Line are probably lower than Dudley to Downtown Crossing on the SL5, for example.

(There's the separate problem in the short term that 60' buses seem to be easier to buy than Orange Line cars and the current Orange Line fleet isn't exactly overflowing with spare capacity, though.)

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I'm very excited to have an almost direct ride to the airport. Taking the subway to the Airport from Chelsea is a royal pain in the ass (a bus -> train -> bus).

If this were a priority, we wouldn't have to wait for the current construction project to finish to reroute 112 to serve Airport Station on the Blue Line instead of Wood Island.

Such a reroute was part of the 112 on street improvement package being explored as an alternative to the current construction project, but I don't see any reason why that reroute couldn't happen in isolation.

The big challenge there is probably just how to make sure all of the riders know that they need to start getting off the Blue Line at Airport instead of Wood Island on the appropriate date when they're trying to do a Blue -> 112 transfer.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

yeah it's higher frequency than most MBTA bus routes, it's snarls to a snails pace. Much of it has to do with high ridership. The 116/117 will stop at just about every stop between Maverick and Chelsea Center to let people on or off. A normal 7 minute trip from Maverick to Chelsea Center (in zero stops and no traffic), can take up to 20 on very packed buses.

I'm wondering if assigning about four 40' buses to 114 at rush hour on weekdays would make sense. I think that might reduce the extent to which 111/116/117 are crowded at least a little bit.

The problem with the 112 is the route itself, it's just too long and back tracks too many times and any sort of delay on any of the streets it services will delay this bus (like it often does). But since it services Admiral's Hill and Quigley Hospital, it's unlike this is going to change any time soon unless they break the route up into two routes.

I think 112 should definitely be restructured to skip the Admiral's Hill and Quigley Hospital detours; that plus the reroute to Airport Station plus more frequency would probably make it a more useful route.

I suspect if the 118 I've proposed had stops in both directions at the intersection of Spruce and Williams, that would more or less take care of Admiral's Hill, and the entire Admiral's Hill detour 112 makes could then be eliminated. http://www.humantransit.org/2015/08/houston-welcome-to-your-new-network.html talks about a similar sort of change in Texas, saying ``As often in ridership-increasing redesigns, he'll have to walk further to better service that will take him many places faster.''; much of the question here is whether those of us who don't live in the Admiral's Hill neighborhood should be subsidizing a shorter walk for those who do live there.

For the Summit Ave stops, I see two options:

1) Reconfigure some of the short turn 111 runs so that they run from Haymarket to the Jefferson Ave stop on Washington St, then loop through the Summit Ave stops and head back to Washington St (I'm not sure how well the existing Jefferson Ave stops on Washington work for this, but presumably they could be reconfigured if necessary).

2) Introduce a new bus route that is idential to the current 112 routing from Wellington to Summit Ave, and then continues along Webster and Broadway and possibly then mirrors some of 119, since as the crow flies, Wellington -> Quigley Hospital -> Beachmont is more or less a straight line.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Does this actually make any sense? I'm under the impression that this incentivizes passengers to make themselves more expensive for the T to serve; operating costs per passenger for Ruggles - Downtown Crossing on the Orange Line are probably lower than Dudley to Downtown Crossing on the SL5, for example.

(There's the separate problem in the short term that 60' buses seem to be easier to buy than Orange Line cars and the current Orange Line fleet isn't exactly overflowing with spare capacity, though.)

It is probably because of the huge southern Boston area that is essentially only served by buses. Go out to Dudley some time to see how many buses there really are traversing the poorer neighborhoods like Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan... There is a huge service gap between the Red and Orange lines. And many of these people never need to head downtown, they just need to traverse their large neighborhoods.

I guess the same could be said for the northern rail service gaps like Somerville (historically poorer than it is today) and Chelsea.

 

[Scalziand]

I'm confused.

http://greenlineextension.eot.state.../Topics/SchematicPubDesignGuidelns_042809.pdf lists a maximum grade of 6% for the Green Line on page 15.

http://www.proterra.com/the-proterr...iciency-gradeability-weight-and-acceleration/ says a (40') bus can handle a 15.5% grade.

The pdf says 8% for trolleys on page 1-3.

In addition, this link has the maximum grade on the C branch as in excess of 8%. Don't forget that traction for buses is also much more impaired by inclement weather than for trolleys.

http://www.lightrailnow.org/myths/m_mythlog001.htm

edit: How steep was the incline at North Station during the Big Dig? That was surely more than 8%.

 

[ChelseaDweller]

I think 112 should definitely be restructured to skip the Admiral's Hill and Quigley Hospital detours; that plus the reroute to Airport Station plus more frequency would probably make it a more useful route.

I suspect if the 118 I've proposed had stops in both directions at the intersection of Spruce and Williams, that would more or less take care of Admiral's Hill, and the entire Admiral's Hill detour 112 makes could then be eliminated. http://www.humantransit.org/2015/08/houston-welcome-to-your-new-network.html talks about a similar sort of change in Texas, saying ``As often in ridership-increasing redesigns, he'll have to walk further to better service that will take him many places faster.''; much of the question here is whether those of us who don't live in the Admiral's Hill neighborhood should be subsidizing a shorter walk for those who do live there.

.

Interesting, you take 3 disadvantage communities that the T serves & advocate altering their service (seniors, disabled, & veterans) for some of the few bus stops the T actually owns. (Granted you do offer alternative Quigley service.)

