Hey, there! Log in / Register
Imagine a Green Line branch along Mem Drive
By adamg on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 9:53pm
Stephanie forwards this rendering of one of the trolleys the T will buy for the Green Line Extension from CAF, a Spanish company that will assemble the cars in Elmira, NY and which promises "prime performance and first-rate passenger comfort," so presumably they'll be able to get up Comm. Ave. and not fall off the tracks and stuff.
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Yes!
Super Green Line Extension down the middle of the Charles River! With no wires to boot. IIt's too bad Bev Scott won't be around to travel to Elmira for the photo op "encouraging" the assembly crew to get going when they are three years behind on delivery.
"IIt's too bad Bev Scott won't be around..."
Tirelessly seeking new ways to be loathsome, I see. Damn that dog whistle is loud.
In your manic rush to savage Ms Scott, you added an extra 'I'.. Slow day at the Herald.
I know, launch another screed about the horror of a minimum wage raise and the manliness of your mighty work ethic. That'll impress em.
Um,
1. Bev Scott did go to Philly to implore the assembly crew of the last set of commuter rail cars to make them move faster. Did it make them, Hyundai, work faster? I don't know, but she got herself in front of a camera. So there.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/03/25/some-long-awaited-commuter-r...
2. People make grammar mistakes all the time. Excuse me. My ipad typing while watching the Warriors Rockets game got the best of my Stunk and White.
3. I haven't bought a Herald in over 10 years. So nyah nyah.
4. Please take a walk and try calm down today. It is a nice day outside. The birds are singing, the lilacs are out. You obviously seem to be angry. You are probably an ugly angry troll who lives under the Moakley Bridge. It's ok, you'll die lonely some day.
Hold on there.
Excuse me, Doctor Scott didn't get her PhD in Poly Sci to be called "Ms" Scott! The nerve!
T procurement checklist
T procurement checklist
The Green Line Extension is in a flat rail bed.
So the envisioned problems of running on Commonwealth don't apply.
Not just the extension
While the cars are needed to support the additional network created by GLX, the cars will presumably run system wide. GLX trains will not stop at Lechmere and u-turn.
Which is a shame, since it
Which is a shame, since it means they're spending all that money to create more of a slow, unreliable, tiny, inefficient line insead of a proper new rail access
Wait, huh?
How would making people transfer at Lechmere to the existing Green Line be superior to having the GLX tied directly into downtown and the heart of the subway system? I get that the existing Green Line (and often the other colors, too) don't always function well, but I don't think creating more isolated services is a better answer.
Put heavier, full 5 or 6-car
Put heavier, full 5 or 6-car stock on the length of the addition
They should have stuck with
They should have stuck with the originally-proposed idea of an Orange Line branch instead. There are a ton of problems with adding additional passengers to the Central Subway, and the route was ripe for real rapid transit, given that it is entirely grade-separated and expected to generate significant ridership from existing population.
The main problem with sending GLX trains into the Central Subway is how delay-prone it is. The operating plan, last I heard, was to have E and D trains serve the Extension, since the E is fairly short, and the D is the least delay-prone, being grade-separated, but even still, think how much trains will deviate from the schedule running all the way from College Ave to Riverside - 17 miles, and 29 stations, one way. It's already scheduled to take 44 minutes from Park to Riverside, and 13 minutes from Park to Lechmere, which puts the round trip time for Lechmere to Riverside at 112 minutes, and the round trip time for College Ave to Riverside at around 150 minutes. That's a long time for trolleys to potentially incur delays.
Another major problem is existing overcrowding. The Green Line downtown at rush hour is a madhouse already. Those trains can't handle the number of additional passengers going to/from Somerville, and there is no excess capacity at peak hour to run additional trains, which is why the MBTA is only buying 24 new trolleys - they're only going to fill in the gaps in frequency created by running the trains farther, rather than add any additional capacity.
The Orange Line, on the other hand, has plenty of excess capacity, even at peak hour. I'm not confident the signal system would allow it without significant changes, but it is theoretically possible to double current Orange Line frequencies in order to provide the same level of service to Somerville as is currently provided to Medford/Malden, without reducing frequencies of existing service (which was the given reason why this option was eliminated in planning), by merely doubling the fleet size.
While transfers suck, there is not enough capacity in the Central Subway to handle GLX, and it would have been much smarter of the T to get these passengers on the Orange Line instead, where they could make use of the cross-platform transfer to the Green Line at North Station if they absolutely need to go somewhere not accessible via Orange.
I agree with you about the
I agree with you about the Green Line. But the Orange Line already chokes at rush hour. The closely-spaced downtown stations, and boarding delays caused by the narrow cars, cause a lot of stop-and-go backups.
And as I said in my post,
And as I said in my post, those problems could be mostly solved by increasing service frequency, which would necessarily have accompanied a branch to Somerville.
Not quite
Not quite. The Central Subway is overcrowded and running at capacity between Copley and Government Center (when open). But that's not an issue for the GLX, because it extends from Government Center to the "east" (in Green Line-speak).
Currently, at peak times, you have to board either a "C" or an "E" in order to reach North Station, and you must board an "E" in order to reach Lechmere. The GLX will open up the possibility of using a "D" train to reach North Station or Lechmere. That's effectively increasing the capacity to North Station by 150% and to Lechmere by 200%.
