Henry -- we are talking people who knew the ROW was there -- but figured that since almost all of the things that it used to service were long gone that the ROW would fade into oblivion
Note that these "people" have many $B of investment in the area at stake and will not likely let a nearly abandoned rail line combined with some romanitc views of some transit affectionados stand in their way
" nano-Materials, Structures, and Systems (nMaSS) facility
Still in the early stages of planning, this new building focusing on materials research at the nanoscale would accommodate programmatic priorities expressed by the deans of the School of Science and the School of Engineering. MIT is engaged in the preliminary analysis of the programmatic and technical requirements for this advanced research facility. A site for the new building has not been selected. "
as of Saturday -- MIT has publicly stated that the search for the site for nMaSS is still on-going due to the aforementioned EM noise and mechanical vibrations at the 1rst choise site (Main and Albany St.)
It's not almost abandoned. CSX does a freight round-trip to/from Everett Terminal 7 days a week, and MBTA and Amtrak equipment transfers almost every day. It averages 3-4 total moves per day. Ever been by the Mass Ave. grade crossing when CSX comes crawling through? The whole area rattles from a long freight consist even at 10 MPH. It takes a lot of power to get 20 freight cars up that steep Mystic River bridge on the Eastern Route and haul the terminal tonnage back to Allston, so those are not light engine moves. Sometimes they run it with two locomotives at the head belching exhaust in tandem. Considering the tracks are in crud shape and under FRA Exempt status (10 MPH max, no passenger, no hazmat cargo) things like bad ties, bolted rail, substandard trackbed, and unpadded grade crossings increase the vibration substantially. As does the locomotive physically going so slow past the buildings and having to be constantly full-power without coasting to maintain such low speed. If there's a vibration concern, they already experience it every single day and built those labs while experiencing it every single day. It's a prior condition, and they know there has never been a cap on how many trains can be run over it and that any changes in the volume of intermodal cargo coming through Everett could've caused CSX to double its schedules. Circa '96-98 when Boston Engine Terminal was being torn down and rebuilt ground-up the T had to use the GJ many more times a day to shuttle trains from every temporary storage spot it could find grab while the main maintenance facility was out of commission.
Class 3 (59 MPH) passenger track with continuous welded rail, new ties, regraded ballast, and new grade crossings is not going to rattle the same. Nor will passenger locomotives passing by at 40 MPH and (especially northbound heading towards Kendall) coasting off the long Cambridgeport straightaway. And, as noted, MIT and every lab in the area knows it's an active rail line. Not only an active rail line, but one that was historically double-tracked with many sidings. All of those back alleys from Mass Ave. to Main St. are built on temporary easements from the railroad. The newer air rights buildings had to be constructed to fit restoration of second track. All structures built next to the ROW have to be built to clearance and vibration standard to support restoration of the second track. This isn't a new proposal; that's been the chosen Urban Ring routing for years--right up through Phase III heavy rail configurations--and this Worcester-North service has been periodically studied before.
Now, I'm not surprised there's hand-wringing. But that's mainly because Murray sprung it on a whim and won't shut his piehole about how this thing is shovel-ready. City of Cambridge is pissed that nobody gave them a heads-up before he started saying things in front of a podium. MIT wants a hand in this because every master campus plan they've drafted has the GJ serving some sort of passenger purpose, and they want to make sure they get their piece of the pie before the pols start blabbing off-the-reservation. Neither party is going to oppose if it plunks a lucrative intermediate station in the heart of biotech boomtown. Least of all MIT. Cambridge Center isn't some bedroom community like Hingham where people have nothing better to do but tend to their picket fences. A commercial center that's all big business, all big-University, and no residential will play ball with something that enhances their locational value. Every time, as long as there's something in it for them. It was politically unwise for Murray to just throw it out there off the cuff without first making the behind-the-scenes case that there's something in it for them.
As for the grade crossings...10 trains per day hauling 5-7 coaches each is not going to tie up the crossings any longer than a traffic light cycle. They don't need to eliminate the Mass. Ave. crossing until the full-build Urban Ring truly does come to fruition and sends trolleys through there every 5 minutes. Sync the Albany St., Vassar St., and center-campus crosswalk traffic lights to the grade crossing circuitry to give a longer than usual priority green after the train crosses to empty the traffic queue. Residual traffic's gone in under 5 minutes. Grade crossings all over the country are programmed to do that, on roads with equal or higher volumes than Mass Ave.. Commuter rail already has crossings way worse than this...try Route 60 in West Medford center or Routes 135/126 in Framingham where two of the busiest lines on the system crawl to extra-slow station stops smack through bad-angle intersections of crisscrossing downtown thoroughfares or state highways, and stop traffic in every direction at the queues. Those are the crossings that need elimination pronto.
It's not about total volume or density, but queue management. You can manage a grade crossing with Mass Ave.-level volumes if there's a way to cleanly disperse traffic. Crossings only have to go when there is nothing--not light cycle timing, not anything--that prevents a total, long-lasting clusterfuck or a lethal safety risk (blind angles, etc.). Mass Ave. and Broadway/Main are not all that high degree of difficulty crossings by commuter rail standards for managing queues.
