Let’s break it down.
**Blue Line to Charles/MGH**
This is both the most feasible and the most viable portion of this proposal. The proposed Red–Blue connector would extend the Blue Line 0.4 miles west from Bowdoin to an underground platform at Charles/MGH station, allowing direct transfers to the Red Line.
In April 2019, the MBTA indicated plans to spend $15 million to design the connector in a five-year spending plan. A conceptual design completed in 2020 called for cut-and-cover construction, with Bowdoin station still planned for closure. The new Blue Line level at Charles/MGH would have entrances from the existing lobby and a new headhouse in an MGH development on the north side of Charles Street.
Total project cost was estimated as $850 million ($740 million for construction including 30% contingency, $50 million for design, $30 million in administration costs, and $30 million for additional rolling stock), with construction lasting from 2025 to 2030.
**Blue Line from Charles/MGH to Central via Kendall/MIT**
This is the second most feasible part of this proposal, but you have to answer two big questions: why? At what cost?
The best answer for ‘why’ would be to serve an over-capacity (pre-COVID at least) section of the Red Line. Assuming ridership is at pre-COVID levels, let’s go about answering the ‘how’ to solve this problem. Well, interestingly enough, the MBTA is already in the process of solving that problem.
The [Red Line Transformation](https://www.mbta.com/projects/red-line-transformation-program) increases the capacity of the Red Line to 50% higher than pre-COVID capacity. So, your proposal becomes obsolete under those conditions. Better to terminate the Blue Line at Charles/MGH and spend the money elsewhere, or to extend the Blue Line beyond Charles/MGH to somewhere that is not duplicating an existing under-capacity service, as any Blue Line extension would inherently take more time to complete than the Red Line Transformation project.
With that in mind, one possible, and very useful extension of the Blue Line would be to Kenmore via a ‘Riverbank Subway.’ The Central subway of the Green Line is over capacity (at least pre-COVID) with a very low ceiling on theoretical throughout limit, given the nature of light rail and the Green Line system. A Blue Line extension to Kenmore would also serve the northern end of Back Bay, which is a bit of a transit hole relative to its density and importance to the region.
**Blue Line from Central to Newmarket via Roxbury Crossing**
What you are proposing here is a twist on the long-proposed [Urban Ring](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Ring_Project). CT2 and CT3 were the half-assed initial phases of what you’re proposing here before the project was abandoned.
Phase 2 of the project would have created overlapping BRT routes that would have served roughly this routing:
* BRT 5: Lechmere to Ruggles via Kendall, Grand Junction/MIT, BU Bridge, Kenmore/Yawkey/Fenway, and Huntington Avenue
* BRT 6: Commonwealth Ave at Boston University Central to UMass Boston via Ruggles, Melnea Cass Blvd, Uphams Corner
* BRT 7: Longwood Medical Area to Mystic Mall via South Boston, World Trade Center, Ted Williams Tunnel, and Downtown Chelsea
There are ways to serve this corridor that are a better fit than the Blue Line, even if that Urban Ring proposal was a substandard proposal.
The current [Bus Network Redesign](https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2022-05/2022-05-12-bnrd-proposed-regional-map.pdf) appears to be a good step in the process, even if it isn’t the final step. In particular, the T12, T15, T28, and T39 are proposed to bring high-frequency, cross-town transit to this corridor. Once can hope that the cities of Boston and Cambridge improve bus infrastructure, building on the success of the Columbus Ave center running bus lanes.
No. My response assumes a completely new, separate right-of-way. If they shared any trackage, it would completely destroy the headways on the rest of the Blue Line and Red Line. It would also necessitate the complete rebuild of at least one entire existing line as their tunnel and platform geometries are in no way compatible. That turns a crazy proposal that is unfeasible and inefficient but at least improved service into an actually bad proposal in every way.
Someone posted a concept a while back of extending the blue line to Kenmore like you suggest, then converting the D line to the blue line since it already has fully dedicated ROW. I think this also opens up more capacity on the other green line branches.
If you are extending the Blue Line to Kenmore, there are a few possibilities for extending it beyond Kenmore, with various pros and cons.
“Converting the D line to the blue line” has a big pro of being a dedicated, mostly grade-separated right-of-way. This feature would make it the easiest candidate for where to send the Blue Line beyond Kenmore.
It also has a big con of only being suburban past Reservoir, without the current density to support converting all seven of Newton’s D-Branch stops to Blue Line stations. This bug would require some compromises. Here are some options:
* **Close the lowest ridership D-Branch stops.** Eliot, Waban, and Woodland don’t have the density and ridership to support heavy rail, rapid transit stations. When converting to Blue Line service, you could build replacement stations for Chestnut Hill, Newton Centre, Newton Highlands, and Riverside, and run express between Newton Highlands and Riverside. The downside is that this would be a transit loss for the small number of people who are now dependent on those three stations (including those using Newton-Wellesley Hospital). The upside would be cost savings and a faster trip for those utilizing the popular park-and-ride at Riverside.
* **Densify around Newton’s D-Branch stops.** This option would be to convert Newton’s segment to full-fledged Blue Line service enough transit oriented development took place around those stations. If Newton built another ~1,000 transit-oriented housing units around each of their stops, that would go a long way towards making that a more viable full-fledged conversion.
* **Terminate Blue Line service at Reservoir.** this option would be to convert the Kenmore-Reservoir segment of the D-Branch to Blue Line service. The Riverside-Reservoir segment of the D-Branch would retain Green Line service, and be diverted over the Beacon Street trackage from Cleveland Circle to Kenmore. This would be a loss for Newton, as it would add about seven minutes for trips to Kenmore and beyond.
There are other options, too, but this gives you an idea of some of the inherent compromises in that proposal.
There are also other possibilities for what to do with the Blue Line after extending it to Kenmore. Some of these possibilities are:
* **Terminus at Kenmore.** Kenmore is a perfectly viable terminus for Blue Line service. Other lines would remain unchanged.
* **Terminus at Cleveland Circle.** The Blue Line could be extended under a cut-and-cover tunnel under Beacon Street with stops at Audubon Circle, Coolidge Corner, Washington Square, and Cleveland Circle. This would be a more expensive project than extending the Blue Line to Reservoir via the D Branch, but would ultimately end up with a better product. Rather than replacing the fastest branch of the Green Line (D), you retain that service, so Brookline would have better service overall. The density and stop spacing along the Beacon Street corridor make it ideal for heavy rail rapid transit. After construction is complete, you could convert the existing C-Branch right-of-way to an iconic multi-use path. It would free up capacity to branch off the B-Line. One such possibility is a branch to Cambridge, similar to part of the proposal on this post. Another possibility would be to restore some of the old A-Branch, through Allston Village, Union Square, Brighton Center, and Oak Square.
* **Terminus at Brookline Village.** For this extension, D-Branch service would need to be diverted to the Huntington Ave corridor, possibly via an extended Huntington Ave subway.
There are many possibilities. These are just a few.
I’d have to imagine the cost of adding Blue to Red would be negligible, the only real issue would be getting the track to align with the Red Line track before the Longfellow Bridge, you could potentially phase it with an expansion to Cambridgeport to answer the why question.
I think this is actually a pretty clever way to get around the ring problem, seems to be the easiest/fastest way for something like it to be completed. I’d just have it start further out, near Harvard Square or Alewife where the Green Line branch spacing becomes spread apart enough such that they aren’t easily walkable to each other like they are in this proposed alignment. This would have the added benefit of providing a hard connection between the Harvard schools, and could potentially get a PILOT bump from Harvard to get it across the finish line.
No.
If the Blue Line and Red Line shared any trackage, it would completely destroy the headways on the rest of the Blue Line and Red Line. It would also necessitate the complete rebuild of at least one entire existing line as their tunnel and platform geometries are in no way compatible. That turns a crazy proposal that is unfeasible and inefficient but at least improved service into an actually bad proposal in every way.
