Transit Planning $h!tposting (Ideas so bad, they're good)

[Charlie_mta]

I got carried away and converted the aformentioned map to the MetroDreamin interface as well as Google MyMaps (edited the original post above to add the Google MyMaps version). (Yeah, I spent a few days of my time converting the map)

Link to converted map: https://metrodreamin.com/view/cXhmSU9IMGtIcFE4QWcyeHZyV3ZEQTNYU1gyMnww (Map is best viewed in light mode (disable dark mode) and open fullscreen. I also recommend hiding buses/trams/streetcars to just see the lines)

Apparently, Metrodreamin simulates a single roundtrip for every single dream subway/streetcar/ferry/bus line drawn on it's interface. So I converted the map to use the format mostly to see the satisfaction of watching the subways on all the mainline ROWs go super fast/high-speed on the B & A and B & L right-of-ways, while all of the buses creep along street-running in Allston-Brighton and Somerville.

Also I deleted a few lines and rearranged others. Since it's a metro map maker, I essentially just drawn the lines as I saw fit with no regard to realism. (It should be easier to clone and reconfigure the map on this platform than Google MyMaps as well)

Great map. It looks like an alternative reality that could have happened, especially the Blue Line to Harvard Sq, which was the original plan when the Longfellow Bridge was built.

 

[Riverside]

Yeah, to be clear, if the test is, "Does a rapid transit line avoid using a mainline ROW to go from the Inner Belt to downtown, a la Kenmore, Sullivan, or Harvard?", then the northern Green Line definitely would have passed before the opening of GLX.

With GLX open, I think it's less clear where the "Inner Belt" is; if we keep it at Lechmere, then Green continues to pass the test. But if we think the Inner Belt is actually the Harvard <> Sullivan axis along Washington St, then both the Medford and Union branches would be debatable at best. (Particularly Union, which relies heavily on the Fitchburg RR ROW.)

I like to use the idea of "the fastest crosstown loop that follows only existing bus routes" to find the inner belt loop (and the outer belt loop, where I don't exit original BERy territory).

Such maps give me these results (black lines are inner and outer belt, red are major bus termini or intersections). Kendall MIT being a growing hub these days makes it bit harder now to determine if Central should still be considered the bounds of the inner loop, or if it should be shifted to Kendall. BNRD rerouting to Charlestown will only make this more messy.

I've also thought about the outer loop of the inner core quite a bit. Revere kinds of makes it tricky with Revere St./Revere Center. I'm tempted to route the outer loop to Arlington, but since the 74, 75, and 73 buses in Belmontdon't meet until Harvard, it essentially causes Harvard to be considered "the outer loop". The same issue also exists for Brookline Village and urban density dropping off SW of Brookline Village.

View attachment 49576

Just want to say that I think this is a super interesting idea and I hope to come back and comment on it further!

 

[Riverside]

I got carried away and converted the aformentioned map to the MetroDreamin interface as well as Google MyMaps (edited the original post above to add the Google MyMaps version). (Yeah, I spent a few days of my time converting the map)

Link to converted map: https://metrodreamin.com/view/cXhmSU9IMGtIcFE4QWcyeHZyV3ZEQTNYU1gyMnww (Map is best viewed in light mode (disable dark mode) and open fullscreen. I also recommend hiding buses/trams/streetcars to just see the lines)

Very cool!

I've been working on a diagram version of the original map I described, so I'll use this opportunity to tease that:

 

[Riverside]

Well, it's certainly no longer a shitpost, but I now offer not one, not two, but three versions of the map I described upthread, of a system I've called the Boston Metropolitatn Railway. Full versions (and background and explanation) on my blog.

View attachment BMR Map v1.0.png
View attachment BMR 22TPH Map v1.2.png
View attachment BMR Dual Tunnels Map v1.0.png

I'm gonna write a separate blog post later on the pros and cons of the BMR's approach, but I do want to be clear that, in general, this idea remains a shitpost in spirit. There definitely are aspects of this "Suburban Rail Link" concept that are interesting and worthwhile, but ultimately this idea would have been only marginally sufficient 100 years ago, and certainly woefully inadequate today.

 

[Delvin4519]

Well, it's certainly no longer a shitpost, but I now offer not one, not two, but three versions of the map I described upthread, of a system I've called the Boston Metropolitatn Railway. Full versions (and background and explanation) on my blog.

View attachment 49888

View attachment 49889

View attachment 49890


View attachment 49885
View attachment 49886
View attachment 49887

I'm gonna write a separate blog post later on the pros and cons of the BMR's approach, but I do want to be clear that, in general, this idea remains a shitpost in spirit. There definitely are aspects of this "Suburban Rail Link" concept that are interesting and worthwhile, but ultimately this idea would have been only marginally sufficient 100 years ago, and certainly woefully inadequate today.

Looks very good!

Looks more fleshed out than my idea. Some things I notice:

(The Fairmount Line is harder to analyze in this context, since it lost most of its passenger stations much earlier on, and has current stations in greenfield locations. However, it could easily be added to the purple “Franklin Suburban” network, with 6 min headways to Fairmount, and 12-min to Braintree and Mattapan.)

(The Fairmount Line was also going to be harder to map as a full line, so I admit I took the easy way out to avoid mapping it.)

Is this due to the nature of the map itself not having enough space, or some other factor?

I wonder if there would be room to map the Fairmount line if the Southwest Corridor is mapped diagonally to the southwest instead of due south. On my maps, the Fairmount line is given a lot more room, and the whitespace showing the underserved areas of the Boston neck/Roxbury. The area looks a lot more squished while the Highland Branch is given a lot more room (probably to avoid diagonal text and to make the streetcar lines more neater).

I had first mapped out the "mainline rail link" concept on top of the existing present day map, only readapting it later on. I took a lot of influence from the offical MBTA system map on how it depects present day rail corridors, and mapped the mainline railways akin to the offical MBTA approach (The B & RB & L's Blue Line and the SW corridor's Orange Line always appear diagonal NE-SW, northside Orange Line and RL to JFK UMass fully vertical N-S, GLX/Arlington are diagonal to the NW).

