Silver Line to Chelsea

Joel N. Weber II said:
I'm trying to understand what's physically possible with my questions here; I'm not so focused on which organization would be responsible for carrying out improvements. I think I can figure out where to send comments about the Inman Sq intersection design, but I want to make sure what specific physical design I ask for is well informed.

https://www.access-board.gov/guidel...or-transportation-facilities-single-file#a810 has section 810.2 for bus and 810.5 for rail. The rail section says level boarding with high platforms is preferred; I don't see anything equivalent for bus. Do you have a citation for any sort of ADA requirement for level boarding of buses in any circumstances?

I'm pretty sure one of the arguments with the BCIL settlement was that the T in many cases doesn't own the inaccessible infrastructure, and the T initially seemed to think that this was an excuse to not even make any effort to work with the actual owner of the infrastructure, and the court forced the T to try to work with the infrastructure owner in such cases.
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Yeah this is beyond the scope of this thread or my knowledge. I will also renew the comment about the difference between a bus stop and a BRT station. The rules I am 99% certain are DIFFERENT between even tho they can use the same livery, they are two DIFFERENT modes of transport.

You would need to ask a transportation planner about this, specifically one who works on bus policy. I have someone I will ask and forward along your question, however this person is not based in Boston so he can't specifically answer your question, except if rules do apply or not.

And yes you should be concerned about who manages the stop, you may get more leverage and help designing your stop from the city (particularly Cambridge). They may already even know.
 
Joel N. Weber II said:
I was under the impression that the ADA rules say that you have to be able to get wheelchairs on board, but the ADA rules don't necessarily require that process to be eloquent, so the flip out ramp is considered good enough for basic ADA compliance even though it's so ineloquent that strollers pretty much never use it.
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Correct. True level bus platforms in the US are exceptionally rare.

All the underground stops are basic curb height, which is not level.

See this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB5k4GapP8c


I doubt any of the new ones are too. MBTA has shown zero interest in true level boarding.

This is best practice:

1280px-Kasselsk%C3%BD_obrubn%C3%ADk%2C_Koleje_Strahov%2C_detail.jpg


Note three things:

The pavement is curved, which positions the bus at the right place with driver error. The curve pushes the wheels to where they should be.

The top of the curved ramp is the standard curb height.

Above that, is a raised platform to create true level boarding.

See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassel_kerb
 
If you're concerned about damage from snow plows, maybe build heating elements into it (either electric resistance or hydronic) and get the plow operators to keep the plow blades away from it?
 
Lets just make every branch silver!

No, but seriously, why not give this a new color? it is confusing that it goes to the airport, but not the airport.
 
jass said:
Lets just make every branch silver!

No, but seriously, why not give this a new color? it is confusing that it goes to the airport, but not the airport.
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It's not anymore confusing than taking the Green Line. Or that only one of the lines actually goes to the airport, none of the others do.

All people need to do is pay attention.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
It's not anymore confusing than taking the Green Line. Or that only one of the lines actually goes to the airport, none of the others do.

All people need to do is pay attention.
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At the very least, SL4 & 5 should be stripped of their silver designation and maybe renumbered into a CT# route or something. It is ridiculously confusing to have 2 silver lines in 2 separate trunks that don't connect that go to a bunch of different places.
 
datadyne007 said:
At the very least, SL4 & 5 should be stripped of their silver designation and maybe renumbered into a CT# route or something. It is ridiculously confusing to have 2 silver lines in 2 separate trunks that don't connect that go to a bunch of different places.
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The whole point of the Silver Line was that it was a replacement of the Orange Line along Washington St. Even just changing the name will bring an uproar, probably accusations of transit racism too. It's NOT a replacement and it IS confusing but the community fought for it and that's the thing you gotta remember.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
It's not anymore confusing than taking the Green Line. Or that only one of the lines actually goes to the airport, none of the others do.

All people need to do is pay attention.
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Do two Green Line branches share the same name of a popular destination important to tourists, but are in separate places?

"Take the Silver Line to the airport!' has been the message for 10+ years.

"oh no, not that silver line, that goes to airport, you want to go to airport" is confusing.
 
jass said:
Do two Green Line branches share the same name of a popular destination important to tourists, but are in separate places?

"Take the Silver Line to the airport!' has been the message for 10+ years.

"oh no, not that silver line, that goes to airport, you want to go to airport" is confusing.
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Right and there are still throngs of tourists that think you can take the SL from Boylston to the Airport.

Inevitably, there will be more BRT corridors in Boston and what do we do then? Call all them silver too? I'm fine with showing BRT routes on the map, but maybe show them as separate lines a bit thinner than subway lines. And just keep service at the same levels.
 
