Recent content by Riverside

I probably won’t get a chance to reply in depth for a little while, but just wanted to say, those look awesome!!

IMO, the storage tracks are pointing the wrong way — toward the West End, rather than toward Charlestown. I love a good Tobin Bridge crayon map myself, but I figure we’d first try to hook in to the 90 degree turn just north of the North Station platforms.

They definitely are storage tracks, at least. Whether they are provisions for some sort of extension is, IIRC, somewhat of an open question and usually the topic of speculation. For my part, I’m not sure where such an extension would even go, but stranger things have happened for sure.

This was an interesting piece, thanks for linking (and for the shoutouts). Alon's suggestion that 4 tracks could be accommodated via a single-but-enlarged bore is an interesting one, which would definitely impact my opinion of the project. What are the considerations for that kind of design...

Lots of really nice stuff here! Mattapan Square plus Mattapan Yard perhaps?

^ I didn't read the article carefully but my impression was that the complaints are from engines idling in the Readville yard during the night? And the core of the complaint seems to be "it didn't used to be this bad and something changed 4 years ago"... which IMO is a somewhat more reasonable...

Gonna reply to @The EGE in this thread: I actually am less cynical in this case. This seems related to the decision to have Providence trains start stopping at Readville again. In both cases, this sounds to me like Eng did a tour of the commuter rail and said, “So we’ve got these perfectly...

Also full agree with all of this, and nicely said -- the scale problem is a good way to articulate it as well. But yeah, the examples of place names coming from railroad station names is one of my favorite examples of transit making the place.

Full agree on this, and wonderfully articulated. It's always an awful challenge, just super difficult all around.

Ink Block?

I missed the edit -- this is looking great! Yeah, it's been similar for me with Paint.NET. I think there's value in practicing making maps like this, but it's definitely got its limitations.

You might find this piece I wrote about the B & C Lines interesting. It sounds like you are describing what I call the "Kenmore Model"; I am critical of that model in the linked piece, but I do think there is value to it. I also imagined a system where more examples of the Kenmore Model were...

I have more thoughts I might share later, but the other big piece (in my opinion) is the question of grade-separation. With light rail, you have some flexibility for things like grade crossings at streets and even sometimes street-running. With heavy rail, you have no wiggle room at all...

Full list of service changes here. Maybe I'm feeling sentimental today, but I was surprised at how happy I was to hear about the 30 minute headways on the Fairmount Line. The Indigo Line concept has been around for something like 20 or 30 years, and, like, we've actually gotten amazingly close...

Hello and welcome! Well, let me ask you this: what benefits do you see to converting the Green Line to heavy rail? (I of course have my own ideas but would love to talk about your thoughts specifically!)