I'm gonna write a separate blog post later on the pros and cons of the BMR's approach, but I do want to be clear that, in general, this idea remains a shitpost in spirit. There definitely are aspects of this "Suburban Rail Link" concept that are interesting and worthwhile, but ultimately this idea would have been only marginally sufficient 100 years ago, and certainly woefully inadequate today.

I would be very interested! I don't know why, but the "mainline rail link/suburban rail link/mainline rail metro service concept" is super fascinating and interesting to me. It's like an endless rabbit hole and can of worms for me. I can understand that it would be woefully inadequate and not practical/realistic by the present day though.

One key difference is the character of the SUAG frequencies: in a well-functioning version of today’s MBTA, the SUAG headways on its subway lines are usually 5-6 minutes, whereas the BMR’s Metropolitan headways would be roughly 12 minutes. The Suburban branch lines to Braintree, Riverside, and Malden would be relegated to roughly half-hour headways. On the other hand, stations like Newtonville, Hyde Park, and Chelsea would see much higher frequencies than they do today.

I have tried figuring out what frequencies and tracks would be needed to give a minimum 7 tph for "SUAG" frequencies for all branches as far as the BERy territory extended, in the most radical approach Tokyo-style. (I wouldn't accept anything less than 7 tph for "SUAG"; anything 6 tph or below was "SUAW" or "PDTW", in my radical concept, as 6 tph is a "clockface" 10 minute timetabled service. If 7 tph was "evening service", then 8 tph could be midday service and 9 tph rush hour).

Essentially, this would require a minimum 14-18 tph to reach Wellington on the northside, Sweetser Circle in Everett, Magoun Sq. in Somerville, Porter in Cambridge, Lansdowne near Brookline, Forest Hills in the south, and Harrison Sq. in Dorchester. (In a more radical sense I could make the case that 2 branches in West Roxbury (inside BERy territory) could use 14-18 tph to West Roxbury, since without it would cause the branch stations inside BERy territory on the outskirts of West Roxbury to only have branch headways of 3.5-4.5 tph; to meet the 7-9 tph standard for all BERy territory stations would mean 21-27 tph just to get to Forest Hills. Reactivation of the abandoned Harvard and Milton branches would also give 21-27 tph to Prospect Hill Somerville and Harrison Sq. Dorchester as well).

the core tunnel would need a capacity of 40 tph or more in each direction. SEPTA’s Center City connection, and recent analysis of the proposed NSRL, suggest that a realistic capacity for a single dual-track mainline tunnel would be about 22 tph. This imaginary “Suburban Rail Link” would need to be quad-tracked

I had thought to make the maximum service (shortest headway) for each branch's stations within the BERy service area to max out at 11 tph for peak service, where each 2 branches would share tracks, for 22 tph maximum. Interesting my thoughts on my insane idea of "mainline ROW metro service to the radical extreme" matches what is seen here.

I have been tinkering around with this unrealistic impractical concept, I came up with this map of frequencies so far. Pink is any service less than 7 tph, Red is 7-9 tph, Orange 14-18, Yellow 21-27 (including some abandoned branches). A hugely impractical/unrealistic mega-trunk extends from Sullivan Sq. down to Back Bay and Andrew with 28-36 tph or more. The Harvard-Maverick-B & RB & L line is marked as 7-9 tph but I suppose it would have more service than categorized in my silly map. (On this map, all Waltham, Lynn, and Quincy routes are extended past their BERy terminals, as well as Highland Branch. In a every-other-train short turn service at Reservior, Urban rail services would only be 1.75 tph off peak/2.25 - 2.75 tph peak, to Needham Junction/Riverside (every 22-27 min peak/34 min evenings) on the Highland Branch, or they can be served by commuter rail service instead).

EDIT 2024-08-13: I've redid the map, as I'm editing this post to add a revised map to accompany the "Extend all buses to Downtown Boston" map I added now. Color code means yellow is frequencies less than 7 tph, red is 7 tph or more, magenta 14 tph+, pink 21 tph+, blue 35 tph+.

 

[Riverside]

Is this due to the nature of the map itself not having enough space, or some other factor?

I wonder if there would be room to map the Fairmount line if the Southwest Corridor is mapped diagonally to the southwest instead of due south. On my maps, the Fairmount line is given a lot more room, and the whitespace showing the underserved areas of the Boston neck/Roxbury. The area looks a lot more squished while the Highland Branch is given a lot more room (probably to avoid diagonal text and to make the streetcar lines more neater).

You're totally right about turning the Southwest Corridor diagonal, I think that would work. Yes, I wanted to avoid diagonal text at all costs, and yeah, I was worried about the streetcar lines looking messy so did try to focus on making them clean. But, if I turn the Southwest Corridor diagonal at Heath or Roxbury, I could turn the Egleston Streetcar directly vertically, which would be pretty clean (and would maintain the vertical axis running down from Causeway station). You are right that there is lots of available real estate within both the Needham and Newton Circuits.

Actually, one thing that could be very interesting is to adjust the Washington St El to the left and make it part of the vertical axis, and shift everything in the lower left quadrant over a bit. There's definitely space, and yeah that would open up space for the Fairmount Line's labels. (I could also adjust the Braintree and Mattapan Lines over -- I drew those early in the process when I wasn't sure how much space I would have on the right edge of the map, but never circled back later.)

I would be very interested! I don't know why, but the "mainline rail link/suburban rail link/mainline rail metro service concept" is super fascinating and interesting to me. It's like an endless rabbit hole and can of worms for me. I can understand that it would be woefully inadequate and not practical/realistic by the present day though.

I'll try to get to it soon!

And yeah, I think the topic remains relevant both in terms of the North South Rail Link and in terms of the continued reuse of the original ROWs. For example, I think the current capacity pinch on the Old Colony Lines makes a lot more sense when you realize that both branches of the Red Line and all three Old Colony branches were originally built and run as a single system, with all of its traffic funneled through what is now JFK/UMass. There's a reason that the (bad) idea of converting the Braintree Branch to high-freq Regional Rail looks good on paper -- it's how the system was literally designed to run, waaaaaay back when.