In a real transit system (like the rest of the world) the different branches of Green, Red, Silver would have different color/dash codes. Just because something uses the same tunnel does not mean it is the same line. Green, Red, Silver branches are unnecessarily confusing, and it is just because we are stubborn about good information design.
 
Regarding the colors... I'm pretty sure SL4 and SL5 (plus the segment of SL1, SL2 and SL3 to the west of Courthouse station, which has the "You Are Here" marker next to it) are the lighter color because they will be inaccessible from the location this map is intended for (which looks to be the outbound side of Courthouse station)-- notice that the station names for the lighter-color sections are also omitted.

This is the same style adopted elsewhere in the system-- stations that are inaccessible from your current platform have removed labels and sit on lighter-colored lines. If memory serves, this was common on the Green Line about 15-20 years ago and has recently been more widely adopted.

Personally, I like the approach-- as long as we are going to maintain the Justice Potter Stewart-esque definitions of Inbound and Outbound ("I can't tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it"), it's a good way of clarifying where the trains from your current platform will actually go.
 
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JeffDowntown said:
In a real transit system (like the rest of the world) the different branches of Green, Red, Silver would have different color/dash codes. Just because something uses the same tunnel does not mean it is the same line. Green, Red, Silver branches are unnecessarily confusing, and it is just because we are stubborn about good information design.
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Yup, all Im saying is that Chelsea should be gold or something.

4 and 5 make sense because 99% of the route is the same.

But we have other colors to choose from and its not like were building so much transit we're going to run out any time soon.

Im ok with Green line branches for now, but I think the extension should get its own designation.
 
JeffDowntown said:
In a real transit system (like the rest of the world) the different branches of Green, Red, Silver would have different color/dash codes. Just because something uses the same tunnel does not mean it is the same line. Green, Red, Silver branches are unnecessarily confusing, and it is just because we are stubborn about good information design.
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Don't know about that - not in NYC at least. 4/5/6 for instance on maps are generally the same color and later branch out in the Bronx. We have that with the letters on the Green Line and the A/B on the Red Line, we just don't call them out as much.
 
bakgwailo said:
Don't know about that - not in NYC at least. 4/5/6 for instance on maps are generally the same color and later branch out in the Bronx. We have that with the letters on the Green Line and the A/B on the Red Line, we just don't call them out as much.
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Yeah, I think the model used here and in New York makes sense. Colors designate a system more so than a single line. But then we try to have it both ways in Boston, since we claim to have four lines based on the four colors, when in reality we have eight lines, despite downtown only having four tunnels.
 
Why not just do what New York does with the Lex Ave line? The green line there is 4 5 6 6d. We already pretty much do the same thing, but if we drilled the nomenclature of the BCDE lines into people more, it would eliminate more confusion. They'd be four lines that share a subway for some distance. In a far future where the northside/extension has branches too, that's what would naturally happen.

edit: we all had the same idea.
 
bakgwailo said:
Don't know about that - not in NYC at least. 4/5/6 for instance on maps are generally the same color and later branch out in the Bronx. We have that with the letters on the Green Line and the A/B on the Red Line, we just don't call them out as much.
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The color system breaks down when you have so many lines, because there are really only 8 appropriate colors.

Thats why NYC, London, Paris, Mexico, etc just use numbers or line names.

Nobody refers to their color on the map, it just helps you follow the line.
 
I think people say "the Green Line" because so much of it (notably, the most used part) is common to all 4 branches. There is no ambiguity the vast majority of the time. I typically hear people switch to a branch designation when needed to clarify. For example, "take the Green Line to Park" vs "take the E Line to Prudential." Hynes and Kenmore might arguably be the toughest to talk about because you need a list "take the B, C, or D to Kenmore." That doesn't roll off the tongue to my Boston ears, it sounds awkward.

In my experience, New York doesn't use their color designations at all. The red ones are always referred to as "the 1/2/3" and never "the Red Line." Typical directions might be "take the 2/3 express to 14th St" with no mention of the word "red." I always figured they don't use the colors because there are so many lines and so many branches/express services that ambiguities crop up all the time.

Back to Boston, I would say Silver Line gets used much the same way as we use Green Line, except the branch designations are less frequently important because there are so few ambiguities that arise. The most common specificity would be "you need the SL1 to get to Logan." But consider: "take the Silver Line to Harpoon" or "take the Silver Line to East Berkeley." They don't need any additional clarification to locals, though clearly visitor are at a disadvantage.

Personally, I don't see SL3 going to Airport station to be a big problem. If anyone does that by mistake, they will in fact get to the terminals in short order using the Blue Line shuttles. The fact that the Silver "Line" is broken in the middle is the only real communication problem, in my opinion. One of them should be Gold and the other Silver and printing all those new maps for SL3 would have been a good time to introduce that. Since we aren't seeing that now, I don't think we'll see a change in the naming convention until something more drastic changes.
 
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