Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Green Line all the way, baby (to Rt. 16)

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Sorry to get all parochial on everyone … If the federal money comes through, the Green Line will go all the way out to Route 16 in Medford, i.e. by the Whole Foods/Starbucks/Sav-Mor/WOW area. Good stuff — though obviously not as good as going out to West Medford and getting the connection with the commuter rail.

“While we expect that this alternative will qualify for federal funding, the decision to extend to Route 16 is contingent upon federal participation,” said Aloisi. “Extending the Green Line terminus to Mystic Valley Parkway will bring rapid transit service to East Cambridge, Somerville and Medford neighborhoods that have waited a long time for rail transit. 

“The Green Line Extension will advance community plans for smart growth and urban redevelopment and provide environmental justice communities with faster rides to jobs and destinations,” he continued.  “EOT is very pleased to advance this project and we will continue to work with local officials to make it very successful.”

Hey, you ever hear of this Aloisi? Seems like a swell guy.

Addendum: paddynoons says damn the permits, full steam ahead.

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  1. I threw together this little map of the new green line.

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    p>(The other rapid transit lines are from a past map I made, which is why the blue line terminates at Charles/MGH. I have the rest of the stations/lines as a kml file if anyone’s ever interested in playing around with them.)

    • Nice. I might point out that while Ball Square is not a square; neither is it a ball.

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      p>Also, my hope and guess is that the Hillside station is closer to Winthrop than College Ave. More houses, and more businesses.

      • It would make a lot more sense. I’m judging my map on info from the Somerville Transit Equality Project (up to date as of today), which says that “community feedback has led the State away from this recommendation.” I guess some residents weren’t too keen on it.

        • The Medford Hillside folks don’t mind a station for the Tufts’s kids, but woe to anyone how would put a station anywhere that would cause people to park in their neighborhood, or worse yet, walk through it late at night!

          • I might have to move into that neighborhood and start talking about how the station.

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            p>You know, it probably would be a change for the neighborhood, and maybe a pretty significant one. It’s kind of an “urbanizing” thing — it would make things busier, but a hell of lot more convenient, and bring car-less access to downtown right to everyone’s doorstep. But the folks who live there now might not give a hoot about those things. Their property values might well go up; usually $ can convince a few folks.

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            p>Me, I’m another ex-Cambridge Medford person who misses the Red Line. I have to drive too much for my tastes. If anyone wants to put a subway into the ‘Square, I’ll hold a sign for it.

            • Actually, in the Hillside, we already are reasonably urban: we have, within walking distance, a post office, hardware store, dry-cleaners, laundromat, barber shop, grocery store, convenience store, three places for coffee, close to nine places for pizza, and three basketball courts, not to mention frequent buses to Arlington Center, Davis Square, Medford Square, and the Commuter Rail, Red Line, and Green Line. We have live music at the Danish Pastry House. I’m proud of my neighborhood, and I like the people who live here. We have block parties in the summer that include three generations  of the same family living here in the Hillside. Yes, most people in my neighborhood own cars, but like my family, most don’t use them every day, commuting instead by T.

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              p>I also go to the Green Line community meetings; I think the people who are worried about the extension love the neighborhood like I do and are worried that the extension will change it. I support the Green Line because I don’t think it will change the character of my neighborhood; I think it will strengthen it.

      • I always assumed that “square” was just Massachusese for “major intersection”.  Sort of how a “spa” is a convenience store or a “packie” is a liquor store.

      • Right now, the alignment of the College Ave station is proposed on the side that has the Brown and Brew.

    • Union Square / Brickbottom?

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      p>Also, I can’t help but think it would be nice if the green line followed the commuter rail easement to Porter.  This way the green and red would meet underground, providing much better Alewife/Harvard Square/Kendall access to & from Medford/Tufts/Somerville.

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      p>There’s no reason to make Park St the only connection between lines — having lines overlap in outer edges allow for people to get to more places in the metro area quickly, and keep T users out of the congested Park/Gov’t Ctr stations.

      • I’m not sure why this was never seriously considered.

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        p>Unfortunately there’s a lot of talk about putting the Union Square branch inside Somerville Ave, rather than the Commuter rail bed, which would rule this out as a future expansion.