I think the B&A and Boston & Providence also present a something interesting: Back Bay Station seems oddly close to the core to be a branching point.... which makes sense when you realize that it wasn't built as a branch point, but as a crossing between the two railroads (when the B&P ran to Park Square). The B&P and B&A didn't have their own branchpoints until Brookline Junction (Kenmore) and Forest Hills... again reinforcing those as demarcation points a la the Inner Belt. (And I still need to reply to your comments on that topic!)

Your frequency map looks cool! I need to read the analysis more carefully, but looks interesting too!

 

[Delvin4519]

Your frequency map looks cool! I need to read the analysis more carefully, but looks interesting too!

My analysis wasn't really that much fleshed out. It's mostly just a rough thought exercise idea that really fascinates me for some reason, (since it's just really impractical and I wanted to take it to the most extreme, I have little intent to ever make this concept semi-plausible). Anyhow, if you would like the detailed thought process, here goes:

Regarding the Old Colony corridor, my initial map did not include Quincy Center as part of the core "mainline ROW metro service for all BERy stations" network at all, as it was outside the original BERy territory. While I could easily add corridors to Lynn and Waltham with simple extensions from the BERy terminals to reach Lynn and Waltham's major terminals, adding in Quincy Center essentially had me redoing through running for the entire BERy area.

My original map (on the first page), had 9 northside and 9 southside routes (I piggybacked the abandoned Harvard branch to use the very impractical Track 61 terminal (which had actual proposals for passenger service); every single radial ROW that ever existed, even once, was going to assigned a route via NSRL).

This gave me the following: (this does NOT match the frequency map above)
* 2 branches to West Rox, Harrison Sq, Lansdowne, Porter, Magoun, Wellington, & Encore/Sweetser Cir.
* 3 branches to Forest Hills, Prospect Hill
* 4 branches to Sullivan, Broadway
* 5 branches to Back Bay
(The minimum 7 tph frequency standard for BERy stations was going to be strict, so West Rox's VFW Parkway and Spring St stations needed to hit that standard despite being past the fork, but still inside BERy territory; 11 tph would be the max so 2 branches could share a duel track at 22 tph)

To slot in Quincy Center into the network. I opted to reuse/reactivate the original Saugus Branch's abandoned connection from Malden Square/Linden Sq. to Edgeworth/Wellington. This gave me a Linden Square via Wellington & Edgeworth instead of via Encore/Sweetser Circle; that I could use as the 10th route pairing on the northside, so I could send a Quincy Center route as a 10th route piling into the NSRL tunnel (which already had 9 branches feeding into it, so I guess that'll be 110 tph just for metro-style urban rail services downtown, or 10 tracks dedicated for such purpose. Yeah, I'm being insane/impractical/unreasonable )

(Is that a Linden Square <> Davis Square service I spy? )

And in that process of slotting in my extension of the "mainline ROW metro network" to Quincy Center, I would have cannablized this quoted route (though I could start it from Jeffries Point and run through the Grand Junction, then do the loopy Sullivan --> East Somerville). One of my major problems is that the Grand Junction does not have a direct connection to the East Somerville - Magoun Sq corridor unless I either:
1. reroute the B & L mainline coming from Magoun Sq./East Somerville to use the GLX <---> Fitchburg ROW alignment to reach North Station, which violates the "only follow mainline ROWs principle" concept.
2. Build a station in the middle of the inner belt to facilitate transfers from Grand Junction <--> East Somerville/Magoun Sq. (this is NE of the proposed "Brickbottom" station from TransitMatters along McGrath Hwy).

(Getting a direct connection from Grand Junction in Cambridge/Chelsea/Eastie <---> East Somerville/Magoun Sq., would allow me to cannabalize 2 of the 3 crosstown routes and only have a single crosstown route with single transfers, which would allow me to properly have enough capacity on the main branches to feed into the NSRL tunnel. Right now I've got capacity eaten up along the B & A and B & L for crosstown services that currently are separate routes, due to the lack of this connection)

Anyhow, with a Quincy Center branch. This changes my calculus completely, with the changes in bold:
* 2 branches to West Rox, Neponset, Lansdowne, Porter, Magoun, & Encore/Sweetser Cir.
* 3 branches to Forest Hills, Prospect Hill, Harrison Sq, and Wellington
* 4 branches to <none>
* 5 branches to Back Bay, Sullivan, Broadway

Since my primary goal of my thought exercise was to serve the densely populated BERy service area with metro frequencies with 7 tph minimum, for all BERy stations/all day, my thought was that the last terminal serviced by BERy routes, or town lines (Oak Grove, West Medford, Revere St., VFW Parkway, Arlington Heights, Readville, Newton Corner, etc.), would become the route terminals, or at least every other train turning around. The only exceptions would be to service the Waltham, Lynn, and Quincy terminals with full metro frequencies of the 7tph minimum standard for metro style service. The reason being is that once one exits the BERy service area, the longer distances and less density between stops would be unsuitable for full 7 tph (of either mainline trains or metro trains) at all service hours. Only the BERy service area, and the Lynn/Quincy/Waltham terminals could justify full frequencies. (I would be curious of additional corridors that could justify this minimum freqency target, but the T's market analysis suggests otherwise).

This means that for the Highland Branch, everything west of Reservior (the last BERy terminal where either the line terminates, or every other train would turnback) would be restricted to a minimum standard of 3.5 tph (which can be increased to either 4.5 tph or a max ceiling of 5.5 tph). If the Highland Branch was going to split west of Newton Highlands, that would be 1.75 tph (up to 2.25 - 2.75 tph rush hours) to Riverside or Needham Junction. I'm not so sure if the Highland Branch west of Reservior were to have 4 car trains, or 6 car trains, seen on metros (or high capacity trains like that of commuter rail), that they could justify >=7 tph of 4-6 car trains from 5am- midnight, whether that's today or in 1920.

And yeah, I think the topic remains relevant both in terms of the North South Rail Link and in terms of the continued reuse of the original ROWs. For example, I think the current capacity pinch on the Old Colony Lines makes a lot more sense when you realize that both branches of the Red Line and all three Old Colony branches were originally built and run as a single system, with all of its traffic funneled through what is now JFK/UMass. There's a reason that the (bad) idea of converting the Braintree Branch to high-freq Regional Rail looks good on paper -- it's how the system was literally designed to run, waaaaaay back when.

