Regional Rail (including North-South Rail Link)

[CSTH]

...and there are a lot of grade crossings in Needham that blue cant do, plus a lot of the stations rely on pedestrian track crossing.

[fattony]

Originally Posted by stick n move

Do you guys think if we were going to “go for it”... blue to riverside would be a better idea? Either by way of the esplanade/storrow or tunnel under Beacon since blue and green both use overhead wires and it would make a ton of sense to connect to red at mgh then continue on to the back bay where no other options have existed yet then under Kenmore and on to Riverside. Eventually the Lynn extension would create a blue line consisting of Lynn to Riverside which seems like the ideal option vs orange to Riverside. Everything has hurdles and the track gauge is one, but I think if were gonna do it do it right. Then the Orange can be extended to Needham heights and Readville to meet up with whatever ends up on the indigo line some day and allow much better headways on the Needham line.

That doesn't really address the same needs and Regional Rail or NSRL, so its hard to say if it is "better." My understanding is that RR or RR+NSRL will have massive impact on suburb-CDB commuting patterns and on town/small-city centers across eastern Mass. I see Blue-eats-D (if it is even possible) to primarily improve things for a much smaller number of urban and inner-suburban residents.

I think the improvements planned for the Green Line - Type 10's, stop consolidation, signal priority, etc - will greatly improve service for all Green Lines and will hit the D-Line first. I suspect the reason Blue-eats-D never never happened in the past is because it isn't that impactful.

[whittle]

I don't really get the point of Blue to Riverside. You'd need to spend at least $1 billion and shut down the entire branch for months (more likely years), and in exchange you get all door boarding, 60 mph top speed, and higher capacity. All door boarding is already coming, Type 10s will already be bringing back 50mph speeds, and the corridor doesn't demand that much capacity. Really the only argument I could see for this would be to open up capacity in the GL tunnel for a A-branch to Harvard, but tunneling the BL though Lower Alston seems like a more compelling option if this is the goal.

[F-Line to Dudley]

Blue-west has zilch to do with RER or NSRL. There's only one scenario where it would ever go on the table: if there was agreement to tear down Storrow Dr., and if that agreement came with ironclad commitment to a transit trade-in in the same project area. That means it's off-limits without Storrow, and anything west of Kenmore is out-of-scope.


It's SEVERAL degrees of difference apart to be talking Lynn-Riverside.




The other demerits listed here are legit. Can't do Needham Branch without LRT because the grade crossing eliminations are blowout-cost for little benefit on HRT and Blue wouldn't fare well under branching. And you need the D to Brookline Village for the Urban Ring. And the ridership characteristics for the D are wretched for load-balancing w/Eastie-Revere dwells, making headway management overly brittle.


But mainly, you simply can't consider it at all until Storrow's got a mandate and the Kenmore extension is built. Is...four?...wholly theoretical steps from now relevant discussion today? What about Step 1 to Charles as first use of energy?

[CSTH]

...plus where the Blue actually wants to go is Watertown Sq...

[Arlington]

Meanwhile, my first AM Orange Line commute from the Northside in 10 years shows it is crush loaded from NS to Back Bay (where it suddenly empties) Some of the pitch for NSRL really is the naive Northside to Back Bay (and giving the Orange Line "back" to its neighbors).