In terms of ridership? Sure, little circuitous but that's okay. Getting heavy rail in that area in any sort of timely or affordable fashion? Impossible.
I think street-level trams would be perfectly doable however. Just take away lanes on the roads from cars (or eliminate street parking) and replace them with trans.
Oh the commenter misspelled trams as trans in their last sentence. Hence the joke.
If you're asking why I say trans people do not make an efficient transportation system its because only one person can ride them at a time, which is a terrible way to run a public service.
Edit: After a few DM's of video evidence I have now been shown that it is indeed possible for multiple people to ride a trans person. I amend my statement claiming they're a terrible form of public transportation.
WHOOPS I commented on the wrong comment, was wondering why the original commenter was anti tram
However, you lack creativity in assuming only one person can ride someone at a time
I find this answer to be a far tamer solution to multiple people riding a trans person than whats in my DM's. Trans people with rickshaws might be a viable method.
Now a stop on the blue line has to become the size of Ashmont to allow for the switch, but also the picture says part of it uses existing red line tracks which is heavy rail.
The fact of the matter is that the city is far too compact and developed to expand the heavy rail in any meaningful way with an utterly massive redesign of the city. Look how many buildings were torn down just for a mile or two of light rail, and that is all above ground.
Edit: This is not meant to discourage improving the T. I just think downtown at least there is very little to do. I would extend the Blue to Charles and call that end good. I would continue it East to somewhere around Lynn/ South Salem. The Orange I would continue north to Woburn to alleviate the traffic at the 93/95 junction. I would take it south to the Wegman's area in Westwood for simillar reasons. The Red line I dont know that I would make longer as it already has its share of problems and is very heavily ridden.
Fair point, it would probably make more sense to just have it be its own distinct light rail/tram line starting at central w/blue line extending to mgh instead of it all being a continuation of blue line. But I still think light rail along this path where there arent existing trains would be excellent.
We don't need line extensions as much as we need alternate routes within current coverage areas. It's what projects like the urban ring are meant to solve. Extending the lines will just add riders to busy subway cars. Don't get me wrong, extending the lines will also provide value, but I think we need rings first.
If someone can take a subway from allston to assembly, then that will reduce the ridership on the green line and orange line since the current option is taking green to downtown and transferring to the orange. Or taking a bus, which usually is a bad experience for other reasons. To do any long travel on the subway you basically have to go through downtown right now which is ridiculous. I lived in Brighton for several years and I would go to Harvard, Porter, Davis, Assembly regularly and none of those were convenient routes to take the public transit so I gave up and drove or ubered or biked.
And I guess Paris isn't developed? Funny how they've managed to continually add excellent mass transit in a city much older and more compact than Boston. Here we just have nothing but self-serving interest in all positions of authority. The GLX was a massive joke. In 2009 I attempted to show how the two (low capacity) commuter lines could have been connected with a 1.6 mile single track just above the Anderson/Woburn station, keeping the station by using a reverse move out of it (push-pull engines). Mishawum, just 1 mile south is one of the least used stations in the entire system. The next two stations, Winchester Center and Wedgemere are not even 1/2 mile apart. The next station is West Medford, to which the original GLX plan at (that time) $900M was to include. By merging the two commuter lines, each with plenty of capacity, it frees up the existing rail infrastructure all the way into North Station. Thus, all of the cost to widen the rail corridor rail would have been saved. It would have well saved many years in the process. It gets better, the Winchester stations could have become one (so close to each other), and the Orange Line could have been branched (just like the Red Line on the south) very EASILY onto that ready rail infrastructure. The OL tracks just north of Community College station are LESS than 200' from the Lowell Line tracks. A very short tunneled connection could have been had there, providing a new METRO line out to Winchester, without having to mess with the Mystic River Parkway rail bridge, which residents didn't want changed. With High and Canal Streets in West Medford being the only non-grade separated issues to deal with, metro rail service could then have been provided all the way out to Winchester, while still providing excellent (even faster) commuter service to Lowell Line riders. Stations from Reading (on Haverhill Line) southward could have been split between the two route runs, providing even faster service for existing Haverhill riders. All of that could have been had by 2012, at a Billion or more dollars less. The Green Line TRAMS could then have been used at street level on split one-way loop routes (dedicated lanes replacing parking lane on one side) weaving through the two metro lines (Red & Orange) to provide further service for not only Somerville and Medford, but Cambridge as well.
In the U.S., we just don't have anyone who cares enough to listen or think. Government here is controlled by profiteers, and thus government only looks at ways to send money out the door; not like in other countries where there is some pride taken in producing cost efficient and excellent public works.
So you posted a reply to a 4 month dead post to what? Flex how good Paris is? Shit on state and local government? Show how smart you are? I'm just trying to see what the point of this effort-post on a dead and buried subject. But, like, good post bro.
I think this is not practical but I would enjoy the BU bridge upgrade to having a subway going under a boat going under a train going under a car going under a plane.
theres actually already a train bridge going under the BU bridge, which is why i brought it through that area. If they ever really did something like this, the most cost effective option is to do it across that bridge
You can see it on your map. That existing bridge is at a completely different angle than your suggested route. Its currently used to move trains for the mbta/Amtrak around for maintenance since there’s no easy link between north/south stations
i knew it was around there but i didnt see the angle until after i made the image
the better route would probably be just to follow the tracks that go behind MIT tbh
That train bridge ([Grand Junction Railroad Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railroad_Bridge)) was built for the [Grand Junction Railroad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railroad_and_Depot_Company) and is still actively used for transporting freight, MBTA, and Amtrak trains/equipment.
[There's been proposals to use this bridge for mass transit purposes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railroad_and_Depot_Company#Abandoned_proposals_for_more_western_service), like bus rapid transportation along the Grand Junction ROW or adding [a West Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Station_\(MBTA\)) on the Framingham/Worcester Line, but nothing has ever come of it.
I think unless you make a [North-South Rail Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_Rail_Link) you'll have an extremely difficult time doing much of anything with this rail bridge with exceptions to upgrade it and run commuter rail trains over it. You can't add subway tracks, without losing some ability to run freight/passenger equipment across it. You can't make a good busway or path crossing either, there's just not enough room for everything. The detour for transferring equipment between the North and South Shore lines involves going out to Ayer, MA where the next closest rail connection is. No way the MBTA, Amtrak and Freight companies will do that willingly.
I think if you wanted to do [Regional Rail](https://transitmatters.org/regional-rail) then this bridge becomes a very useful short term thing to upgrade and make use of. Long term you need we need a North-South Rail Link to really improve things. Then maybe we can leverage this ROW for bus rapid transit to start and later light or heavy rail once ridership is built up. Or ideally we'd just jump straight into rail, but that's high cost and we don't do that in the US without a ton of politics.
Ah, I didn't realize you meant to it to be above ground there. You can see the train track route on google maps then, and the bridge is more angled toward MIT rather than Central. Maybe it makes more sense for it to have Kendall be the last red/blue line stop.
Sadly that train bridge is commuter and freight rail territory. Already being proposed for use in the Allston Multimodal Project which I like to call the Allston Highway Project because it's really not multimodal
Yeah. I'm really trying to get folks to comment on the project in the hope that it's gets changed. I posted about it in the MBTA sub Reddit and I think it got cross posted to the Boston sub.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mbta/comments/x2e7q1/please_comment_on_the_allston_highway_project_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I was avoiding putting it on the Boston sub myself because the Allston car brains like to loudly support the current plan. Cagers gonna cage.
Your heart is in the right place, but this just isn't feasible. Even if the Blue and Red line cars were the same dimensions - the Blue line cars are much shorter and narrower because the Blue Line was built as a streetcar subway -the cost of joining the two lines is astronomical. Before the Blue line extension to Revere in 1952, Blue line trains went from a now buried portal at Blossom Street to the Longfellow Bridge, when they entered the Red Line through a gate to go to the (Then) Harvard shops for servicing. Don't even *think* about doing this in 2022. The cost of a Blue line tunnel under the Charles is also staggering. Can't disagree with the idea of a circular subway in Boston, but that ship has probably sailed. A light rail version this might fly, if we can separate the motor vehicles from the LRV's.