For the Quincy Center branch, following the BERy terminal + Lynn/Waltham/Quincy guidelines, means that the minimum 7 tph standard (maximum of 11 tph) only applies and runs to Quincy Center only. South of Quincy Center, the line would either terminate, or if every other train turned back at Quincy Ctr., it would only allow 3.5 tph (up to 5.5 tph maximum), for any fork that exists south of Quincy Center. With 4 branches south of Quincy Center, that's only going to allow 68 minute headways for all those 4 branches. If Quincy Center could pull the maximum capacity of 11 tph to Boston during rush hour of my insane "metro style network" concept, every other train looping would still only give 44 minute headways for the 4 branches.

One other thing of note: Waltham and Lynn each actually have 2 possible routings from the BERy service area to their route terminals using mainline railway ROWs. Quincy Center only has only 1 single possible routing (via Neponset). I have the option of extending either one, or both terminals, from the BERy service area to Waltham or Lynn. To get to Waltham, I can extend either the Waverley Branch or the Watertown Branch (or both). To get to Lynn, I can use the Eastern Route and/or the B & RB & L routing from Revere St.. This means that, extending both branches for each, I can theoretically allow 14 - 22 tph to extend to Lynn, and to Waltham 10.5 - 16.5 tph (the Waverley Branch has a fork, but including or abandoning the Central Mass. fork would mean a full 14 - 22 tph anyways, Watertown would send the full 7 - 11 tph to Waltham terminal since it has no fork at all).

Quincy Center, on the other hand, is stuck with only the 7 - 11 tph of a single branch. There is no second branch like that of the Waltham or Lynn terminals. Otherwise, one way to get around this limitation, is cancelling the "every other train turnback" concept for Quincy Center only, and run every single train at Quincy Center, past it and continue south, to get any meaningful service south of it. The other solution is essentially run the Quincy Center branch's 7 - 11 tph independently of the commuter/intercity rail service, which would essentially mean quad tracking to Quincy Center all the way from Boston (and north of Harrison Sq. would need 6 tracks, since 3 branches needing 7 - 11 tph would need a quad track itself; in my insane, impractical, unrealistic concept).

 

[Delvin4519]

I think the B&A and Boston & Providence also present a something interesting: Back Bay Station seems oddly close to the core to be a branching point.... which makes sense when you realize that it wasn't built as a branch point, but as a crossing between the two railroads (when the B&P ran to Park Square). The B&P and B&A didn't have their own branchpoints until Brookline Junction (Kenmore) and Forest Hills... again reinforcing those as demarcation points a la the Inner Belt. (And I still need to reply to your comments on that topic!)

Back Bay Station is one reason why I'm wary of a Blue Line extension along Storrow Drive, as such a HRT corridor would miss such a major transfer node. Back Bay station itself essentially developed into a major transfer hub/node after South Station became the terminal for intercity services, and streetcars being busituted eventually terminated at Back Bay. It's got connections from many of the major westside routes to many of the major southside routes. It's got a connection with the 39/Arborway route, a high frequency route, as well as the 9 bus (the major route serving South Boston). BNRD will add another frequent route extending to Boston Medical Center as well. The express buses such as the 501 and 504 all serve Back Bay with such a connection.

On my map, Back Bay essentially becomes the major node for transferring from westside metro-style routes to southside routes. Without a southside version of the northside's Grand Junction, it's location as the junction from the B & P with B & A routes, means it's the only rail connection from the west to the south. The other alternative being slow buses and streetcars like the 65, 66, and 47 to travel from the west to the south (again, following the "only follow mainline ROWs concept to the T"). (And of course, South Station to access Old Colony Lines, and my map utlizes South Cove for connections to the Nubian El/Streetcar/etc. line)

 

[Delvin4519]

Splitting the B branch in two to transform Reservior Station into a rapid transit transfer hub:

Today, riders of the B branch of the Green Line have to endure a lengthy, frustratingly slow streetcar ride to Kenmore Station to get to downtown from Boston College.

My newest insane proposal calls for splitting the B Branch of the Green Line into two separate lines at Chestnut Hill Ave.

Why split the B branch in two?

• The B branch is signficantly longer than the C branch and is much slower
  • Because of this, riders from Boston College have to endure a a very long, slow ride to downtown Boston, despite being a stone's throw away from Reservior Station
• The BERy historically curtailed surface streetcar lines at rapid transit transfer hubs rather than make a long slog into downtown Boston
  • When the Highland Branch was converted to rapid transit, the B branch did not get split into two separate lines to serve Reservior Station. Other bus routes like the 106 provide riders a direct connection to rapid transit (in the case of the 106, detouring from Malden Square to serve Malden Center Station)
  • Reservior Station is much further out from downtown Boston and is signficantly closer to Boston College than Lansdowne/Brookline Junction/Kenmore Station.
    • A trip from Boston College to Reservior Station would only take 6 minutes, compared to 31 minutes to Kenmore Station.
      • In return, BC riders transferring to rapid transit along the Highland Branch get faster, more reliable service: 14 minute travel time to Kenmore from Reservior, significantly faster than the B today.
• Reservior Station frustatingly lacks a direct connection with the Commonwealth Avenue line, even though it is a stone's throw away from Reservior Station (it's only a 5 minute walk, it wouldn't take much travel time to terminate both lines here)
  • The time savings of transfering from BC to rapid transit service at Reservior Station is somewhat washed out due to this 5 minute walk from the lack of a direct connection.
• Splitting the B Branch into two separate lines would improve route reliability. Boston College riders would have much more predictable travel times to downtown Boston with a shorter street running route, and transfer at Reservior Station to board rapid transit. No longer would BC riders need to ride all the way in soul-crusing street level traffic to Kenmore Station before beginning the "rapid transit" portion of the route, saving time and improving reliability.
  • The route to Kenmore Station is 6.7 km (4.2 mi) long, versus 1.5 km (0.9 mi) to Reservior Station.
  • The remaining segment of the B branch will be shortened to 5.9 km (3.5 mi), slightly shorter than today's B branch.
    • Note: restoring the A branch would result in a horrible imbalance of the now-truncated B branch vs. the dragged out super-extended A branch.
• Reservior Station will now become a multi-modal rapid transit transfer station hub. It would provide improved crosstown and neighborhood connections with rapid transit with the B branch split in two at Chestnut Hill Ave.. Travel times to downtown Boston improve along southern Brighton.
  • New opportunities now exist to extend the BC line westwards into Newton, as the route terminal is now at Reservior Station and no longer at Kenmore, or through-routed into the streetcar tunnels downtown.

