Hey, there! Log in / Register
More commuter-rail trains to stop at Forest Hills as long as the Orange Line isn't running
By adamg on Thu, 09/01/2022 - 2:47pm
Keolis announced today that it will be having even more Providence Line and Franklin Line trains stop at Forest Hills both on weekdays and weekends to handle riders who would normally take the Orange Line or who just don't like the idea of taking a shuttle bus, no matter how plush the seats.
The extra stops will start Saturday and continue until the end of Sept. 18, after which the T still assures us that the Orange Line will be returning to service.
Keolis says nine additional trains that normally don't stop at Forest Hills inbound will stop there between 7 and 9 a.m. on weekdays, with a similar number of outbound trains stopping there in the afternoon and evening. That means riders who once took the Orange Line will now have a total of 13 trains in the morning to get into town on.
On weekends, there were be four extra inbound trains stopping at Forest Hills during the day, with seven additional trains outbound, including one leaving South Statino at 11 p.m.
Neighborhoods:
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
The shuttles are not bad
I'm on vacation this week and I took the shuttle from Forest Hills to Copley Square. It took me about a half hour, with a little bit of traffic just outside of Back Bay, but overall it was not bad. Usually, an Orange Line train takes 12 minutes from Forest Hills to Back Bay.
Where the commuter rail is down the street from where I am, however, I think I'll use that instead until Orange Line comes back.
Plushness of seats
Not that much of an issue.
Extra 20 minutes of travel time, OTOH.
(Rough calculation: if 100,000 people took the Orange Line and it added 15 minutes to their travel time to take a shuttle or use alternate transportation and the value of time is $25, then the cost to people is about $16 million.)
Agreed
I think regular sized transit buses would cut that time down a little. Furthermore, having some of those buses run express down Columbus Avenue to Ruggles and then to Back Bay would cut that time down even more.
Should this stop be made permanent?
Or is it too much of a disruption to regular service on these lines?
Maybe?
But probably not.
For one thing, there's a stop penalty to take a Commuter Rail train from 80 to 0 (if we had electrified trains, then the penalty would be less, but we don't, because the T doesn't believe in it).
For another, only Track 3 is accessible to the platform, so it takes some fancy footwork to cross every train over and back, and that can cascade as traffic gets heavier or lighter. I do wonder how much transfer traffic there might be between the trains and Forest Hills buses there. Not a ton of origin-destination traffic at FH, and for people going to OL destinations going into Ruggles and then out is not a huge deal.
Both sides of platform in use at FH
The Needham line uses Track 3 for both inbound and outbound, but the Providence line has been using the track on the other side of the platform, from what I've observed, anyways.
Yes, it should be made permanent
I commute from Needham to Providence and if I could switch at Forest Hills from the Needham Line to the Providence Line then my total commute could be as little as 1 hour 15 minutes each way. If that service were available then I'd choose it over the 50 minute drive and sell my car in a heartbeat. We should be doing all we can to make public transit a competitive choice for as many commuters as possible.
Ruggles, ugh
Doesn’t work with the current schedule, although it’s only an extra six minutes each way. The problem is that the trains pass in the night (well, day). If needham was 10 minutes earlier you could make the trip in 1:30. Of course if the T discovered electricity it would be 15 minutes faster. And let’s not get into what the orange line would do for needham.
LOL
You think Needham really wants the Orange Line?
There's a reason why Oak Grove station is where it is.
Too bad about the Needham line not getting increased
I guess we'll have to settle for full conversion to an Orange Line extension in 2025.
Who's with me?
That would be wonderful.
That would be wonderful.
But... last time that was tried (90s) it was met with "community opposition" in Needham.
There's an answer for that
Only extend the Orange Line to West Roxbury (I suspect there's room for a terminus near the old West Roxbury High School - the Needham Line already has a double track there). Then extend the Green Line from Riverside across 128 along some old tracks to Needham, so our social superiors don't have to mingle with us city riff-raff.
No, I didn't make this up all by myself.
In the abstract, having
In the abstract, having transit from West Roxbury to Needham is kind of silly, since there's a big gap between West Roxbury and Hersey, much of it parks, (and even Hersey isn't much of a destination) while a connection between Needham and Newton Highlands could also provide public transportation to Newton Upper Falls.
And that was the plan... in 1945. What would become the D branch of the Green Line would have a spur from Newton Highlands to Needham, and then what would become the Orange Line would be extended from Forest Hills to West Roxbury to Dedham. But with the layout we have now and the Green Line still being light rail there's a lot of impracticalities to that.
No no it needs to go down HP
No no it needs to go down HP Ave and into Dedham
Keolis trying to stay off the radar
I am surprised that Keolis is getting away with bunches of issues right now, including lack of staff. One conductor and one engineer on a train is not safe.
39 bus?
I wish we could have more 39 buses in the afternoon. I have been routinely waiting for 20 minutes to catch one.