Underground station layouts

Spent last night reading through Red-Blue Connector documents, so here's a slightly corrected Bowdoin and not-very-exciting Charles/MGH.

Bowdoin.png
Charles MGH.png
 
Looking at that finely executed layout of Bowdoin Station, it looks like both tracks of a Blue Line extension could be built completely on the south side of the station, thus completely preserving the existing station, not as a functioning station but as an artifact, maybe a museum or just preserved. In the 1960's, Cambridge Street was relocated to the south and provides ample footprint for this to be possible.
 
Looking at that finely executed layout of Bowdoin Station, it looks like both tracks of a Blue Line extension could be built completely on the south side of the station, thus completely preserving the existing station, not as a functioning station but as an artifact, maybe a museum or just preserved. In the 1960's, Cambridge Street was relocated to the south and provides ample footprint for this to be possible.

AFAIK there are some structural blockers that eliminate that trajectory. All of the R-B study verbiage about saving Bowdoin said that the island platform would've had to be extended further east further towards GC because the only way to get a straight alignment was to blow clear through the egress area. That's been a constant of every single umpteen times this has been studied, which would indicate that there's some of large-sized under street blocker like major utilities (local electrical sub??? steam pipes???) getting in the way. No idea what it could be..but it either could've been there right from Day 1 when they extended the subway to Bowdoin in 1916 or appeared in any of the waves of urban renewal later. Cambridge St. is tough lineage to trace with all the reboots it's gotten over the last 110 years.

I know the loop area is solid-ass concrete wall, so any which way they're going to be nuking that whole area and pulling out metric shitloads of concrete to straighten the alignment for continuation to Charles sans a schedule-hosing outbound speed restriction.
 
EGE,

Any chance you mightat some point consider Columbia, er, JFK/UMass? I lived down that way for a summer many, many years ago, and was always fascinated by the flying junction north of the station when I commuter to college in Back Bay each morning.
 
EGE,

Any chance you mightat some point consider Columbia, er, JFK/UMass? I lived down that way for a summer many, many years ago, and was always fascinated by the flying junction north of the station when I commuter to college in Back Bay each morning.

Yes, I do plan to do the aboveground stations eventually. In the meantime, here's a hint of this weekend's project:

1610164748213.png
 
This! It is CRAZY that the big, beautiful headhouse that connects to the Congress St bus curb does not have direct Green Line access.

As I posted here, the top of the Green Line tunnel is directly under the pavement; there's no way to have a mezzanine over it. You could maybe have put a very cramped entrance to the Green Line platform at the very far corner of the garage/public market building, but at that point you're literally across the street from the main GL entrance.

1610230678541.png


What I think might be useful would be to widen the northern section of the southbound OL platform to provide a cross-platform transfer with the northbound GL. That would make for an easier transfer than North Station for, say, Malden to Union Square. Allowing for a track crossing wouldn't be ideal for GL operations, but would allow access to southbound GL trains as well.
 
Here's some slices of the layout to clarify the different layers and their interconnections.

Platform level, including elevators/escalators/stairs to above:

Alewife platform.png


Platform and concourse levels, and their interconnections. The east headhouse, which is above concourse level but a bit below the street level at the garage, is also shown.
Alewife platform and concourse.png


Concourse level (and east headhouse) only:
Alewife concourse.png


Concourse level and connections leading to ground level:
Alewife concourse +.png


Concourse, street level, and connections:
Alewife concourse and level 1.png


Street level:
Alewife level 1.png
 
Street level (level 1) and level 2, and connections:
Alewife levels 1 and 2.png


Level 2, and connections to levels above. (The stairs at the west end of the center atrium of the garage go all the way to level 5, but I've omitted them in the following slices to focus on the pyramid area.)
Alewife level 2 +.png


Level 3, with connections above and below:
Alewife level 3 +-.png


Level 4, with connections above and below:
Alewife level 4 +-.png


Level 5, with connections below:
Alewife level 5-.png


Level 2 through 5, showing how they all fit together:
Alewife levels 2 to 5.png
 
Is there a State Street map in this thread? We were drifting into "Blue Line Transformation" where, once Bowdoin is gone, the "State Street Curve" is the thing that limits vehicles to just shy of being able to have the same length Blue or Orange.
 
State will happen eventually, but it will take a while. It's easily the most difficult for me to do - curved and stacked platforms, very little visible on the surface, and no recent projects with maps of the OL portion. The Blue Line portion does have some renders from the 2006-2011 project, including a decent view of the curve.
 
not helpful for alignments (so not what you are looking for in the other thread), but it does show platforms for those interested. nowhere near as good as The EGE work.
 

Attachments

  • State St T Neighborhood Map.pdf
    532.3 KB · Views: 293

Back
Top