Issues:
There are a few issues that may need mitigation, but here are the mitigation measures of this proposal:

• Additional track and wires would be needed to allow revenue service to travel from Commonwealth Avenue westbound to Chestnut Hill Avenue southbound. Currently that turn is single track fron Chetsnut Hill Ave northbound to Comm Ave eastbound.
  • Note, there is a level crossing between Reservior bound tracks from Comm Ave coming from Allston, with Boston College bound tracks coming from Reservior Station.
    • The through Comm Ave. tracks will no longer be used at the Chestnut Hill Ave. intersection. Both B Branch service and Boston College service will travel south along Chestnut Hill Avenue to terminate at Reservior Station.
• Additional track and wires would also be needed from Cleveland Circle to the Reservior Station busway to allow streetcars to serve the rapid transit station.
• If Boston College riders desire a one seat ride to destinations such as Allston Village, Packards Corner, or the BU Bridge, The Boston College line can be through-routed with the B branch at Reservior Station to maintain the one-seat ride along Commonwealth Avenue.
  • Note, it may be preferable to advertise Reservior Station as a "multimodal rapid transit transfer hub" providing connections with both the BC line and the B Branch line, although it can be noted that this through-routing exists.
• It may be possible to improve travel times along the Highland Branch between Reservior and Brookline Junction to be faster than 14 minutes. If average speeds were to be 30 KMH (18 MPH), travel times would decrease to 11 minutes between Reservior and Brookline Junction.

The Reservior Station "Multi-Modal Rapid Transit Transfer Hub":

 

[Delvin4519]

Another terrible idea:
Extend every single bus route on the MBTA system all the way to Downtown Boston.

No more terminating at 1:1 cycled terminals. Give everyone a one seat ride to downtown Boston. Only a single transfer systemwide!

People talk about how Lynn bus terminal is broken and doesn't work. What if we broke every single bus terminal and made them all dysfunctional?

Not only are the Lynn routes extended to Wonderland, but all Wonderland routes get extended all the way to Orient Heights and Maverick. Then all the Maverick routes get extended to State Street. Extend all the Quincy and Ashmont routes, not just to Fields Corner, but all the way to Andrew and onwards to Downtown Boston! Take all of the Forest Hills buses, and extend them to Nubian and onwards to South Cove into Downtown Boston. Extend all the Malden buses to Sullivan continuing to City Sq. to reach Haymarket. All bus routes serving Alewife, Harvard, and Central Sq. get extended to Kendall, Charles, to Government Center. All routes terminating at Davis Square get extended to Union Square, and extend them past Lechmere onwards into North Station and Haymarket. Kenmore based routes get extended to Copley, and Copley and Ruggles routes all get extended to Boylston into Downtown Boston.

Most crosstown routes end up getting split into multiple routes before themselves get one of their ends extended to Downtown Boston.

Yes, the 451 bus serving North Beverly and Salem Depot gets extended to Downtown Boston like all the other bus routes get extended.

"When there were no commuter railways, no regional railways, and no subway metro; thus the streets of downtown Boston and Cambridge are clogged with buses and streetcars coming from suburbs in all directions as far away as Beverly, Reading, Lexington, Walpole, Randolph, and Waltham."

This map shows the number of duplicated bus routes on every single corridor where all the bus routes get extended to Downtown Boston.

Every single route variation is counted individually, including short turns. As such, the 57A to Oak Sq. is counted again on top of the full length 57 to Watertown Yard. The 222's two variants 1 going to West Hingham and the other to Lovell Corners is counted twice once they merge. The same goes for the 225 where one goes via Quincy Ave. and the other via Southern Artery is counted twice and the 451 split between Torzo Rd. via Torzo Rd. is counted twice. Where routes merge there may also be a short turn originating from the merge point itself too. (For the purposes of this map, the 62/76, 350, 134, and the 136/137 are treated as a single route, with the 136/137 as a loop in Reading. This is the only exception to the route variations/short turn variants being as separate routes)

The other rule with this map is no highways, except for the 354 between Woburn and Medford Square, the 111 between Chelsea and North Station, and the 450 from Lynn Garage to North End. The other exception is the Blue Line tunnel between Maverick and Aquarium, that is the only rail tunnel needed to make Maverick based routes work since there is only a highway tunnel to get between Haymarket and East Boston.

Due to the "No highways" rule. This results in all Newton Corner 55x routes having to follow the 57 routing down through Allston-Brighton and Comm Ave. to reach Back Bay and Downtown Boston, travelling via Oak Sq. and Brighton Center. The 354 must abandon the highway at Medford Square and join the rest of the Medford/Woburn routes riding down Main St. to Magoun Square and Winter Hill to get to Sullivan via Broadway. The 4xx express routes at Linden Square must all follow the 109 down Broadway and Everett Sq. to reach Sullivan.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Obviously the traffic congestion on the multi-bus routes and downtown Boston would be really bad. But I'm wondering about the purpose and need for doing this. What is it other than a one set ride (stuck in grid lock)?

 

[Delvin4519]

Obviously the traffic congestion on the multi-bus routes and downtown Boston would be really bad. But I'm wondering about the purpose and need for doing this. What is it other than a one set ride (stuck in grid lock)?

This is the "ideas so bad they're good" thread. I mostly wanted to see if the network of core corridors changes a bit. Obviously because the bus grid differs from the rail grid. Buses can't go on the railroad tracks. Trains cannot follow the street grid if the railways go their own ROW.