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        p>My dream for the Union Square branch would be:

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        p>- Union Square (Maybe at the Webster / Prospect bridge)
        – Ward 2 (around Park Street)
        – Porter Square (Change here for the Red Line and the Commuter Rail)
        – North Cambridge (near Sherman Street)
        – Brighton Street
        – Belmont (Change here for the Commuter Rail)

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        p>This would not be without some difficulty.  Building the merged station at Porter would be expensive and there are 3 at grade crossings, coincidentally three of my proposed stations, (Park, Sherman, Brighton) where you’d probably want to build bridges.

        • Judging from STEP and my own knowledge of the process, the Fitchburg routing has been considered, and the Somerville Ave route is not certain.

          • What I meant is that any expansion beyond Union Square has never been seriously considered.  Being in the rail bed would make future expansion easier, though I suppose it’s always possible to continue down Somerville Ave all the way to Porter.

    • Imagine if we had taken a fraction of the money spent on the big dig and done the N-S Rail Link instead?  Throw in some minor switch and signal upgrades, add an extra track in some places to accommodate express lines, and before you know it we’d have had a functional transit system.  

      • … sounds great, will no doubt be very expensive (more digging, on a large scale, but would have ultimately not addressed the congestion problems that the Dig was designed to address.

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        p>Personally, I’d love to see a N-S link, but I think it’d be prohibitively expensive.  At least, on a per dollar basis, I think there are probably possible projects that would produce much more utility,… perhaps the urban ring.  

        • Or so soil mod contactors say.

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          p>I’d love a real tunnel through Boston. Not that cut ‘n cover baloney.

          • … it’d be measured in the billions.  The geotechnical issues faced during the Big Dig are part of why there were cost overruns.

        • Hop on the Amtrak train
          Nonstop, from Miami to Maine
          cept for one problem I think
          There’s no N-S Rail Link
          Yeah, that part’s a pain

    • I should say that the third harbor tunnel was a very worthwhile project and not what I was thinking about.  But from what I can tell, all the O’Neill Tunnel has managed to do (in terms of transit efficiency, not asthetics) was move the I-93 bottleneck three miles out, from the artery to Medford in the north, and from Dewey Square to Morrissey Blvd in the south.  

      • … bottlenecks, but the Dig did ameliorate congestion, as has been indicated in both volume and commute time ‘before and after’ comparisons.

    • The Silver Line connector is a big waste of money to eliminate a five-minute walk (or one stop on the Red Line), based on questionable ridership numbers. Much rather put that into any number of worthwhile projects, including:

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      p>-Blue Line to Lynn

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      p>NorthSouth Rail Link

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      p>-Arborway Restoration

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      p>Legitimate urban ring expansion (this does not, in my mind, include a RugglesLongwood bus tunnel, although a rail tunnel would not be out of the question.)

      • after all, we never see anybody swimming across the river or trying to ford it in their car.

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        p>Demand is “questionable” because the Silver Line doesn’t connect.  Link the two parts and the origin-destination pairs go from 109+109=180 to 20*19=380.

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        p>An entire region of Boston was promised a subway for years.  They got a bus, but it was promised that it’d have light priority, it’s own lane, etc.  Didn’t quite work out that way.  Now you want them to get out half way and walk five minutes to get back in?

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        p>The Silver Line connection is an essential part of the project, and an important part of social justice for two parts of the city which have been screwed over on mass transit for decades.

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        p>P.S. Use asterisks instead of hyphens to avoid this effect (preview helps too)

        • That they called it “The Silver Line” because of it’s “speediness” makes it even funnier.  It’s just a bus.  At least the MBTA doesn’t have the chutzpah to charge subway fares for it, which would be utterly absurd.

          • But a bus in an exclusive tunnel moves an awful lot like a streetcar of subway.  In fact, that’s effectively what Montreal uses (rubber wheeled cars).

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            p>Connecting the two sections and increasing ridership will help create more political pressure to make the Washington Street side better… coordinated lights, exclusive lanes with enforcement, etc.

            • As the Sierra Club has called for, use the existing unused portal to convert Washington Street to light rail with a connection right into the heart of downtown without having to run through any traffic at all.

          • Or, when using hyphens for bullets and hyphenated words, put a space after the bullet-hyphen.

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          p>-Or type - for the bullet-hyphen.

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          p>-But yes, definitely use preview.

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