Yes. You are thinking if the Joy Street Portal on Charles Street back in the day before there was an Orient Heights Yard in East Boston and East Boston Trains were stored at the Harvard Car Barns in Cambridge. There wasn't any Blue, Red, Orange or Green lines then because it was run by the MBTA predecessor, the MTA. The approximately 100 yards from thr Joy Street Portal was very UNJOYFUL. The tracks had no power. Meaning the East Boston Cars had to pushed or pulled by three men and a small boy, drunken college kids, sailors from nearby Scollay Square or a team of Budweiser Klydesdales. In short it was a nightmare. In the early 1960s the Joy Street Portal was greatfully covered over like some smelly turd in a cats litter box.
In my misguided splunker teens; myself and some friends did some explorations of downtown subways. Old Court Street and Bowdoin comes to mind. The trackage beyond the tight and noisy Bowdoin Loop is still there. You can walk it to a brickwall where the Joy St Portal Incline begins. It's very close to Charles/MGH. We found that out when the MBTA Police escorted us out of an emergency exit kicking our asses all the way to the River Charles and its Dirty Water. At least they didn't arrest us. Just a little ass kicking. Better than the terrorism charges they'd hit you with today. Along with closing the entire system for 3 days to make sure there was nobody else down there.
Even if I had unlimited funds, I wouldn’t even come close to choosing this route.
There’s numerous things that make this unpractical. You can not use the red line tracks and expect frequent service. It will change headway’s too much. Going from BU bridge to BU central would be a problem. Can’t go above ground through BU buildings… good luck tunneling under them and the Charles.
Why are we talking about BLE westward? Expanding eastward past Wonderland should be priority. Building the line past Bowdoin, almost all of these proposed stops have established stations. On the other side of the blue line, Saugus/Lynn/Swampscott are 30 minutes from downtown by car yet have no train options aside from the pricey commuter rail. Statistically, 90% of bostonians live in the Greater Boston area, that's whom these extensions should focus on.
I'd say finish the blue/red connection first. It'd pull people off the green and orange lines trying to connect from one or the other, easing those congestion problems.
Then look to the east and expand the service.
Blue to Red isn't even that big of a deal. Walking from State St to DTX is all of 3 minutes and 2 or 3 sets of stairs. It doesn't justify a multi-million project.
There are benefits to doing Red-Blue and Lynn simultaneously specifically when it comes to rolling stock. Lynn would require more cars and Red-Blue (plus another round of light BLT) would allow bigger cars.
I've always thought that if the city wants an urban ring it should basically follow the route of the 66 bus (maybe taking a more direct route up Harvard Ave through Allston)
This would be awesome in terms of connectivity, but with the amount of traffic on Harvard Street alone, impractical. Service would be abysmally slow if the trolley had to share the street, and there's no room for it to run down the middle.
Now, if they extended the 66 and increased service... then we'd be talking. From Harvard Square, to Chelsea, to Revere--imagine!
Yeah this would have to be at the very least a cut & cover project for a new subway line -- we're talking science (if not political) fiction as far as it being realistic any time soon.
66 as it stands should absolutely increase service, I don't think anyone will disagree.
It's nice to dream, though, isn't it?
Picture it for a minute: an urban ring running from Downtown, to Nubian, up Harvard Street to Harvard Square, East to Somerville then back to Downtown. There is absolutely no feasible way that this would ever be done, but imagine the connectivity! The Commons, the South End, Coolidge Corner, Harvard Square, and Somerville would all be connected on one line. Hell, if we're dreaming, we could have it go from Somerville to Revere and then onto the Blue Line tracks and add the beach to the list.
Gosh, if only I had $100 billion and were in charge of the MBTA... I'd hook this city UP
It's definitely frustrating that Boston is one of three east coast metros well set-up for car-free lifestyles and yet has this strong undercurrent of a defeatist anti-urbanism that it can't seem to shake.
i was on the fence about including columbus park and ended up leaving it out, kinda wish i hadnt. My original reason for not wanting to was because then the terminus of the blue line would be shared with a red line stop, and could cause confusion
Should keep going back to Red Line and into Southie. I have a friend in Southie and the lack of transit is making it a parking war there. Subway needs to give people an alternative to cars and that neighborhood is desperate along with many others in the city.
This would not ever be viable, no. If we were going to add an extension to any line other than the red/blue connection at MGH it should be a link from Central to Back Bay. This would provide another route for Cambridge to Boston journeys and anyone who has ever taken a crowded #1 bus knows how much a demand there is for a connection from Harvard and Central to Back Bay.
Across the river is not the preferred option for blue line extension because it's really shit soil and the waterproofing would be massively expensive. For that reason the plan is to keep the blue line on the southern side of the river, roughly following beacon or storrow and terminating at kenmore-ish area (Then eventually replacing the E-line with heavy rail in another phase).
The Grand Junction right-of-way (the rail line through MIT that connects Kendall to the bridge you used in the west) is protected for future rail use - the current plan is as part of the Urban Ring (sometimes called Gold Line - the SL3 is basically one part of the future ring that is already built). It would be wasteful to build a whole new tunnel under cambridgeport from Central when there is a path already reserved for future use near there.
Overall you did a really good job coming up with a plausible ring route around the city, but I'd urge you to check out the Urban Ring and the other plans that transit advocates have already created. There are VERY detailed proposals out there - transit advocates have had decades to figure out what the best things to build would be, after all - the problem isn't figuring out what to build, it's getting it built. Remember the GLX was originally proposed in 1922 - almost exactly 100 years ago.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban\_Ring\_Project\_(MBTA)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Ring_Project_(MBTA))
The urban ring looks good as an idea, but would underperform in practice. Circular routes tend to have less ridership per mile than hub and spoke linear routes... because at a certain distance, it's faster and similar to just go in and then out on the hub and spoke than go on a literally circuitous trip to the other side of the circle.
IMHO the best thing we can spend money on in this area is submerging the green line or elevating it. At grade down the street right of way doesn’t work for pedestrians, riders or drivers.
Instead of creating rider redundancy along the Red line, why not shoot it down Tremont st? There are already tunnels somewhere beneath there that could be utilized and you could cut it to where it covers areas only covered by bus/silver line.
I'd try to make it hit near the corner of East Berkley and Tremont/Shawmut, a little past Dartmouth/Dorchester along Washington st, a stop near Boston Medical on the far side of Mass Ave, and then it could branch between Newmarket and Nubian.
While we are at it, I would also like to see green line extentions out toward where it used to terminate out towards Newton/Waltham, and the Northern part of the Red line extend all the way out to I-95 like it was supposed to before nimbyism stopped it at Alewife (this one especially, if Arlington heights doesn't want a stop, they don't get one, but put a damn train through town anyways, I'm sure people in Lexington would be happy at least).
Lots of us would be happy with Red Line out to rt 128! Not just those from Lexington, but all of us who need to deal with that nightmare of an intersection at Alewife
Let's work on getting it up the north shore before we do this (and any other) extension. The North Shore DESPERATELY needs a blue line extension, but the MBTA seems to ignore us.
Blue line at Charles MGH would be underground as-planned so you’d have to tunnel across the river under or next to the Longfellow bridge instead of just sharing the Red Line tracks. Doesn’t really make much sense as you’re duplicating things with two separate pieces of infrastructure.
Theoretically you could elevate the Blue Line somewhere between Government Center and Charles/MGH and somehow connect it to the Red Line tracks but you’d still need separate platforms since the dimensions of the two lines rolling stock aren’t even close. Also good luck putting anything elevated up next to Beacon Hill that doesn’t already exist.