 

[Delvin4519]

Well, it's certainly no longer a shitpost, but I now offer not one, not two, but three versions of the map I described upthread, of a system I've called the Boston Metropolitatn Railway. Full versions (and background and explanation) on my blog.

View attachment 49888

View attachment 49889

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View attachment 49885
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I'm gonna write a separate blog post later on the pros and cons of the BMR's approach, but I do want to be clear that, in general, this idea remains a shitpost in spirit. There definitely are aspects of this "Suburban Rail Link" concept that are interesting and worthwhile, but ultimately this idea would have been only marginally sufficient 100 years ago, and certainly woefully inadequate today.

Just realized that Melbourne Australia, actually has essentially this kind of system almost exactly. A large network of trams for the inner suburbs, followed by a bunch of suburban rail lines to the outer suburbs feeding into a a loop railway in the CBD. As such, off peak frequencies on this kind of network kinda sucks, as expected, so it's not nearly enough to serve the city's actual transit needs (and so they are digging another tunnel through the CBD to try to alleviate some of it). Given such a system, they're entirely reliant on commuter rail and trams, with buses mostly in the outer suburbs; with no actual heavy rail subway system independent of their mainline railroads they use to run their commuter rail system. They also lack a ring railroad currently, at this time, with essentially an entirely radial commuter rail system.

The similarities of the Boston Metropolitian Railway concept, with how railroads and trams are used in Melbourne, share a ridiculous amount of analogs.

I'm not sure if there's anything to take away from Melbourne's system other than the need to use more clockface schedules. Boston's Downtown area doesn't really lend itself to a "downtown loop", that Melbourne and Sydney use. Most of downtown is within a 10 minute walk of Congress St., with Boston Common eating up all the land 10 minutes west of Congress St. Charles MGH is served by hooking it with the Harvard-Maverick line, so there aren't really any gaps there. FWIW, Brisbane only has a single through-running track in their CBD today, and later in the future, will have a second through running track to deal with all their north-south traffic. In a way, Brisbane is adapting the "pair of NSRL links concept" of the BMR above, as that city has heavy N-S traffic like Boston is N-S oriented as well.

I suppose one way to get a "downtown CBD loop" of commuter rail trains in Boston is building a NSRL along Atlantic Avenue between North and South Stations, then CR eats the Tremont Street Subway, to send Commuter Rail trains on a wild spin like how Melbourne reverses their CBD loop halfway through the day confusing a bunch of passengers on a daily basis.

This is still a terrible idea. Literally just take a poorly run CBD loop from Melbourne that confuses riders there, and copy paste it onto Atlantic Ave and Tremont St. in Boston.

How to make the Boston Commuter Rail Downtown Loop as complex and hard to understand as Melbourne's CBD loop:

AM Peak:
CR trains arriving from Lansdowne and Forest Hills ride clockwise around the loop, exiting mainline tracks at Back Bay, travelling via Tremont St, then looping around Atlantic Ave to resume their outbound trips
CR trains arriving from Fairmount and Harrison Square ride clockwise around the loop, exiting mainline tracks at Broadway, travelling in reverse through South Cove, entering the Pleasant St. portal, then loop around Atlantic Ave to resume outbound trips.
CR trains arriving from the northside all ride counter-clockwise around the loop, going via Tremont St. before looping down Atlantic Ave.

After AM Peak (~10:00am):
CR trains arriving from Fairmount and Harrison Square reverse direction, going counter-clockwise around the loop, travelling via Atlantic Ave before looping back down Tremont

AM -> PM midday (~1:15pm)
CR trains from the northside and CR trains from Lansdowne and Forest Hills all reverse direction. Northside trains go clockwise around the loop, Tremont before Atlantic Ave.. Lansdowne and Forest Hills trains go counter-clockwise (Atlantic Ave. before Tremont).

Weekend service patterns:
CR trains serving Sullivan from the northside all ride clockwise around the loop
CR trains from the northside that don't serve Sullivan all ride counter-clockwise around the loop
CR trains arriving from Lansdowne and Forest Hills all ride clockwise around the loop
CR trains arriving from Fairmount and Harrison Square all ride counter-clockwise around the loop

 

[Riverside]

Another terrible idea:
Extend every single bus route on the MBTA system all the way to Downtown Boston.

No more terminating at 1:1 cycled terminals. Give everyone a one seat ride to downtown Boston. Only a single transfer systemwide!

People talk about how Lynn bus terminal is broken and doesn't work. What if we broke every single bus terminal and made them all dysfunctional?

Not only are the Lynn routes extended to Wonderland, but all Wonderland routes get extended all the way to Orient Heights and Maverick. Then all the Maverick routes get extended to State Street. Extend all the Quincy and Ashmont routes, not just to Fields Corner, but all the way to Andrew and onwards to Downtown Boston! Take all of the Forest Hills buses, and extend them to Nubian and onwards to South Cove into Downtown Boston. Extend all the Malden buses to Sullivan continuing to City Sq. to reach Haymarket. All bus routes serving Alewife, Harvard, and Central Sq. get extended to Kendall, Charles, to Government Center. All routes terminating at Davis Square get extended to Union Square, and extend them past Lechmere onwards into North Station and Haymarket. Kenmore based routes get extended to Copley, and Copley and Ruggles routes all get extended to Boylston into Downtown Boston.

Most crosstown routes end up getting split into multiple routes before themselves get one of their ends extended to Downtown Boston.

Yes, the 451 bus serving North Beverly and Salem Depot gets extended to Downtown Boston like all the other bus routes get extended.

"When there were no commuter railways, no regional railways, and no subway metro; thus the streets of downtown Boston and Cambridge are clogged with buses and streetcars coming from suburbs in all directions as far away as Beverly, Reading, Lexington, Walpole, Randolph, and Waltham."

This map shows the number of duplicated bus routes on every single corridor where all the bus routes get extended to Downtown Boston.