The GLX should be an improvement to the existing Central Subway, not a detriment.
There's a hole in your logic
There's a hole in your logic though - if the Central Subway is already running at capacity, which you agree with me on, then how are you going to fit additional people from GLX through it?
Because it's an extension
The "B", "C", "D", and "E" branches already run between Copley and Government Center (when it's open). We can't add another branch through all those tracks without cutting service on an existing line. However, only the "C" and "E" currently extend beyond Government Center.
There is overcrowding but it is in the "peak" direction mainly. In the morning that is inbound towards Park Street / Government Center. In the evening that's outbound away from Park Street / Government Center.
Peak-direction riders on the GLX are using either new capacity or the reverse-peak direction on the existing Central Subway. For example, a rider coming from College Avenue ("D" branch) in the morning is riding on completely new capacity that does not exist today until reaching Government Center. Suppose that rider continues onwards from Government Center toward the Back Bay: then that trip is along the reverse-peak direction of the Central Subway using excess capacity.
Similarly, in the evening, a rider that gets onboard at Copley headed towards College Avenue is using the reverse-peak side of the Central Subway (excess capacity), and then continuing from Government Center using entirely new capacity that does not exist today (the extension of the "D" line from Government Center out to College Avenue). Plus, other riders merely headed towards Lechmere or North Station now have an additional branch ("D") available to them.
That's not to say that the reverse-peak is always uncrowded. Sometimes it is overcrowded too. For example, big events at the Garden can cause that. So it's not perfect. But, all in all, the Green Line extension is promising new capacity between Government Center and Lechmere that will help to alleviate a lot of the crowding problems that exist on that section today.
To North Station -- 150% increase in capacity at peak.
To Lechmere -- 200% increase in capacity at all times.
(maybe I should draw this up as a diagram, it might be easier to understand)
Capacity wise, it always
Capacity wise, it always seemed like extending the blue would've made the most sense -- red and blue already reach out on both sides of the city, whereas blue terminates for all useful intents and purposes at gov center. Engineering wise this is probably a no go though.
It's too bad they couldn't have just made a new line and run it downtown as far as the ROW would allow
The problem with extending
The problem with extending the Blue line is that you'd have to build a new tunnel from Bowdoin under the Charles and through east Cambridge, while the Orange line is already there.
Yeah that's why I figured the
Yeah that's why I figured the engineering wasn't really feasible.
You forgot one very important requirement
Will operate with other Green Line cars. And rewiring the other cars to work with the new ones (as Breda ended up doing as an alternative action to the actual contract specifications) is NOT an acceptable option.
The Type 9s won['t run with
The Type 9s won['t run with the older cars, only in trains by themselves.
Updating the Type 7s trainline connections to operate with the Type 8s was part of the original Type 8 contract, not something Breda came up with after the fact. The Type 7s needed to have multiplex lines added that could handle more communication signals than then old coupler button boxes they originally had were capable of.
IIRC, the original Type 8 contract
indicated that the Type 8 control system had to be compatible with the Type 7. Breda decided they didn't want to adapt the Type 7 control system design to their cars, so they convinced the T to allow them to modify the Type 7s instead - AFTER they had started delivery of the Type 8s . Which took more time, and was more expensive than if the T had required them to conform to the original contract specifications.
As for the Type 9s running as independent trains, that is a huge failure waiting to happen from a scheduling and logistics standpoint.
Why? I don't think they
Why? I don't think they meant 1-car Type 9 trains, just that Type 9s would run in pairs rather than connecting to an older car.
The only reason the Type 8s have to connect to Type 7s is so every train has wheelchair access. Since that problem was solved, new trains can be completely Type 9.
No, the original contract
No, the original contract called for the winning bidder to modify the trainline controls on the 7s.
The first pilot Type 7 to be modified (car 3682) was shipped to Breda's plant in Italy in June 1997, the first pilot Type 8 (3800) was delivered to Riverside in January 1998.
Uh no.
No Type 7 has ever been to Italy. 3682 was the modification pilot car but the work was done at Breda's facility in Littleton, MA, not Italy.
Not true. That was a rumor
Not true. That was a rumor going around, but a person I spoke to from the MBTA said they need to be compatible with both the 7's and 8's. They will be put in service on the riverside line long before the GLX is finished and will need to be compatible.
What's the lowest operational
What's the lowest operational temperature? 33F or so?
Sideways seats?
I really hope they don't have all sideways seating like the type 8 cars do. Riding sideways on a herky-jerky B-line run is really unpleasant. I go out of the way to make sure I'm on a type 7.
They will
They will have the same seating arrangement as the 8's do, unfortunately.
But the Type 8s have those 2
But the Type 8s have those 2 forward-facing windowless seats at the bottom of the stairs.
It's too bad we can't get full low-floor trolleys. The interior stairs waste a lot of space, and prevent people in wheelchairs from getting to the farebox or driver.
Charlie=Stop this new purchase now!
Charlie-EVERYONE knows that the B-Line needs to be put underground. Tunneling from Kenmore to Rt 128 under Commonwealth Ave. is the forward looking long term improvement that is required to make the MBTA 21st century.