Urban Ring

Bump

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridg...very-destructive-to-Charles-River-White-Geese

The City Administration once again gave the impression that the Grand Junction corridor is the only alternative under consideration for the Urban Ring rail transportation concept. This is not only false, but is directly contradicted by funding provided by the State Legislature.

To express the situation in the nicest possible light, the City Administration’s position is that the only route being considered for the Urban Ring is that route now called the BU Bridge crossing. At absolute minimum, this position is 20 years behind the times.

Also under consideration is the Kenmore Crossing, an alternative I first proposed in a public meeting in 1986 concerning the Urban Ring because of the environmental and Cambridge destructiveness of the BU Bridge Crossing. The Kenmore Crossing was independently picked up by the state in 1991 and has, ever since, been considered, along with the BU Bridge Crossing, as one of two alternative Charles River crossings for the Urban Ring rail proposals.

The BU Bridge Crossing pushed by the Cambridge Administration would be Green Line / streetcar technology. It would cross the Charles River east of the BU Bridge and east of the Grand Junction railroad bridge with major environmental harm and harm to resident animals.

The Kenmore Crossing would use Heavy Rail / Orange Line technology. It would travel a considerable distance in the Grand Junction right of way, constructed underground. It would turn off the Grand Junction and travel under the MIT playing fields and then under the Charles River to a station between and connected to Kenmore Station and Yawkey Station. It would be constructed under the Brookline Avenue bridge over I90, the Massachusetts Turnpike.

This station combination would create one megastation which would provide excellent connections to Fenway Park, to the three Green Line branches to Brookline, and to the Framingham / Worcester Commuter Rail, all with covered walkways.

By contrast, the BU Bridge Crossing alternative would require moving Yawkey station and the Commuter Rail stop to Mountfort Street and St. Mary’s Street a half a mile to a mile west of Fenway Park. Commuter Rail passengers would be connected to the Green Line / Boston College line ONLY rather than to all three branches.

Connection to the Green Line would be made by a tunnel under St. Mary’s Street ending at the south sidewalk of Commonwealth Avenue across from Boston University’s Marsh Chapel. Commuter rail passengers would walk across traffic in all kinds of weather to the already overloaded Boston College line in the median of Commonwealth Avenue.

The legislature has subsidized the reconstruction of Yawkey Station in place to the tune of millions of dollars. This subsidy also constitutes a subsidy for the far superior Kenmore Crossing of the Urban Ring with its excellent Kenmore - Urban Ring - Yawkey megastation.

The Yawkey / Urban Ring / Kenmore megastation would be an ideal terminus for First Stage construction on the Urban Ring as an Orange Line spur. This First Stage would function as a spur coming out of Ruggles Station on the Orange Line with an intermediate Harvard Medical Area stop at Longwood Avenue and Louis Pasteur. Such a First Stage route would provide the Harvard Medical Area and Fenway Park with direct excellent connection to Boston’s downtown over the Orange Line. This connection would function in the same manner as the Quincy / Braintree branch provides Quincy and Braintree with downtown connection on what was a Dorchester - Cambridge Red Line heavy rail subway.

And, as I said, the legislature has subsidized the Kenmore Crossing with the millions of dollars it is spending upgrading Yawkey.

With that money put into upgrading Yawkey Station, Yawkey Station WILL NOT BE MOVED, and the Kenmore Crossing would appear to have a very major leg up on the Cambridge Administration’s favored BU Bridge Crossing.

And, somehow, the City Administration still communicated in that meeting the very clear message that the Kenmore Crossing alternative does not exist.
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An Orange Line spur? Seriously?

I'm struggling to think of a more efficient way to choke the Orange Line to death than by causing 50% of its trains to miss Back Bay, Tufts Medical, Chinatown, DTX, State, and Haymarket. (I'm assuming that, since the Grand Junction is being used, the spur would at least rejoin the line at North Station. If not, add that and Sullivan Square to this list.)

If the Kenmore Crossing is inextricably linked with splitting the Orange Line (and I see no reason why it SHOULD be), than this man made his own argument against it.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
An Orange Line spur? Seriously?

I'm struggling to think of a more efficient way to choke the Orange Line to death than by causing 50% of its trains to miss Back Bay, Tufts Medical, Chinatown, DTX, State, and Haymarket. (I'm assuming that, since the Grand Junction is being used, the spur would at least rejoin the line at North Station. If not, add that and Sullivan Square to this list.)

If the Kenmore Crossing is inextricably linked with splitting the Orange Line (and I see no reason why it SHOULD be), than this man made his own argument against it.
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I think the proposal is the opposite of what you suggest, which is to say splitting off half of the outbound traffic from having Forest Hills as a destination. Personally, I like the idea you've proposed. The utility of either an urban ring or some sort of cross town service is that it serves trips that otherwise need not pass through the core. If I get on at Forest Hills and want to go to Kenmore or Longwood, right now, I have to be part of the downtown congestion. The ideal should be that I not have to pass through that area at all. The urban ring idea recognizes this issue, but in my opinion applies the wrong solution. Instead of a fix it all at once with a single and omnipresent solution, why not just build a few cross town branches as money and opportunity permit.
 