Every single route variation is counted individually, including short turns. As such, the 57A to Oak Sq. is counted again on top of the full length 57 to Watertown Yard. The 222's two variants 1 going to West Hingham and the other to Lovell Corners is counted twice once they merge. The same goes for the 225 where one goes via Quincy Ave. and the other via Southern Artery is counted twice and the 451 split between Torzo Rd. via Torzo Rd. is counted twice. Where routes merge there may also be a short turn originating from the merge point itself too. (For the purposes of this map, the 62/76, 350, 134, and the 136/137 are treated as a single route, with the 136/137 as a loop in Reading. This is the only exception to the route variations/short turn variants being as separate routes)

The other rule with this map is no highways, except for the 354 between Woburn and Medford Square, the 111 between Chelsea and North Station, and the 450 from Lynn Garage to North End. The other exception is the Blue Line tunnel between Maverick and Aquarium, that is the only rail tunnel needed to make Maverick based routes work since there is only a highway tunnel to get between Haymarket and East Boston.

Due to the "No highways" rule. This results in all Newton Corner 55x routes having to follow the 57 routing down through Allston-Brighton and Comm Ave. to reach Back Bay and Downtown Boston, travelling via Oak Sq. and Brighton Center. The 354 must abandon the highway at Medford Square and join the rest of the Medford/Woburn routes riding down Main St. to Magoun Square and Winter Hill to get to Sullivan via Broadway. The 4xx express routes at Linden Square must all follow the 109 down Broadway and Everett Sq. to reach Sullivan.
View attachment 53934

Been meaning to reply to this for... 3 months? Anyway, hopefully better late than never!

IMO, this is actually a really interesting map. More than just illustrating what the system might look like if all routes were hyper-extended, this map articulates the number of routes that each corridor is "responsible" for. For example, the "Quincy Corridor" is responsible for handling riders from ~15 different bus routes. Like, even though the routes don't through-run, almost every route on this map is carrying riders on a journey to downtown; your map abstracts those journeys beyond the actual rapid transit route they connect to, which instead allows us to focus on the overall reach (and responsibility) of the network.

For example, yes -- this map vividly illustrates the need for a North Shore BLX; it appears that there are even more surface routes up there than on the South Shore. But what surprised me the most was the "Mount Auburn corridor" to Watertown, which I think speaks to the often overlooked densities of Watertown and Waltham.

I dunno, I don't think I'm articulating particularly clearly why I think this map is cool... but rest assured, I think this map is cool.

 

[Delvin4519]

Been meaning to reply to this for... 3 months? Anyway, hopefully better late than never!

IMO, this is actually a really interesting map. More than just illustrating what the system might look like if all routes were hyper-extended, this map articulates the number of routes that each corridor is "responsible" for. For example, the "Quincy Corridor" is responsible for handling riders from ~15 different bus routes. Like, even though the routes don't through-run, almost every route on this map is carrying riders on a journey to downtown; your map abstracts those journeys beyond the actual rapid transit route they connect to, which instead allows us to focus on the overall reach (and responsibility) of the network.

For example, yes -- this map vividly illustrates the need for a North Shore BLX; it appears that there are even more surface routes up there than on the South Shore. But what surprised me the most was the "Mount Auburn corridor" to Watertown, which I think speaks to the often overlooked densities of Watertown and Waltham.

I dunno, I don't think I'm articulating particularly clearly why I think this map is cool... but rest assured, I think this map is cool.

I wonder if the reason transit never really extended west of Boston is because the metro-west demand is split between the B & A/57 corridor, and the 70/71/Watertown Branch RR corridor. Because demand is split between the two north and south of the river, it was not as concentrated as the Quincy and BLX corridors.

The map above shows the BLX and Quincy shaded in blue, while there are two shades of magenta, one via the northern 70/71 corridor, and the other via the 55x and the 57 corridor in the south.

 

[TheRatmeister]

I wonder if the reason transit never really extended west of Boston is because the metro-west demand is split between the B & A/57 corridor, and the 70/71/Watertown Branch RR corridor. Because demand is split between the two north and south of the river, it was not as concentrated as the Quincy and BLX corridors.

The map above shows the BLX and Quincy shaded in blue, while there are two shades of magenta, one via the northern 70/71 corridor, and the other via the 55x and the 57 corridor in the south.

Transit did extend west of Boston, it was the streetcars. Rapid transit didn't, again because of said streetcars already being successful.

 

[Riverside]

I wonder if the reason transit never really extended west of Boston is because the metro-west demand is split between the B & A/57 corridor, and the 70/71/Watertown Branch RR corridor. Because demand is split between the two north and south of the river, it was not as concentrated as the Quincy and BLX corridors.

The map above shows the BLX and Quincy shaded in blue, while there are two shades of magenta, one via the northern 70/71 corridor, and the other via the 55x and the 57 corridor in the south.

I think this is spot on, and maybe has broader implications (though I need to chew on that a little bit further to figure out what those implications actually are).

As a thought exercise, I doctored a map of Cambridge, bisected by a river (canal) where Mass Ave + Main St are today, with crossings roughly every 4,000 feet (the average spacing on the Charles between Memorial Bridge in Cambridge and Prospect St in Waltham).

By coincidence (?), this spacing maps quite well on to the Harvard <> Central spacing, and on the Central <> Grand Junction spacing. Ironically, this map makes it look like the city would be wholly unaffected by a bisecting waterway, at least in terms of access to the Red Line.

But the 1 bus would be totally hosed. You would need two entirely separate parallel routes for surface transit. And, obviously, pedestrian access between the two halves of the city would be extremely curtailed. Someone living on the corner of Bay St would need to walk over 4,000 feet to see her neighbor just across the water on Dana St -- the equivalent of walking from Central Square to the Grand Junction. Despite living in the heart of the city, vast stretches of the region would be artificially remote for this resident.

Large waterways historically attracted urban development, with industry and transport being so dependent on water, creating cities that were knitted together by rivers. But over the last century, waterways became seen as impediments -- natural boundaries that required expensive bridging. Living on a river meant reduced access to the rest of city, especially the farther you were from a crossing.

One could argue that the Charles River dampened the rate of development and density in the regions directly due west of Cambridge. By isolating Brighton/Newton and Watertown/Waltham from each other, the river reduced the mobility of nearby residents, discouraging residential growth. (The Charles River also had a pretty heavy industrial presence, the legacies of which are still visible today, creating another deterrent.)