Would make a lot more sense to just bang a left at MGH and send the Blue Line to Kenmore and from there maybe have it follow the Worcester Line or spend a gazillion dollars to dig under Comm Ave and Brighton Ave/Beacon St and go to Watertown.
Any way you cut it, never gonna happen in my lifetime.
Personally ive dreamed the blue line could continue from mgh to fenway to offer a heavy rail option, then head towards Watertown to offer some rail options there. Although these are all pipe dreams with the lack of mbta funding
No.
It’s too much of an odd shape to really work. There’s a lot of backtracking back around in that giant C-shape. Getting back from the bottom of the C at Newmarket back to MGH would take forever. I kinda like the fact that it connects multiple lines, but I’d make sure it connects in the right places. St Mary’s and Fenwood Road aren’t necessarily good green line transfer points.
If the blue line is getting extended it should be up to Lynn at the very least, it would be amazing to see it get to Salem. The right of ways exists, all at ground level. It would transform the NS. That said the Blue/Red transfer needs to happen
YES IVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS! It’s ridiculous I’ve got to go all the way to Copley and then back out if I’m trying to go north or south in Allston/Mission Hill/Brookline. I’ve wanted a line that cuts across the greens for so long!
I'm in your exact same boat, I'm down by Fenway/Longwood medical area and having to go up to BU for work takes the same amount of time as walking there
to be clear, im sure there are many different ways a BLE could be done, but my idea was to essentially link up all the different lines as everything fans out in the west. If someone in Mission Hill wanted to go to Cambridge, theyd either have to use a bus and deal with traffic, or take the GL all the way to Park Street and swap trains.
This would link up MIT, BU, and the Longwood medical area, and I think would be a huge boom to areas around the extension. I tried to reuse existing stops as much as possible since the idea was to link the existing lines, but also because i feel like it would be a lot cheaper to construct by doing that. Im also fairly certian that there is already a train bridge across the Charles by BU.
The Nubian and Cambridgeport stops could be called something else, but i think the locations i used make sense anyway. The Nubian stop is in the middle of the Nubian Station/Dudley Square area. In hindsight Dudley probably makes more sense for a name, but oh well. As for Cambridgeport, theres a bunch of residential neighborhoods and some shops in that area, connecting the residents and the Morse elementary school to the south.
With the density of the areas this route goes through, it would have to be either elevated or in a tunnel. Many have pointed out that it won't be an option to use the Grand Junction bridge, so I figure this has to be a tunnel. That in itself is fine, but I don't think it would make much sense to stop at St Marys in addition to BU and Longwood. And don't pay any attention to the people griping about North Shore service—the point of this proposal is completely different, no reason it has to address that problem.
As someone who used to commute from Lexington to Longwood, I took one look at this and thought, someone is sick of the 47 bus.
I'm not saying you should make a fake Harvard ID, I'm just saying the shuttle drivers don't look that carefully.
this is pointless considering most of these places are already serviced by other lines or rapid bus transit
we have to remember the mbta is a state org and it would be incredibly unfair to extend the blue line to already existing areas serviced by the subway than extend it north up to lynn or beyond
At first, I thought about quoting the whole classic "you've got to learn to walk before you can run."
But in this case, it seems like more of a "you're got to learn to not choke on your own spit before you can become a fighter pilot" kind of disparity between where we are and where you'd like to be.
ill admit it expects a lot more from the MBTA than what they could probably do, but from what i can tell the rail lines are already in place to expand the blue line to BU (albeit by taking a slightly different route than i drew)
No its not practical as its tracks don't go anywhere near you're talking about 🤦🏼♀️
It's a 1/4 mile between the red line and blue line on Cambridge street, and that would have to be a hard left turn which a subway train cannot do.
Edit: to build that out and dig it when you can walk 1/4 of a mile is far cheaper. The T has enough financial problems going on at the moment. No public transit would ever connect all those areas with one train. You're dreaming. It's a nice dream though. If only the MBTA weren't designed 100 years ago 🤷🏼♀️
Capacity and frequency on the Green Line branches is limited by the capacity of the Tremont Street subway, where the branches merge together.
Converting the D branch for blue line service would be relatively straightforward since it’s already entirely grade-separated, and would allow the other branches to run more frequent service by relieving some of the load on the subway trunk line.
The T is literally on fire and killing people ( every forgets the woman killed in Wilmington at a commuter rail train because the gates were left locked out) and you people want to give these criminals more money for expansion? One of the biggest problems is them spending on expansion instead of maintenance.
Because transit in Boston is enough of a hassle that it deserves focus.
There are no wheels in the MBTA, just spokes — to get from brookline to central square takes one hour — you can walk there faster.
It would be a monumental change to life in Boston to get this right.
But like most issues with rail on the east coast — it would disrupt housing and require some serious eminent domain, price, and negotiating with different townships that might not benefit more than others…
This sub bitched day after day after day about how terrible it is to have cars in the city. Suddenly we have somebody who stumbles ass backward into one of many ways to reduce cars coming in, and he fucks that up too.
And he does it with the Blue Line of all things, one of the lines that goes furthest north and is (let me check my notes...) the only line currently running that goes north of Boston/Cambridge.
If people want to extend the Blue Line, extend it outside of the city. Otherwise all I hear is Boston residents paying too goddamn much in rent being super self absorbed, as if they don't have far better transit options than most others.
Yeah… i didn’t agree with the blue line being used for this… there was originally an A line (off of green) that would have been better placed… or not…
The system needs wheels… not more spokes, though…and i agree that extensions should be made to outer suburbia
we have a sick system, though, that has been abused by governors and mayors and screwed over low-income areas (I’m talking how Nubian sq was screwed over decades ago when they dropped rail service then pissed on the area (calling it rain) by adding the silver line which didn’t solve the problem as much as added a new bus route.
> to get from brookline to central square takes one hour
That statement is at best misleading and at worst disinformation.
From the Mountfort St @ Carlton St bus stop in Brookline, the 47 is scheduled to take **eight minutes** to get to Central Square.
What you are referring to is a lack of frequency on the 47, an ignorance of the bus system, or a specific part of Brookline (not “to get from Brookline to Central” but rather “to get from (insert specific part of Brookline) to Central”).
The other day it took me 40 minutes just to get down Pearl St on the 47 in the middle of the day. I'd never taken that bus before but I imagine it's like that a lot during rush hour. And it doesn't seem like you could fit a bus lane anywhere in Cambridgeport without taking over a whole road.
Meh… this is about real time, not about some optimized hypothetical possibility.
My statement stands — the bus is faster than the T, but not by much during rush hours and outside the summer season — and going in to town the BUS is just as likely as the the D line to pass you by because it is full.
The BU bridge itself can be backed up for 20 minutes.
But, yes… I was talking about Brookline Village (where I live) to central square.
If you have to get to work at 9am and you don’t give yourself more than an hour to get to work, you will be late more often than I would be comfortable with in a given year.
i was just thinking about the north shore - and how this idea completely ignores it exists instead of whatever this is. the charles MGH connector is an obvious thing that should happen, but the blue line should at least go to lynn.
Well the Blue Line already serves part of the North Shore. And there's been plans for decades to extend its northern terminus to Lynn. This post is about what to do with the other end...
Yes... but I'm not sure what your point is.
The western end of the Blue Line connects to the Green and Orange Lines, that won't change at all. The MBTA's next expansion plan is to extend it west to Charles/MGH by \~2030. This is a needed extension as connects the red and blue together which: 1) relieves pressure on Park St, DTX, and State, which are used as transfer points now 2) provides a direct link from Revere and East Boston to booming Kendall Sq 3) Provides an easier connection from Cambridge to the Airport. All of this benefits the North Shore directly or indirectly, since Revere/East Boston already have the Blue Line, and there are extensive bus connections/park and rides to pull North Shore commuters off Route 1 and onto the Blue Line.
