At Alewife, the tracks quit switching; everybody, start your bitching

He should be back in his office from that photo op of the revamp of Government Center. You know, the place with the nice clean walls but with a signal system made out of kitty litter, deer urine, and pipe cleaners.

That's about right.

I wonder if it we could come up with an initiative petition to eliminate all state house parking perks in favor of transit passes and reimbursed parking at outlying commuter rail stations. This would apply to all elected reps, senators, and executives, including Baker and Polito. Of course the legislature would squish it, but enough signatures might get their attention that people are getting really pissed off at the lot of them.

Short-turning trains at Davis is not practical, since there are no crossovers south of it, only the Alewife switches north of Davis.

The next crossover heading south is just inbound of Harvard, which is why whenever there's work going on on the north end of the red line, trains are turned at Harvard.

However, even at Harvard there is no pocket track for the driver to use to change ends, meaning this would have to happen on one of the main tracks, which I'm sure the T doesn't want to do in regular service, as it would hold up service for up to 10 minutes (operator has to secure one cab, walk the length of the train, then set up the other cab). So short-turning trains without a pocket track works when NOTHING is running beyond that station, but mixing short-turns in without a pocket track isn't really practical.

So basically, no, it wouldn't make sense, without adding at least a crossover, and preferrably a pocket track.

and it is totally unacceptable. See my comment below.

The Red Line switches and signals need to get the "Winter Happens" (even when it doesn't and we knew, in advance, that it wouldn't!) treatment IMMEDIATELY.