To be clear, it's not like there's a no-man's-land around the river, especially today. But it seems plausible that the river might have slowed the growth of the region. Which brings us to this:

Transit did extend west of Boston, it was the streetcars. Rapid transit didn't, again because of said streetcars already being successful.

Streetcars were successful all over the region. Their success presaged later rapid transit extensions (in many cases, at least). I think the idea that @Delvin4519 is getting at is that the streetcars weren't successful enough to merit replacement by rapid transit; specifically, if we use his map as a vague proxy for density and demand, the parallel "medium-high" demand corridors north and south of the river suggest that, if the river weren't there, density and demand might have consolidated into a single stronger corridor, akin to the Quincy and Lynn Corridors, that might have earned rapid transit. In its present state, the density (arguably) was too dispersed to create the necessary "spine" for a rapid transit corridor.

 

[Delvin4519]

Transit did extend west of Boston, it was the Streetcars. Rapid transit didn't, really, again because of said streetcars already being successful.

Not successful enough to avoid missing their opportunties in the 20th century for full conversion to rapid transit.

Now I'm curious, how much faster was the 57 and the A back in the 1920s - 1960s era, compared to today? For the streetcars to be successful, they've got to complete their duty cycles in reasonable time without getting stuck in traffic. It's basically impossible for someone at Oak to attend social activities without like dedicating 2.5 hours for a roundtrip just to get to TD Garden.

Pulling pre-COVID travel times from the 57, it's about 27 - 35 minutes from Oak to Kenmore, during the busiest times on weekdays and Saturdays in Fall 2019.

Spoiler: Fantasy 57 timetable using actual Fall 2019 travel times of the 57, since 2024 scheduled timetables don't give the 57 enough runtime to complete its trips

(Yes, I did create a made-up austerity timetable of the 57 using Fall 2019 travel times, the MBTA's bus timetables for 2024 do not provide the 57 enough runtime to complete trips as traffic congestion worsens following the COVID pandemic). Hence I needed to create a fantasy timetable from scratch using actual recorded travel times.

 

[Delvin4519]

I think this is spot on, and maybe has broader implications (though I need to chew on that a little bit further to figure out what those implications actually are).

As a thought exercise, I doctored a map of Cambridge, bisected by a river (canal) where Mass Ave + Main St are today, with crossings roughly every 4,000 feet (the average spacing on the Charles between Memorial Bridge in Cambridge and Prospect St in Waltham).

View attachment 57493

By coincidence (?), this spacing maps quite well on to the Harvard <> Central spacing, and on the Central <> Grand Junction spacing. Ironically, this map makes it look like the city would be wholly unaffected by a bisecting waterway, at least in terms of access to the Red Line.

But the 1 bus would be totally hosed. You would need two entirely separate parallel routes for surface transit. And, obviously, pedestrian access between the two halves of the city would be extremely curtailed. Someone living on the corner of Bay St would need to walk over 4,000 feet to see her neighbor just across the water on Dana St -- the equivalent of walking from Central Square to the Grand Junction. Despite living in the heart of the city, vast stretches of the region would be artificially remote for this resident.

Large waterways historically attracted urban development, with industry and transport being so dependent on water, creating cities that were knitted together by rivers. But over the last century, waterways became seen as impediments -- natural boundaries that required expensive bridging. Living on a river meant reduced access to the rest of city, especially the farther you were from a crossing.

One could argue that the Charles River dampened the rate of development and density in the regions directly due west of Cambridge. By isolating Brighton/Newton and Watertown/Waltham from each other, the river reduced the mobility of nearby residents, discouraging residential growth. (The Charles River also had a pretty heavy industrial presence, the legacies of which are still visible today, creating another deterrent.)

To be clear, it's not like there's a no-man's-land around the river, especially today. But it seems plausible that the river might have slowed the growth of the region. Which brings us to this:

Streetcars were successful all over the region. Their success presaged later rapid transit extensions (in many cases, at least). I think the idea that @Delvin4519 is getting at is that the streetcars weren't successful enough to merit replacement by rapid transit; specifically, if we use his map as a vague proxy for density and demand, the parallel "medium-high" demand corridors north and south of the river suggest that, if the river weren't there, density and demand might have consolidated into a single stronger corridor, akin to the Quincy and Lynn Corridors, that might have earned rapid transit. In its present state, the density (arguably) was too dispersed to create the necessary "spine" for a rapid transit corridor.

I think Harvard's far northwesterly location plays a decent strong role in diverting demand away from Back Bay and Kenmore, being signifcantly closer to Watertown Sq. compared to Kenmore or Back Bay. While the Waltham-Watertown-Newton Corner pipeline is pretty strong, once you get to Watertown Sq and Newton Corner, some of the demand gets divided between Harvard bound traffic, and Kenmore/Back Bay bound traffic. There's also the case where the most direct routing from Watertown Sq. to Downtown bypasses Harvard to the south, meaning there is another division of demand that gets split again heading into the city.

It's not like BLX and the Quincy/Fields Corner pipelines, where extra traffic simply merges onto the branchlines at Fields Corner from the south, or from Orient Heights and Maverick from the north. There is no reverse branching at Wonderland or Fields Corner to split demand in half or a third; like there is at Watertown Sq.

In addition, the intercity rail route to Framingham bypasses Waltham signficantly to the south. If trains to Framingham had to be routed via Waltham and Watertown, you may be able to pile enough congestion onto a single line to necessiate offloading Waltham, Watertown, and Allston-Brighton onto a rapid transit line. Whereas with these two routes completely independent, they could never get to the breaking point to necessiate upgrades to HRT.

 

[TheRatmeister]

In its present state, the density (arguably) was too dispersed to create the necessary "spine" for a rapid transit corridor.

This wasn't by happenstance though. Watertown, Brookline, Arlington, Brighton, Southie, much of Dorchester, etc were all Streetcar Suburbs, they were designed around streetcars in particular, not with rapid transit conversion in mind. That was the point, lower densities offered an escape from the less than pleasant urban life of the time. Had we as a society thought rationally about the future of streetcars in the 1940s and 50s, routes like the 16, 22, 28, 71, 73, and 77 would likely still be operated as streetcars.