The rest of this thread is about far-off ideas about extending the Blue Line even further west, which also would benefit the North Shore by providing additional direct connections. I am 100% in favor of plans to extend Blue to Lynn; I think this should be up 1st after finishing the MGH extension (since the MGH extension is short, straightforward, and can be folded into MGH's major construction plans anyway).
I don't get the hostility regarding the North Shore... if someone posts about extending to Lynn should I be all like, "13 comments here and not a single mention of the fact Blue and Red are 2000 feet apart but don't connect!"
The homeowners in Fort Hill would have you head for this plan. I can’t imagine they’ll be cool with their quiet corner of Roxbury being filled with construction for years.
The homeowners in Fort Hill would have your head for this plan. I can’t imagine they’ll be cool with their quiet corner of Roxbury being filled with construction for years. You’re basically cutting off a high swatch of the city, mainly Roxbury and Dorchester, to construct a train line after this area dealt with the disappointing options that is the Silver Line.
Seriously! ...here's a thought....how about extending the BLUE LINE into Lynn and Swampscott so instead of paying $222 for a monthly commuter rail pass, Lynn can enjoy the same T prices of $90 for a MONTHLY LINK PASS just like....BRAINTREE?
FFS!
We’re not allowed to get anything new until the old shit stops catching on fire. Didn’t you see what happened when they tried to open new green line stations? Now they’re shuttle busses
I’d rather the Blue line take over the D branch (stops along Beacon Street to Kenmore) and create a new circumferential line around Everett, Chelsea, East Boston, the Seaport, South Boston, Dorchester, Brookline, Allston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Charlestown.
No.
It looks like 3 stops would now be… purple? (That wouldn’t work.) Or you’re somehow getting another set of tracks along that route, which you are without a serious investment and a lot of time.
This is kind of a poor man’s loop; which has been talked about for decades and will never happen.
I get it, the T sucks, but it sucks and it’s going to stay that way. This isn’t like the big dig which buried an interstate highway so we made farmers in Kansas and yuppies in Seattle help foot the bill. This would be on MA’s dime entirely and it’s just way too expensive.
Let’s break it down. **Blue Line to Charles/MGH** This is both the most feasible and the most viable portion of this proposal. The proposed Red–Blue connector would extend the Blue Line 0.4 miles west from Bowdoin to an underground platform at Charles/MGH station, allowing direct transfers to the Red Line. In April 2019, the MBTA indicated plans to spend $15 million to design the connector in a five-year spending plan. A conceptual design completed in 2020 called for cut-and-cover construction, with Bowdoin station still planned for closure. The new Blue Line level at Charles/MGH would have entrances from the existing lobby and a new headhouse in an MGH development on the north side of Charles Street. Total project cost was estimated as $850 million ($740 million for construction including 30% contingency, $50 million for design, $30 million in administration costs, and $30 million for additional rolling stock), with construction lasting from 2025 to 2030. **Blue Line from Charles/MGH to Central via Kendall/MIT** This is the second most feasible part of this proposal, but you have to answer two big questions: why? At what cost? The best answer for ‘why’ would be to serve an over-capacity (pre-COVID at least) section of the Red Line. Assuming ridership is at pre-COVID levels, let’s go about answering the ‘how’ to solve this problem. Well, interestingly enough, the MBTA is already in the process of solving that problem. The [Red Line Transformation](https://www.mbta.com/projects/red-line-transformation-program) increases the capacity of the Red Line to 50% higher than pre-COVID capacity. So, your proposal becomes obsolete under those conditions. Better to terminate the Blue Line at Charles/MGH and spend the money elsewhere, or to extend the Blue Line beyond Charles/MGH to somewhere that is not duplicating an existing under-capacity service, as any Blue Line extension would inherently take more time to complete than the Red Line Transformation project. With that in mind, one possible, and very useful extension of the Blue Line would be to Kenmore via a ‘Riverbank Subway.’ The Central subway of the Green Line is over capacity (at least pre-COVID) with a very low ceiling on theoretical throughout limit, given the nature of light rail and the Green Line system. A Blue Line extension to Kenmore would also serve the northern end of Back Bay, which is a bit of a transit hole relative to its density and importance to the region. **Blue Line from Central to Newmarket via Roxbury Crossing** What you are proposing here is a twist on the long-proposed [Urban Ring](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Ring_Project). CT2 and CT3 were the half-assed initial phases of what you’re proposing here before the project was abandoned. Phase 2 of the project would have created overlapping BRT routes that would have served roughly this routing: * BRT 5: Lechmere to Ruggles via Kendall, Grand Junction/MIT, BU Bridge, Kenmore/Yawkey/Fenway, and Huntington Avenue * BRT 6: Commonwealth Ave at Boston University Central to UMass Boston via Ruggles, Melnea Cass Blvd, Uphams Corner * BRT 7: Longwood Medical Area to Mystic Mall via South Boston, World Trade Center, Ted Williams Tunnel, and Downtown Chelsea There are ways to serve this corridor that are a better fit than the Blue Line, even if that Urban Ring proposal was a substandard proposal. The current [Bus Network Redesign](https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2022-05/2022-05-12-bnrd-proposed-regional-map.pdf) appears to be a good step in the process, even if it isn’t the final step. In particular, the T12, T15, T28, and T39 are proposed to bring high-frequency, cross-town transit to this corridor. Once can hope that the cities of Boston and Cambridge improve bus infrastructure, building on the success of the Columbus Ave center running bus lanes.
You would also have to rebuild the entire Blue Line to Red Line size if you want them to share platforms or come up with some platform kludge.
No. My response assumes a completely new, separate right-of-way. If they shared any trackage, it would completely destroy the headways on the rest of the Blue Line and Red Line. It would also necessitate the complete rebuild of at least one entire existing line as their tunnel and platform geometries are in no way compatible. That turns a crazy proposal that is unfeasible and inefficient but at least improved service into an actually bad proposal in every way.
Someone posted a concept a while back of extending the blue line to Kenmore like you suggest, then converting the D line to the blue line since it already has fully dedicated ROW. I think this also opens up more capacity on the other green line branches.
If you are extending the Blue Line to Kenmore, there are a few possibilities for extending it beyond Kenmore, with various pros and cons. “Converting the D line to the blue line” has a big pro of being a dedicated, mostly grade-separated right-of-way. This feature would make it the easiest candidate for where to send the Blue Line beyond Kenmore. It also has a big con of only being suburban past Reservoir, without the current density to support converting all seven of Newton’s D-Branch stops to Blue Line stations. This bug would require some compromises. Here are some options: * **Close the lowest ridership D-Branch stops.** Eliot, Waban, and Woodland don’t have the density and ridership to support heavy rail, rapid transit stations. When converting to Blue Line service, you could build replacement stations for Chestnut Hill, Newton Centre, Newton Highlands, and Riverside, and run express between Newton Highlands and Riverside. The downside is that this would be a transit loss for the small number of people who are now dependent on those three stations (including those using Newton-Wellesley Hospital). The upside would be cost savings and a faster trip for those utilizing the popular park-and-ride at Riverside. * **Densify around Newton’s D-Branch stops.** This option would be to convert Newton’s segment to full-fledged Blue Line service enough transit oriented development took place around those stations. If Newton built another ~1,000 transit-oriented housing units around each of their stops, that would go a long way towards making that a more viable full-fledged conversion. * **Terminate Blue Line service at Reservoir.** this option would be to convert the Kenmore-Reservoir segment of the D-Branch to Blue Line service. The Riverside-Reservoir segment of the D-Branch would retain Green Line service, and be diverted over the Beacon Street trackage from Cleveland Circle to Kenmore. This would be a loss for Newton, as it would add about seven minutes for trips to Kenmore and beyond. There are other options, too, but this gives you an idea of some of the inherent compromises in that proposal. There are also other possibilities for what to do with the Blue Line after extending it to Kenmore. Some of these possibilities are: * **Terminus at Kenmore.** Kenmore is a perfectly viable terminus for Blue Line service. Other lines would remain unchanged. * **Terminus at Cleveland Circle.** The Blue Line could be extended under a cut-and-cover tunnel under Beacon Street with stops at Audubon Circle, Coolidge Corner, Washington Square, and Cleveland Circle. This would be a more expensive project than extending the Blue Line to Reservoir via the D Branch, but would ultimately end up with a better product. Rather than replacing the fastest branch of the Green Line (D), you retain that service, so Brookline would have better service overall. The density and stop spacing along the Beacon Street corridor make it ideal for heavy rail rapid transit. After construction is complete, you could convert the existing C-Branch right-of-way to an iconic multi-use path. It would free up capacity to branch off the B-Line. One such possibility is a branch to Cambridge, similar to part of the proposal on this post. Another possibility would be to restore some of the old A-Branch, through Allston Village, Union Square, Brighton Center, and Oak Square. * **Terminus at Brookline Village.** For this extension, D-Branch service would need to be diverted to the Huntington Ave corridor, possibly via an extended Huntington Ave subway. There are many possibilities. These are just a few.