 

[Upstruk]

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I have put together a rough plan of how a silver line extension largely on a new bus way could make its way to Sullivan. It does assume that the freight spur can be crossed at grade.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

That grade crossing seems dicey. Why not just build a flyover for the bus lane?

 

[Upstruk]

That grade crossing seems dicey. Why not just build a flyover for the bus lane?

A bridge would be great but adds cost. From what I can gather (based off the 2012 Grand Junction Transportation Feasibility Study) the spur line which needs to be crossed sees one round trip freight train to the New England Produce Center each day. It seems like the cost of a bridge for that amount of rail use would not be justified.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'm confused.

http://greenlineextension.eot.state.../Topics/SchematicPubDesignGuidelns_042809.pdf lists a maximum grade of 6% for the Green Line on page 15.

http://www.proterra.com/the-proterr...iciency-gradeability-weight-and-acceleration/ says a (40') bus can handle a 15.5% grade.

Nope. Those are GLX new-construction design guidelines only. The B has a sustained grade of 10-12% for the 2 blocks around Summit Ave., and the Kenmore incline is even steeper as a single-point incline. The old pre-1997 Canal St. ramp off the Causeway St. El to the surface North Station turnback was the steepest of all. The new Science Park incline is only slightly less-steep than Canal and might be the reigning champ.


The problem here is that you just can't divebomb an articulated bus into a crater and bounce right back. It has to level out for a longer spell at the bottom than a rail vehicle. So the 450 ft. climb up from the start of the Transitway portal to D St. isn't a comparison. It's twice as long for the inclines on each end going down and up, then a level section of at least 2 or 3 articulated bus lengths. That puts you 1200 ft. or more, and you don't have that kind of space to play with clear of the underground stream or the pinch point by the Santilli Circle overpass where the freight tracks converge under the bridge.

Width is the second problem. The Transitway portal is 50' wide. Buses need extra width padding on steep inclines and some semblance of shoulder to maintain steering in icy conditions. The B Line fits its portal in 25' width for 2 tracks, half that of 2 busway lanes. You don't have 50 ft. of width to play with without running afoul of abutting wetlands or structures.

Hence, big swooping ramps are the only BRT-mode option. You can start right at 2nd Ave., have 3000 ft. of running space to go up/over/down, and go with a 50' wide deck with 25' pegs and 12' overhang on each side. But it's a lot of concrete, and probably requires mitigation for Paris St. residents. That simply isn't going to be fundable until you're ready to do the whole grade-separated Urban Ring quadrant across the River to Sullivan & Lechmere. Casino patronage alone doesn't come anywhere close to floating it.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

A bridge would be great but adds cost. From what I can gather (based off the 2012 Grand Junction Transportation Feasibility Study) the spur line which needs to be crossed sees one round trip freight train to the New England Produce Center each day. It seems like the cost of a bridge for that amount of rail use would not be justified.

No way are you doing a grade crossing at that angle. 1000% no, never will be allowed.

Second...it's two freight round trips, not one. Both Pan Am and CSX have individual daily jobs serving different customers in the terminal.

Third...the freights when they are in the terminal have limited space to work. To maneuver they drag cars around and shunt them all over the place to move things out of the way of the next siding and arrange them for the trip back. They use those tail tracks that stretch to 2nd for blocking cars. That means that while your would-be grade crossing is only going to see 2 round trips per day, each of the two freights could be running back and forth across it a dozen times in one trip blocking cars together. Now, the tail tracks by 2nd can be painlessly cannibalized for transit use because there's room on the poor land use next to the gas tanks to compensate with more yard space. But that does not end the dragging moves around the Santilli overpass because they still have to detach and run around the locomotive to go back in and shunt the next customer's siding. The freight leads are always going to be long and always have to stretch back to Everett Jct. behind the brewery for them to do their thing. Especially with the terminal being a big growth prospect for more freights.


Bottom line: no busway extensions past 2nd Ave. without constructing flyovers. You don't have any at-grade trajectory for getting past the terminal that'll pass any common-sense safety test. And no possible way of doing it as similar cheapie low-hanging fruit as SL Gateway. It's construction that has to be justified by an Urban Ring build across the river.

 

[Scipio]

One effect I haven’t seen discussed much: the East Boston to Seaport commute this project will enable is going to be huge. It’s going to make thousands of units only a one-seat, one-stop, ten minute ride from Airport to World Trade Center. If relatively inexpensive housing stock and an easy bus commute to the Seaport helped transform South Boston into what it is today, what do we think it will do to Eagle Hill?

 

[Arlington]

Using Google Maps's "Typical Traffic" feature, it looks like traffic through the terminals is "Green or Orange" during the AM rush and similarly reasonable in the PM.

Running purely on Market St & Beacham is probably OK, and, better, you might be able to negotiate with abutters along Commercial, Behen, or Rover St to get a routing through there (like your own entrance gate not open to the public or cutting through a lot to make a street)

 

[The EGE]

That "typical traffic" doesn't accurately represent how bad the Ted backs up, especially during Thursday and Friday afternoon rush hours. The merge on I-90 EB is often dark red (not just red) when you're looking at live traffic - that means dead stop. It easily takes 45 minutes to get from South Station to Terminal A at 6pm on Friday.

So while it's definitely a viable commute option for Eastie - more so than Chelsea - there are still going to be times when it sucks a lot worse than your average commute does.

 

[Arlington]

So while it's definitely a viable commute option for Eastie - more so than Chelsea - there are still going to be times when it sucks a lot worse than your average commute does.

OK, so the extension should work with abutting landowners (like the solar farm) on a solution that lets the bus do better than typical.