Isn't the thinking behind doing it as an Orange line addition that the spurs already exist from Sullivan up through Chelsea and from Community College out past Union? Not sure why that means the entire thing needs to be Orange (maybe because it's the easiest type to build?) but I think that was the reasoning. I can't even remember at this point though; it's been so long since the topic's come up.
 
The blog you link to is claiming hard that the administration is trying to bury the Kenmore crossing option.

So does the option really exist (as in geologically possible manner, but also ask in they actually gave the option thought before)?

If everything said is true, why are they insisting the BU Bridge idea? My gut say it is just costs, but I want to fact check his claims.
 
Does anyone know if there are serious plans to include any connections to the Green Line with the new Yawkey construction?
 
I think the only thing that amounts to a serious plan for MassDot et al at the moment is to try as hard as possible not to talk about the Urban Ring.
 
I find the Urban Ring idea to be questionable anyway. Does it really save time except for a small number of trips? It turns a one transfer trip into a two transfer trip unless your origin or destination lies along the Ring. And by nature it avoids the heaviest demand areas. Most trips would be along a small arc; anything further and it's faster to connect downtown. Improved bus service would go a long way to obviating the Urban Ring.
 
Matthew said:
I find the Urban Ring idea to be questionable anyway. Does it really save time except for a small number of trips? It turns a one transfer trip into a two transfer trip unless your origin or destination lies along the Ring. And by nature it avoids the heaviest demand areas. Most trips would be along a small arc; anything further and it's faster to connect downtown. Improved bus service would go a long way to obviating the Urban Ring.
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If this were true the 66 bus wouldn't have the ridership it does.
 
Matthew said:
I find the Urban Ring idea to be questionable anyway. Does it really save time except for a small number of trips? It turns a one transfer trip into a two transfer trip unless your origin or destination lies along the Ring. And by nature it avoids the heaviest demand areas. Most trips would be along a small arc; anything further and it's faster to connect downtown. Improved bus service would go a long way to obviating the Urban Ring.
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I think that an urban ring was projected to have >300,000 riders/day.
 
Well, first, the 66 runs along a route that wouldn't be on the Urban Ring over the Grand Junction. Second, the 66 is what motivates my thinking on this. It is only faster to use the 66 if you are riding between Allston -- Harvard, Brookline -- Allston, Brookline -- Mission Hill, Dudley -- Mission Hill. In other words, small arcs.

Now some of that is due to the slowness of the route. But what possible improvement could you see that would make people suddenly decide that Dudley -- Harvard on the 66 "Ring" is better than the 1, Silver/Red or Orange/Red?
 
Matthew said:
But what possible improvement could you see that would make people suddenly decide that Dudley -- Harvard on the 66 "Ring" is better than the 1, Silver/Red or Orange/Red?
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If it was a one seat ride in it's own right of way. That's the ultimate plan at least. Projections are also showing downtown will ultimately be completely clogged without it. So if I'm me in 20 years (fingers crossed) and the option is one seat in a dedicated ROW vs two seats through major congestion, I'd probably pick the Urban Ring.
 
Matthew said:
I find the Urban Ring idea to be questionable anyway. Does it really save time except for a small number of trips? It turns a one transfer trip into a two transfer trip unless your origin or destination lies along the Ring. And by nature it avoids the heaviest demand areas. Most trips would be along a small arc; anything further and it's faster to connect downtown. Improved bus service would go a long way to obviating the Urban Ring.
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I agree, hence I think the emphasis should be more on certain cross-town corridors, which would be less expensive to build yet probably take the majority of what traffic would have been on the ring. Here's the article that got me thinking in this direction:

http://www.humantransit.org/2010/09/moscow-questioning-the-circle-line.html
 
underground said:
If it was a one seat ride in it's own right of way. That's the ultimate plan at least. Projections are also showing downtown will ultimately be completely clogged without it. So if I'm me in 20 years (fingers crossed) and the option is one seat in a dedicated ROW vs two seats through major congestion, I'd probably pick the Urban Ring.
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A better way to address downtown clogging is by building more downtown subways.
 
underground said:
If it was a one seat ride in it's own right of way. That's the ultimate plan at least. Projections are also showing downtown will ultimately be completely clogged without it. So if I'm me in 20 years (fingers crossed) and the option is one seat in a dedicated ROW vs two seats through major congestion, I'd probably pick the Urban Ring.
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It's own right of way... that will never happen along Harvard Avenue. I don't think we'll ever see -- at least not in my lifetime -- a subway or elevated along that route. It might be possible using the Grand Junction, but that doesn't serve the areas that the 66 does. The 66 has high ridership for the same reason that it's slow: it serves the busiest neighborhoods of the western half of Boston (as well as Brookline).