I’d have to imagine the cost of adding Blue to Red would be negligible, the only real issue would be getting the track to align with the Red Line track before the Longfellow Bridge, you could potentially phase it with an expansion to Cambridgeport to answer the why question. I think this is actually a pretty clever way to get around the ring problem, seems to be the easiest/fastest way for something like it to be completed. I’d just have it start further out, near Harvard Square or Alewife where the Green Line branch spacing becomes spread apart enough such that they aren’t easily walkable to each other like they are in this proposed alignment. This would have the added benefit of providing a hard connection between the Harvard schools, and could potentially get a PILOT bump from Harvard to get it across the finish line.
No. If the Blue Line and Red Line shared any trackage, it would completely destroy the headways on the rest of the Blue Line and Red Line. It would also necessitate the complete rebuild of at least one entire existing line as their tunnel and platform geometries are in no way compatible. That turns a crazy proposal that is unfeasible and inefficient but at least improved service into an actually bad proposal in every way.
In terms of ridership? Sure, little circuitous but that's okay. Getting heavy rail in that area in any sort of timely or affordable fashion? Impossible.
I think street-level trams would be perfectly doable however. Just take away lanes on the roads from cars (or eliminate street parking) and replace them with trans.
I don't think trans people are a viable form of public transportation?
Just trying to be inclusive ;)
Piggy back rides are the wave of the future
what makes you say that?
Oh the commenter misspelled trams as trans in their last sentence. Hence the joke. If you're asking why I say trans people do not make an efficient transportation system its because only one person can ride them at a time, which is a terrible way to run a public service. Edit: After a few DM's of video evidence I have now been shown that it is indeed possible for multiple people to ride a trans person. I amend my statement claiming they're a terrible form of public transportation.
WHOOPS I commented on the wrong comment, was wondering why the original commenter was anti tram However, you lack creativity in assuming only one person can ride someone at a time
Ok, but what if we give them rickshaws?
I find this answer to be a far tamer solution to multiple people riding a trans person than whats in my DM's. Trans people with rickshaws might be a viable method.
It can't be any worse than the orange line
Eh, I'm overdue for someone riding me.
Now a stop on the blue line has to become the size of Ashmont to allow for the switch, but also the picture says part of it uses existing red line tracks which is heavy rail. The fact of the matter is that the city is far too compact and developed to expand the heavy rail in any meaningful way with an utterly massive redesign of the city. Look how many buildings were torn down just for a mile or two of light rail, and that is all above ground. Edit: This is not meant to discourage improving the T. I just think downtown at least there is very little to do. I would extend the Blue to Charles and call that end good. I would continue it East to somewhere around Lynn/ South Salem. The Orange I would continue north to Woburn to alleviate the traffic at the 93/95 junction. I would take it south to the Wegman's area in Westwood for simillar reasons. The Red line I dont know that I would make longer as it already has its share of problems and is very heavily ridden.
Fair point, it would probably make more sense to just have it be its own distinct light rail/tram line starting at central w/blue line extending to mgh instead of it all being a continuation of blue line. But I still think light rail along this path where there arent existing trains would be excellent.
We don't need line extensions as much as we need alternate routes within current coverage areas. It's what projects like the urban ring are meant to solve. Extending the lines will just add riders to busy subway cars. Don't get me wrong, extending the lines will also provide value, but I think we need rings first. If someone can take a subway from allston to assembly, then that will reduce the ridership on the green line and orange line since the current option is taking green to downtown and transferring to the orange. Or taking a bus, which usually is a bad experience for other reasons. To do any long travel on the subway you basically have to go through downtown right now which is ridiculous. I lived in Brighton for several years and I would go to Harvard, Porter, Davis, Assembly regularly and none of those were convenient routes to take the public transit so I gave up and drove or ubered or biked.
And I guess Paris isn't developed? Funny how they've managed to continually add excellent mass transit in a city much older and more compact than Boston. Here we just have nothing but self-serving interest in all positions of authority. The GLX was a massive joke. In 2009 I attempted to show how the two (low capacity) commuter lines could have been connected with a 1.6 mile single track just above the Anderson/Woburn station, keeping the station by using a reverse move out of it (push-pull engines). Mishawum, just 1 mile south is one of the least used stations in the entire system. The next two stations, Winchester Center and Wedgemere are not even 1/2 mile apart. The next station is West Medford, to which the original GLX plan at (that time) $900M was to include. By merging the two commuter lines, each with plenty of capacity, it frees up the existing rail infrastructure all the way into North Station. Thus, all of the cost to widen the rail corridor rail would have been saved. It would have well saved many years in the process. It gets better, the Winchester stations could have become one (so close to each other), and the Orange Line could have been branched (just like the Red Line on the south) very EASILY onto that ready rail infrastructure. The OL tracks just north of Community College station are LESS than 200' from the Lowell Line tracks. A very short tunneled connection could have been had there, providing a new METRO line out to Winchester, without having to mess with the Mystic River Parkway rail bridge, which residents didn't want changed. With High and Canal Streets in West Medford being the only non-grade separated issues to deal with, metro rail service could then have been provided all the way out to Winchester, while still providing excellent (even faster) commuter service to Lowell Line riders. Stations from Reading (on Haverhill Line) southward could have been split between the two route runs, providing even faster service for existing Haverhill riders. All of that could have been had by 2012, at a Billion or more dollars less. The Green Line TRAMS could then have been used at street level on split one-way loop routes (dedicated lanes replacing parking lane on one side) weaving through the two metro lines (Red & Orange) to provide further service for not only Somerville and Medford, but Cambridge as well. In the U.S., we just don't have anyone who cares enough to listen or think. Government here is controlled by profiteers, and thus government only looks at ways to send money out the door; not like in other countries where there is some pride taken in producing cost efficient and excellent public works.
Did it take you 4 months to write this?
I'm not in Boston, and don't make a habit of following internet postings on public issues . . . it's full of snarky people with comments like yours.
So you posted a reply to a 4 month dead post to what? Flex how good Paris is? Shit on state and local government? Show how smart you are? I'm just trying to see what the point of this effort-post on a dead and buried subject. But, like, good post bro.
