Storrow Drive tunnel replacement

A few things I didn't mention before:

- The Pike isn't under capacity, it's over capacity, it's just less over capacity than most other Boston roads.
- The Pike inside 128 uses a barrier toll system. It only works because there aren't nearby exits available to game the system and get off just before the toll. People will spend $2 in gas and 10 minutes in congestion to avoid a toll, don't ask me why. If you eliminate tolls (as I'd prefer) that problem goes away, of course.

The key thing people don't get about Storrow is that it acts as a hybrid between a major arterial and the closest thing to a Pike collector/distributor road that we have. It serves primarily to get people on and off the interstates efficiently for relatively short trips.

The distinction between an interstate freeway and major arterial or C/D (limited access or not) is really important to recognize. 30k cars get off/on in Allston at the barrier toll and 70k get off/on at the Leverett Connector every day. Local roads couldn't physically move that local traffic to the Pike or 93/1 as currently configured. And you can't just add more ramps, even if there's room - even ignoring safety issues it would decrease the Pike's capacity significantly even while dumping a lot more traffic on it because of the massive amount of weaving and merging it would create.

Ant, I think I hear what you're saying with the decking. A bunch of covered areas like these, but without roads and maybe with buildings on top, at least in certain areas. My bet is it'd be relatively cheap and easy to depress it a bit (say, 8 feet) and they could alternate boat sections with covered sections in a way that would make you barely notice Storrow was there. Probably could bring the height up to standards too so you could move truck traffic onto it.
 
omaja said:
As traffic patterns will tell us, most trips on the Green Line are originating or terminating at Kenmore/Hynes/Copley/Arlington/Boylston/Park/Government Center. If you send the Blue Line via Cambridge, that means we still only have one hamstrung, ancient line coming from the west into the most heavily patronized part of the Green Line network.
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Wouldn't you consider the Orange Line to be providing redundancy for most of this stretch? Its only a block from GC, Park, Boylston, and within a couple blocks of the others (except for Kenmore).

I can also never understand why people are so high on a riverside subway line in the Back Bay. When you locate a transit line along the water's edge, you're cutting its potential market area in half (b/c fish won't ride). Look at the vast NYC subway system and show me a line that hugs the water.
 
Some people believe a city should be a place where it is easy to get to and from work or the next Bruins game. Other people believe a city should be a great place to live. These two groups will never agree on the need for urban highways.
 
The Pike between downtown and the Allston/Brighton tolls, aka the stretch in question if Storrow was boulivard-ized, is DEFINITELY under capacity. Driving that route during rush hour is a breeze.
 
belmont square said:
Wouldn't you consider the Orange Line to be providing redundancy for most of this stretch? Its only a block from GC, Park, Boylston, and within a couple blocks of the others (except for Kenmore).

I can also never understand why people are so high on a riverside subway line in the Back Bay. When you locate a transit line along the water's edge, you're cutting its potential market area in half (b/c fish won't ride). Look at the vast NYC subway system and show me a line that hugs the water.
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It's not a new idea. BERy planned a Riverbank Subway in 1900. It was the vaporware GLX of its day and was "just around the corner" to starting construction for almost 20 years until WWI sapped the budget. The idea persisted until Storrow grabbed the ROW and effectively killed it. But they saw the need way back then when the Green Line was a surface streetcar collector/distributor for a more rapid-transit parallel route expressing the Back Bay. And they also saw that as an avenue for heavy rail to the west if the Central Subway proved too valuable or too complicated to switch from streetcar to heavy rail. And decidedly less expensive than any other subway build in town because it doesn't have to go underneath streets, utilities, or building foundations...only a shallow box tunnel supporting parkland with partial re-use of the deep pack of the Storrow roadbed, the Back St. retaining wall, and the deep-cut retaining walls near Mass Ave. basically setting the tunnel footprint up to the Muddy River undercrossing.

I don't think we're there yet. It pretty much would take demolition or MASSIVE city-street downgrade of Storrow to go back on the table. But if Storrow downgrade is where public sentiment tilts in 25 years, then you know the only way it's going to reach political consensus is if it comes with a transit counterweight and does become a quasi-megaproject. If that's the case then damn straight Blue from Charles to Kenmore is the logical one (even if it terminates right there). It would be a big piece of the radial circulation solution that the T is getting slammed for now by that recent report. Would be effective at spreading traffic away from the Big 4 transfer stations if Blue riders didn't have to transfer at GC to swim against Kenmore-bound crush loads or the branches, and would divert lots of Red transfers from Park at Charles.

But, yes...have to frame it more in terms of political contingency on the whither Storrow question, and it being a MassHighway + City Hall + Back Bay stakeholder heft -driven project more than a T-centric project. Without the road downgrade the agency's got 50 years of other, more recently studied backlog of stuff to build and it muddies the picture to insert this into the mix with Red-Blue, Blue-Lynn, SL III, Urban Ring, N-S Link, etc. etc. ad infinitum.
 