I'm with Henry. Jarrett's writing got me to question the utility of the Urban Ring in the first place. I think it would be much cheaper to renovate the downtown stations and increase frequency on the existing subways. We're not at capacity by a long shot. Also, a bunch of the 66's ridership comes from the fact that the Green Line and the Silver Line are slow and shitty (technical term!). If those are improved, the Ring becomes even less of a value.
 
Oh, I'm not saying I'm a big Urban Ring advocate; I can think of a lot of other projects I'd rather see. Just saying what the thinking is. That being said, I can imagine a world where it's needed; I'm just not sure that world's coming any time soon.
 
Look at the blog this is cross-posted from, folks. This is a one-issue advocacy: the Charles River White Geese. The writer has been railing against the UR, commuter rail on the Grand Junction, any increases in freight activity...even concern-trolling bike paths on the empty track berth of the BU Bridge. All over impacts to those morbidly obese/overfed geese who live in their own filth on the tracks and have pooped all the vegetation away on that side of the river. I have no qualms with animal advocacy, but the Friends of the White Geese org are zealots with a capital "Z". Like some PETA caricature from The Onion. If you were ever accosted by one of their pamphleteers when planning for the BU Bridge reconstruction was happening, you know exactly what I'm talking about.


In this case, their blogger has been flogging his own arsenal of Crazy Transit Pitches for over a decade years to keep the geese from having to waddle off the tracks. That is the literal be-all/end-all of this piece. The geese. Drop a billion extra for the geese. Today's entry has some grainy scans of ancient MBTA documents showing the alternatives. You can see exactly why the "Kenmore" option is a nonstarter with the tunneling involved. Yes, it was studied as an engineering alternative...as in, some alternative had to be studied to fulfill the obligations of the assessment even though practically only the Bridge option would ever work. They quite obviously thought it was a laugher back then, and that there would only ever be one plausible option. It's a big leap to call it a web of "lies!" and a giant gov't conspiracy to keep the Kenmore option off the table in favor of the Bridge. They would be wasting everyone's time x10 if the Kenmore tunnel option were on the table, because it's utterly fricking unbuildable.

I encourage reading some of the old blog entries. This guy is just a wee unbalanced in the head.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Look at the blog this is cross-posted from, folks. This is a one-issue advocacy: the Charles River White Geese. The writer has been railing against the UR, commuter rail on the Grand Junction, any increases in freight activity...even concern-trolling bike paths on the empty track berth of the BU Bridge. All over impacts to those morbidly obese/overfed geese who live in their own filth on the tracks and have pooped all the vegetation away on that side of the river. I have no qualms with animal advocacy, but the Friends of the White Geese org are zealots with a capital "Z". Like some PETA caricature from The Onion. If you were ever accosted by one of their pamphleteers when planning for the BU Bridge reconstruction was happening, you know exactly what I'm talking about.


In this case, their blogger has been flogging his own arsenal of Crazy Transit Pitches for over a decade years to keep the geese from having to waddle off the tracks. That is the literal be-all/end-all of this piece. The geese. Drop a billion extra for the geese. Today's entry has some grainy scans of ancient MBTA documents showing the alternatives. You can see exactly why the "Kenmore" option is a nonstarter with the tunneling involved. Yes, it was studied as an engineering alternative...as in, some alternative had to be studied to fulfill the obligations of the assessment even though practically only the Bridge option would ever work. They quite obviously thought it was a laugher back then, and that there would only ever be one plausible option. It's a big leap to call it a web of "lies!" and a giant gov't conspiracy to keep the Kenmore option off the table in favor of the Bridge. They would be wasting everyone's time x10 if the Kenmore tunnel option were on the table, because it's utterly fricking unbuildable.

I encourage reading some of the old blog entries. This guy is just a wee unbalanced.
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Wow. I just skimmed a couple of his entries and you are completely right. Take the blog entry for what it's worth, I guess.
 
bigeman312 said:
Wow. I just skimmed a couple of his entries and you are completely right. Take the blog entry for what it's worth, I guess.
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Upon seeing the original link, I probably said for the first time ever: "Wow...this is way below Wicked Local's standards." :rolleyes:
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Upon seeing the original link, I probably said for the first time ever: "Wow...this is way below Wicked Local's standards." :rolleyes:
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Is there anything stopping us from, alongside or in place of the BU Bridge crossing, starting a branch or two of the Green Line out of North Station? I agree with Henry that there's a lot more value in building short spurs that could later be connected to each other.

Something like a phase one GLX to Chelsea, phase one Urban Ring over the bridge, then extend Union Square Green Line to Porter, connect Porter to the BU Bridge Spur and reroute those trains over to Chelsea. BLX to Lynn, Urban Ring to Lynn, and presto - you're done.

Absent or independent of that, the Orange Line doesn't need to be spurred. If we're going to do anything with the Orange Line, we should grab another five trainsets and double our headways on that line.
 
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