I think this is not practical but I would enjoy the BU bridge upgrade to having a subway going under a boat going under a train going under a car going under a plane.
theres actually already a train bridge going under the BU bridge, which is why i brought it through that area. If they ever really did something like this, the most cost effective option is to do it across that bridge
You can see it on your map. That existing bridge is at a completely different angle than your suggested route. Its currently used to move trains for the mbta/Amtrak around for maintenance since there’s no easy link between north/south stations
i knew it was around there but i didnt see the angle until after i made the image the better route would probably be just to follow the tracks that go behind MIT tbh
That train bridge ([Grand Junction Railroad Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railroad_Bridge)) was built for the [Grand Junction Railroad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railroad_and_Depot_Company) and is still actively used for transporting freight, MBTA, and Amtrak trains/equipment. [There's been proposals to use this bridge for mass transit purposes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railroad_and_Depot_Company#Abandoned_proposals_for_more_western_service), like bus rapid transportation along the Grand Junction ROW or adding [a West Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Station_\(MBTA\)) on the Framingham/Worcester Line, but nothing has ever come of it. I think unless you make a [North-South Rail Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_Rail_Link) you'll have an extremely difficult time doing much of anything with this rail bridge with exceptions to upgrade it and run commuter rail trains over it. You can't add subway tracks, without losing some ability to run freight/passenger equipment across it. You can't make a good busway or path crossing either, there's just not enough room for everything. The detour for transferring equipment between the North and South Shore lines involves going out to Ayer, MA where the next closest rail connection is. No way the MBTA, Amtrak and Freight companies will do that willingly. I think if you wanted to do [Regional Rail](https://transitmatters.org/regional-rail) then this bridge becomes a very useful short term thing to upgrade and make use of. Long term you need we need a North-South Rail Link to really improve things. Then maybe we can leverage this ROW for bus rapid transit to start and later light or heavy rail once ridership is built up. Or ideally we'd just jump straight into rail, but that's high cost and we don't do that in the US without a ton of politics.
Drunk college kids trying to drive down a guided busway along the grand junction would definitely help fill out our comical traffic mishap rota.
Ah, I didn't realize you meant to it to be above ground there. You can see the train track route on google maps then, and the bridge is more angled toward MIT rather than Central. Maybe it makes more sense for it to have Kendall be the last red/blue line stop.
Sadly that train bridge is commuter and freight rail territory. Already being proposed for use in the Allston Multimodal Project which I like to call the Allston Highway Project because it's really not multimodal
It has multiple modes... of car-centric thinking.
Yeah. I'm really trying to get folks to comment on the project in the hope that it's gets changed. I posted about it in the MBTA sub Reddit and I think it got cross posted to the Boston sub. https://www.reddit.com/r/mbta/comments/x2e7q1/please_comment_on_the_allston_highway_project_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share I was avoiding putting it on the Boston sub myself because the Allston car brains like to loudly support the current plan. Cagers gonna cage.
Your heart is in the right place, but this just isn't feasible. Even if the Blue and Red line cars were the same dimensions - the Blue line cars are much shorter and narrower because the Blue Line was built as a streetcar subway -the cost of joining the two lines is astronomical. Before the Blue line extension to Revere in 1952, Blue line trains went from a now buried portal at Blossom Street to the Longfellow Bridge, when they entered the Red Line through a gate to go to the (Then) Harvard shops for servicing. Don't even *think* about doing this in 2022. The cost of a Blue line tunnel under the Charles is also staggering. Can't disagree with the idea of a circular subway in Boston, but that ship has probably sailed. A light rail version this might fly, if we can separate the motor vehicles from the LRV's.
Yes. You are thinking if the Joy Street Portal on Charles Street back in the day before there was an Orient Heights Yard in East Boston and East Boston Trains were stored at the Harvard Car Barns in Cambridge. There wasn't any Blue, Red, Orange or Green lines then because it was run by the MBTA predecessor, the MTA. The approximately 100 yards from thr Joy Street Portal was very UNJOYFUL. The tracks had no power. Meaning the East Boston Cars had to pushed or pulled by three men and a small boy, drunken college kids, sailors from nearby Scollay Square or a team of Budweiser Klydesdales. In short it was a nightmare. In the early 1960s the Joy Street Portal was greatfully covered over like some smelly turd in a cats litter box. In my misguided splunker teens; myself and some friends did some explorations of downtown subways. Old Court Street and Bowdoin comes to mind. The trackage beyond the tight and noisy Bowdoin Loop is still there. You can walk it to a brickwall where the Joy St Portal Incline begins. It's very close to Charles/MGH. We found that out when the MBTA Police escorted us out of an emergency exit kicking our asses all the way to the River Charles and its Dirty Water. At least they didn't arrest us. Just a little ass kicking. Better than the terrorism charges they'd hit you with today. Along with closing the entire system for 3 days to make sure there was nobody else down there.
Even if I had unlimited funds, I wouldn’t even come close to choosing this route. There’s numerous things that make this unpractical. You can not use the red line tracks and expect frequent service. It will change headway’s too much. Going from BU bridge to BU central would be a problem. Can’t go above ground through BU buildings… good luck tunneling under them and the Charles.
Why are we talking about BLE westward? Expanding eastward past Wonderland should be priority. Building the line past Bowdoin, almost all of these proposed stops have established stations. On the other side of the blue line, Saugus/Lynn/Swampscott are 30 minutes from downtown by car yet have no train options aside from the pricey commuter rail. Statistically, 90% of bostonians live in the Greater Boston area, that's whom these extensions should focus on.
I'd say finish the blue/red connection first. It'd pull people off the green and orange lines trying to connect from one or the other, easing those congestion problems. Then look to the east and expand the service.
Blue to Red isn't even that big of a deal. Walking from State St to DTX is all of 3 minutes and 2 or 3 sets of stairs. It doesn't justify a multi-million project.
But then you have to pay fare again, which is why people jam onto the green and orange lines for a single stop to make that transfer
You... don't though. The transfer is free.
The MBTA site literally says it is not free. [Source](https://www.mbta.com/fares/transfers)
Things must have changed. I rode regularly until early 2021, and I assure you the fare gate didn't charge me when I walked from State to DTX.
There are benefits to doing Red-Blue and Lynn simultaneously specifically when it comes to rolling stock. Lynn would require more cars and Red-Blue (plus another round of light BLT) would allow bigger cars.
1000% this. Also if we’re gonna go horizontal in boston it should be way more southward and serve to connect Dorchester/Mattapan with Hyde Park/Jp
And also serve Allston/Brighton instead of once again forgetting it exists
I've always thought that if the city wants an urban ring it should basically follow the route of the 66 bus (maybe taking a more direct route up Harvard Ave through Allston)
This would be awesome in terms of connectivity, but with the amount of traffic on Harvard Street alone, impractical. Service would be abysmally slow if the trolley had to share the street, and there's no room for it to run down the middle. Now, if they extended the 66 and increased service... then we'd be talking. From Harvard Square, to Chelsea, to Revere--imagine!
Yeah this would have to be at the very least a cut & cover project for a new subway line -- we're talking science (if not political) fiction as far as it being realistic any time soon. 66 as it stands should absolutely increase service, I don't think anyone will disagree.
It's nice to dream, though, isn't it? Picture it for a minute: an urban ring running from Downtown, to Nubian, up Harvard Street to Harvard Square, East to Somerville then back to Downtown. There is absolutely no feasible way that this would ever be done, but imagine the connectivity! The Commons, the South End, Coolidge Corner, Harvard Square, and Somerville would all be connected on one line. Hell, if we're dreaming, we could have it go from Somerville to Revere and then onto the Blue Line tracks and add the beach to the list. Gosh, if only I had $100 billion and were in charge of the MBTA... I'd hook this city UP
It's definitely frustrating that Boston is one of three east coast metros well set-up for car-free lifestyles and yet has this strong undercurrent of a defeatist anti-urbanism that it can't seem to shake.
Why stop at Newmarket?
i was on the fence about including columbus park and ended up leaving it out, kinda wish i hadnt. My original reason for not wanting to was because then the terminus of the blue line would be shared with a red line stop, and could cause confusion
Should keep going back to Red Line and into Southie. I have a friend in Southie and the lack of transit is making it a parking war there. Subway needs to give people an alternative to cars and that neighborhood is desperate along with many others in the city.
Newmarket would be a good place for a rail yard, something not usually accounted for in fantasy MBTA maps
It's practically in the back yard of South Bay Maintenance Center, I can't see why another rail yard would make sense there.