Won't the Indigo-ing of the Worchester line serve more or less the same purpose? Plus, it'd be cheaper in and of itself, and is already on it's way (yeah, yeah, I know it's in MBTA-years).
 
underground said:
Won't the Indigo-ing of the Worchester line serve more or less the same purpose? Plus, it'd be cheaper in and of itself, and is already on it's way (yeah, yeah, I know it's in MBTA-years).
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"Indi-Worcester" doesn't directly relieve the Green Line like Riverbank would. Yawkey doesn't have a Kenmore direct transfer for skipping the Central Subway and Park/GC to get to the GL branches on one fare, so it doesn't provide relief and load-spreading at the transfer spots. And Back Bay and South Station don't really do that either except for maybe Orange inbounds from Forest Hills looking to skip downtown. Red Line at SS is too many stairs and lateral distance removed from the CR platforms. Nobody is seriously going to opt for the transfer there vs. staying on 2 stops and going up 1 set of stairs. Even DTX and the Winter St. concourse is a comparable walk vs. a SS transfer when you consider the length increase is traded off by fewer stairs (if you're bringing luggage).

Plus 20 minute headways on Indigo is still a world away from 5 minute headways on rapid transit...even clogged rapid transit. "Indi-Worcester" would in no way be intended as downtown radial relief. It would serve Brighton and critical parts of Newton cut off from the rapid transit system, hit a lot of key bus routes, replace most of the Pike express buses with a better and more schedule-reliable mode, and provide measurable Sox game relief. For those reasons I think any study on it is going to come back slam-dunk. But in no way would its intended purpose mesh on the subway map. Different mode, different purpose, different intentions.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
It's not a new idea. BERy planned a Riverbank Subway in 1900.
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But not all old ideas are good ideas...

F-Line to Dudley said:
And decidedly less expensive than any other subway build in town because it doesn't have to go underneath streets, utilities, or building foundations
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By this argument shouldn't MTA's 2nd Ave Subway proponents been advocating for a much cheaper build along the Hudson or East River shorelines? My guess is 2nd Ave is the preferred alignment b/c its bound on either side by several blocks of dense urban development instead of water.

I suppose in a world of unlimited resources, an express subway under the esplanade running from Kenmore to somewhere downtown, would be one way to relieve pressure on the Green Line. But when people advocate for companion stops along such a line (2 or 3 between Mass Ave and Arlington Street!) the idea gets dramatically worse. Your catchment area for such stations are the 2 exclusively residential blocks between Comm Ave and Beacon, and a healthy % of those residents would probably still opt for the Green Line and the bounty of shops/services on Boylston and Newbury on their walk to/from the subway.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Yawkey doesn't have a Kenmore direct transfer for skipping the Central Subway and Park/GC to get to the GL branches on one fare, so it doesn't provide relief and load-spreading at the transfer spots.
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What about a GL connection at Hynes? Wouldn't that do the trick?
 
You know the arguments about making a riverbank line to relieve the Green Line - wouldn't the money needed to build heavy rail means it is also enough to use the same amount (or less?) to heavy rail the Green Line?

One of my thoughts have been to upgrade the Green Line to heavy from points North to Kenmore (and perhaps onward per original plans of BERY) with all current Green Line light rail rework to loop around. Like how Ashmont station works (and used to work even better when the trolleys used to stop 10 feet way from the Red Line car). No need for a Riverbank Line to provide relief if the Green Line had more capacity and done with the same theoretical money. Plus half the reachable area would not be a river.
 
underground said:
What about a GL connection at Hynes? Wouldn't that do the trick?
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No room for platforms there because the line is already in the Pike cut next to the retaining wall holding up the Boylston St. overpass and Cambria St. And the corner parking lot between Boylston and Ipswich would only allow for a narrow 300 ft. platform and doors-open on 3 cars.

That's the rub that also precludes any EB Pike exits in this vicinity. Between the current Yawkey platforms and Back Bay there's no way to plausibly widen the ROW without deleting Ipswich or Cambria from the street grid. Neither of which could ever happen because of building access points.
 
Couldn't you just take a parking lane from Ipswich? Or make it one way? Or make it one way AND take a parking lane?
 
belmont square said:
Wouldn't you consider the Orange Line to be providing redundancy for most of this stretch? Its only a block from GC, Park, Boylston, and within a couple blocks of the others (except for Kenmore).
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For local traffic, perhaps. For traffic to/from outside of Back Bay and Downtown, though, not so much. Green Line passengers going to or from the west in that area can't use the Orange Line without an out-of-system transfer and walk outside between Hynes/Symphony/Mass Ave, Copley/Back Bay, or Boylston/Chinatown.
 
underground said:
Couldn't you just take a parking lane from Ipswich? Or make it one way? Or make it one way AND take a parking lane?
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Still not nearly enough room for a platform (even an island) capable of serving both directions. Ipswich already has a no-parking gap at the Muddy River + Bowker crossing, and the Pike already has zero breakdown lanes and the minimum-most separation from the tracks here. There is physically zero room to do anything.

