Amid all the talks of
how to put a transit service (whether BRT, LRT or HRT) on Tobin's replacement and
where it should be, I think there's a related question:
Which transit route should be there?
Obviously, the most realistic
near-term answer is the (T)111. But what if we actually manage to put in tracks?
Looking at the recent discussions, an Orange Line branch seems like the most popular choice. But I don't think that's the right one: doing so halves (maximum) capacity on the main OL route north of Community College, including Sullivan, Assembly, Wellington and Malden Center, each one of which can't afford to lose service. It's even worse than the more common proposal of branching OL at Sullivan via the Eastern Route, which at least maintains full service to Sullivan.
In the medium term, there's another option: What if we make it a branch of the Green Line from North Station?
View attachment 43002
The tunnel that leads to Tobin Bridge is already very close to North Station. Build a tunnel that takes a turn and go under the Charles, build a flying junction at GL North Station (which will hopefully be easier than otherwise would, given that the two GL tracks are on different levels there), and you're there. Northside Green Line has much more spare capacity than southside today (and remains so under most GL Reconfiguration proposals), so you can easily extend, say, the C trains to take on this branch to Chelsea.
If the GL flyover at North Station is infeasible, another potential idea is to use the old center tracks at Haymarket (with a crossover north of the present-day station to get to the center tracks), though I'm not sure how much of those structures remain intact today. For a cheap build, you can either use the portal to get to street level, and follow the route of the 111 bus today. For a more expensive build, use the center tracks to separate from the main GL tracks, but stay underground with separate North Station platforms somewhere.
View attachment 43003
(
@vanshnookenraggen , you need to update your track map to make the C terminate at Government Center.)
In the long/fantasy term, I think the route that makes the most sense is what
I called the "5th trunk in downtown Boston": A route from North Station that follows Congress St, through State (BL/OL), the heart Financial District (Post Office Square), and South Station (RL). This route can be either LRT or HRT, and both have merits:
- LRT allows the route to absorb other streetcar/bus routes immediately to the north and south of downtown, in addition to the Chelsea branch via Tobin. Examples include the 93/T7 route through Charlestown, Everett (Broadway), the (T)7 route through Summer St to South Boston, etc. This can be an LRT version of the downtown transit corridor that's planned in the Bus Network Redesign, and the second LRT trunk similar to what the Green Line does today.
- HRT allows a longer radial route that can possibly extend beyond Chelsea, such as to Everett and Revere, both of which need better, faster transit options. On the southern end, options beyond South Station also exist, such as F-Line's "Red X" proposal that absorbs one of the Red Line branches, or - likely in a fantasy world - proper rapid transit conversion of the Fairmount Line.
I made
this God-mode proposal a while back with more explanations there, and a sketch of the downtown route is shown below. If we can get HRT on the Tobin ROW (which is ambitious, I know), it may bring the proposal one step closer from fantasy range.