UPDATE: How can you not love our commenters? Thanks Marcus!
I made a map of the proposed DMU lines [Diesel Multiple Unit, like diesel subway cars, kinda]
https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=ziHXG_5YMLe0.khkTMcg_thSw
Red marker = Proposed station
Blue marker = Location where I think you could potentially add an additional station.
Green marker = Green link extension stations that share a right of way with the Woburn DMU line.
Note that the proposed DMU lines go over the BU Bridge, from Cambridge to can’t-get-there-from-here Allston! [head explodes SPLAT]
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Old pal Garrett has the scoop on MassDOT’s plans for expanding .. well, everything. But especially and including the Green Line to Medford … 6 years later than the original Big Dig settlement said. (It was supposed to be done this year. Sigh.)
The plan includes $1.3 billion to complete the Green Line Extension to Medford and Union Square in Somerville by 2020. The Green Line extension will add six new stations and another line to the Green Line system by running light-rail tracks along commuter rail rights of way. The extension plans includes a relocated and upgraded Lechmere Station in Cambridge. An additional $2.6 million separate from the extension plan is earmarked for the initial planning and design of new Green Line cars. The new cars are expected to start rolling in 2021.
via MassDOT five-year plan includes introduction of Indigo Line, extension of Green Line | masslive.com.
This will be your new MBTA, then:
Alas
I don’t see the extension of the Blue Line from Bowdoin to Charles/MHG. Is that off the table altogether or just post 2024?
From the Globe:
I’ve never been a fan of the Green Line. My reaction to hearing that of lines being extended was ugh! Not that I object to expanding service.
like the Mattapan Extension of the Red Line out of the Ashmont Station. Riding the Mattapan extension is like being transported back to late 40’s (i.e. Post War (WWII) America).
The new stations are brand new, and modern. The track is mostly new, in existing right-of-ways where the rail currently there is going to be scooched over to make room. The rolling stock will use the existing Green Line rolling stock, though I would think some new rolling stock will be ordered and, ahem, rolled out because there’ll be more track to cover, so more cars will be needed.
The DMUs will be new rolling stock, require some new stations, and use existing track for at least some of the length.
…and have heard it used by others, but I don’t recall ever seeing the word “scooched” in writing before!
it is an extremely technical term, after all.
https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=ziHXG_5YMLe0.khkTMcg_thSw
Red marker = Proposed station
Blue marker = Location where I think you could potentially add an additional station.
Green marker = Green link extension stations that share a right of way with the Woburn DMU line.
Whether at Mystic Mall or the Silver Line stop immediately before it? It would allow folks to take commuter rail from Rockport or Newburyport lines to the airport much, much more easily.
As the map shows now, you’d take commuter rail in, switch to a DMU, and then switch again to the Silver Line in order to be dropped off at the terminal. One switch? Sure, lots of folks are game. Two switches? Too much time, too much uncertainty, too much physical hassle. I’ll get my spouse to drop me off curbside instead. A commuter rail stop at the Silver Line [with physically easy transfer between the two] makes public transit to/from the airport far more attractive for the fine folks living in the North Shore.
That Chelsea station, the one before Mystic Mall on the map, is currently a commuter rail station. The plan seems to be to make it a DTU station instead (same plan for the commuter rail stations along the Mass Pike in Newton). But it would be best to have Chelsea serve both trains for the reason you identify.
I’m looking at a schematic map, not anything “real”. I have no idea what the implications or complications are related to right of way, environmental impacts, etc. It might just plain not be possible for a “reasonable” amount of money…
In Chelsea, it’s an already-existing commuter rail station. I don’t know if whatever they plan to do for conversion of that station to DTU would, as a practical matter, preclude having commuter rail stop there. But if it’s at all feasible it would be great to have that direct transfer from commuter rail to airport-bound Silver Line.