55 bus down Ipswich is also in the Top 50 route ridership, serves the densest part of Fenway neighborhood residential, and has been going down that street ever since it was an ancient streetcar route. You're not going to get any neighborhood--or especially Red Sox--enthusiasm whatsoever for messing with such a longstanding route by one-waying Ipswich. Rail stations are sexier, but the Worcester Line isn't where the neighborhood travel patterns are...the 55 is.
 
ant8904 said:
You know the arguments about making a riverbank line to relieve the Green Line - wouldn't the money needed to build heavy rail means it is also enough to use the same amount (or less?) to heavy rail the Green Line?

One of my thoughts have been to upgrade the Green Line to heavy from points North to Kenmore (and perhaps onward per original plans of BERY) with all current Green Line light rail rework to loop around. Like how Ashmont station works (and used to work even better when the trolleys used to stop 10 feet way from the Red Line car). No need for a Riverbank Line to provide relief if the Green Line had more capacity and done with the same theoretical money. Plus half the reachable area would not be a river.
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I doubt converting the Green Line to heavy rail would be cheaper than extending the Blue Line along the Storrow right of way. All stations would need to be lengthened in order to accommodate longer heavy rail trains; not to mention, you'd have to raise the platforms (or sink the track, like Kenmore was built for) and make massive upgrades to signaling and electrical. I suspect that Kenmore would have to be greatly altered to make it an easy process to reverse heavy rail trains and allow the B Line to link up with the C/D tracks that are loop-accessible.

At the end of all of that hassle, we'd be forcing all Downtown/Back Bay-bound traffic from Allston, Brighton, Brookline and Newton that currently has single-seat access to start switching trains at Kenmore. That's a pretty not so insignificant percentage of the Green Line's total ridership - unlike the set up at Ashmont where the High Speed Line handles a minute number of passengers.

By comparison, a simple cut-and-cover job along a straight right of way is relatively straightforward. The biggest hurdle is figuring out the politically palatable way to position its construction with a Storrow downgrade. I think the crosstown connectivity would more than make up for the fact that the Riverbank Subway would have less of a catchment area due to its location.
 
If Storrow Drive's 6 lanes were reduced to four, there would be room for a 2-track surface Green Line. To make a complete branch of the Green Line between North Station and Kenmore, only three short tunnel segments would be needed: one connecting to the Green line at Charlesgate on the western end, a tunnel under Charles Circle enabling a connection with the new Blue Line station there, and a short tunnel next to Science Park station to merge with the Green Line between it and North Station.

Light rail would acceptable on a surface line, whereas heavy rail would not.
 
Charlie_mta said:
If Storrow Drive's 6 lanes were reduced to four, there would be room for a 2-track surface Green Line. To make a complete branch of the Green Line between North Station and Kenmore, only three short tunnel segments would be needed: one connecting to the Green line at Charlesgate on the western end, a tunnel under Charles Circle enabling a connection with the new Blue Line station there, and a short tunnel next to Science Park station to merge with the Green Line between it and North Station.

Light rail would acceptable on a surface line, whereas heavy rail would not.
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The issue with this is that you lose not only the Boylston street stops, but also essentially all of downtown, except for Charles... whereas a Blue Line extension would be able to stop at State and Gov't Center. You also now have three lines serving Charles/MGH, which seems unnecessary.

I think a Riverbank Blue Line extension would be a useful, if not high-priority, extension of the system, but I don't think it would serve the same purpose as Storrow Drive or could replace it.
 
Seems like reducing Storrow to four lanes, reworking interchange and turning radii geometry, and plopping a cut-and-cover tunnel subway along the freed-up right of way would be the best use of space. I agree that there isn't a good way to outright remove Storrow, but the six laned sections really just induce traffic demand and speeding along the whole corridor. Since the interchanges at Charlesgate and Leverett are already capacity-capped with only one or two lanes in either direction as it is, it makes sense to keep the lane count uniform along the whole route. Any through traffic can just as easily be served via the Pike.
 
Came across this in a book:

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1912.
 
^ I've seen that before and have always found it funny that the buildings facing the esplanade still oriented away from it (as of course they still do today). Why did no buildings develop to explicitly *front* the esplanade? It seems strangely incongruous that a splendid park directly adjacent to Back Bay would abut garages and the backs of carriage houses.

Actually if these buildings had actually fronted the esplanade then Storrow
Drive might have been much less feasible.
 
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