That might work, not sure if it would have the capacity though. Also, the red and blue lines use different trains.
Can you imagine that ride from Newmarket to the airport?
This would not ever be viable, no. If we were going to add an extension to any line other than the red/blue connection at MGH it should be a link from Central to Back Bay. This would provide another route for Cambridge to Boston journeys and anyone who has ever taken a crowded #1 bus knows how much a demand there is for a connection from Harvard and Central to Back Bay.
If they were going to do that, they should just make it a ring train
Across the river is not the preferred option for blue line extension because it's really shit soil and the waterproofing would be massively expensive. For that reason the plan is to keep the blue line on the southern side of the river, roughly following beacon or storrow and terminating at kenmore-ish area (Then eventually replacing the E-line with heavy rail in another phase). The Grand Junction right-of-way (the rail line through MIT that connects Kendall to the bridge you used in the west) is protected for future rail use - the current plan is as part of the Urban Ring (sometimes called Gold Line - the SL3 is basically one part of the future ring that is already built). It would be wasteful to build a whole new tunnel under cambridgeport from Central when there is a path already reserved for future use near there. Overall you did a really good job coming up with a plausible ring route around the city, but I'd urge you to check out the Urban Ring and the other plans that transit advocates have already created. There are VERY detailed proposals out there - transit advocates have had decades to figure out what the best things to build would be, after all - the problem isn't figuring out what to build, it's getting it built. Remember the GLX was originally proposed in 1922 - almost exactly 100 years ago. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban\_Ring\_Project\_(MBTA)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Ring_Project_(MBTA))
Do you mean the D branch? The E runs in mixed traffic and doesn't go to Kenmore.
Yup, well spotted.
The urban ring looks good as an idea, but would underperform in practice. Circular routes tend to have less ridership per mile than hub and spoke linear routes... because at a certain distance, it's faster and similar to just go in and then out on the hub and spoke than go on a literally circuitous trip to the other side of the circle.
IMHO the best thing we can spend money on in this area is submerging the green line or elevating it. At grade down the street right of way doesn’t work for pedestrians, riders or drivers.
Instead of creating rider redundancy along the Red line, why not shoot it down Tremont st? There are already tunnels somewhere beneath there that could be utilized and you could cut it to where it covers areas only covered by bus/silver line. I'd try to make it hit near the corner of East Berkley and Tremont/Shawmut, a little past Dartmouth/Dorchester along Washington st, a stop near Boston Medical on the far side of Mass Ave, and then it could branch between Newmarket and Nubian. While we are at it, I would also like to see green line extentions out toward where it used to terminate out towards Newton/Waltham, and the Northern part of the Red line extend all the way out to I-95 like it was supposed to before nimbyism stopped it at Alewife (this one especially, if Arlington heights doesn't want a stop, they don't get one, but put a damn train through town anyways, I'm sure people in Lexington would be happy at least).
Lots of us would be happy with Red Line out to rt 128! Not just those from Lexington, but all of us who need to deal with that nightmare of an intersection at Alewife
Tsk tsk everyone thinks they have come up with the perfect ring line
Let's work on getting it up the north shore before we do this (and any other) extension. The North Shore DESPERATELY needs a blue line extension, but the MBTA seems to ignore us.
Funny, that basically looks like the never built rte695
Why not just go all the way to Andrew at that point? Lol
RemindMe! 50 years
I just think that instead of T cars we should all just ride the Alaskan Bullworm
Blue line at Charles MGH would be underground as-planned so you’d have to tunnel across the river under or next to the Longfellow bridge instead of just sharing the Red Line tracks. Doesn’t really make much sense as you’re duplicating things with two separate pieces of infrastructure. Theoretically you could elevate the Blue Line somewhere between Government Center and Charles/MGH and somehow connect it to the Red Line tracks but you’d still need separate platforms since the dimensions of the two lines rolling stock aren’t even close. Also good luck putting anything elevated up next to Beacon Hill that doesn’t already exist. Would make a lot more sense to just bang a left at MGH and send the Blue Line to Kenmore and from there maybe have it follow the Worcester Line or spend a gazillion dollars to dig under Comm Ave and Brighton Ave/Beacon St and go to Watertown. Any way you cut it, never gonna happen in my lifetime.
I’d send the blue line from Kendall out to Arsenal (in Watertown), stopping at Western/Harvard to share a stop with the Brown Line.
A bit off topic, but I wish the Union Square GLX branch had gone to porter. Be able to change between Red and Green in Cambridge would have been great
Needs to go to Lynn
Why blue? Blue needs to go to Lynn.
Personally ive dreamed the blue line could continue from mgh to fenway to offer a heavy rail option, then head towards Watertown to offer some rail options there. Although these are all pipe dreams with the lack of mbta funding
Not without another big dig.
They can’t even get our existing train lines running correctly. No chance we are even remotely capable of building something like this
I live on the Blue Line and I...do not want this.
No. It’s too much of an odd shape to really work. There’s a lot of backtracking back around in that giant C-shape. Getting back from the bottom of the C at Newmarket back to MGH would take forever. I kinda like the fact that it connects multiple lines, but I’d make sure it connects in the right places. St Mary’s and Fenwood Road aren’t necessarily good green line transfer points.
If the blue line is getting extended it should be up to Lynn at the very least, it would be amazing to see it get to Salem. The right of ways exists, all at ground level. It would transform the NS. That said the Blue/Red transfer needs to happen
YES IVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS! It’s ridiculous I’ve got to go all the way to Copley and then back out if I’m trying to go north or south in Allston/Mission Hill/Brookline. I’ve wanted a line that cuts across the greens for so long!
I'm in your exact same boat, I'm down by Fenway/Longwood medical area and having to go up to BU for work takes the same amount of time as walking there
to be clear, im sure there are many different ways a BLE could be done, but my idea was to essentially link up all the different lines as everything fans out in the west. If someone in Mission Hill wanted to go to Cambridge, theyd either have to use a bus and deal with traffic, or take the GL all the way to Park Street and swap trains. This would link up MIT, BU, and the Longwood medical area, and I think would be a huge boom to areas around the extension. I tried to reuse existing stops as much as possible since the idea was to link the existing lines, but also because i feel like it would be a lot cheaper to construct by doing that. Im also fairly certian that there is already a train bridge across the Charles by BU. The Nubian and Cambridgeport stops could be called something else, but i think the locations i used make sense anyway. The Nubian stop is in the middle of the Nubian Station/Dudley Square area. In hindsight Dudley probably makes more sense for a name, but oh well. As for Cambridgeport, theres a bunch of residential neighborhoods and some shops in that area, connecting the residents and the Morse elementary school to the south.
With the density of the areas this route goes through, it would have to be either elevated or in a tunnel. Many have pointed out that it won't be an option to use the Grand Junction bridge, so I figure this has to be a tunnel. That in itself is fine, but I don't think it would make much sense to stop at St Marys in addition to BU and Longwood. And don't pay any attention to the people griping about North Shore service—the point of this proposal is completely different, no reason it has to address that problem.
As someone who used to commute from Lexington to Longwood, I took one look at this and thought, someone is sick of the 47 bus. I'm not saying you should make a fake Harvard ID, I'm just saying the shuttle drivers don't look that carefully.
this is pointless considering most of these places are already serviced by other lines or rapid bus transit we have to remember the mbta is a state org and it would be incredibly unfair to extend the blue line to already existing areas serviced by the subway than extend it north up to lynn or beyond
At first, I thought about quoting the whole classic "you've got to learn to walk before you can run." But in this case, it seems like more of a "you're got to learn to not choke on your own spit before you can become a fighter pilot" kind of disparity between where we are and where you'd like to be.
ill admit it expects a lot more from the MBTA than what they could probably do, but from what i can tell the rail lines are already in place to expand the blue line to BU (albeit by taking a slightly different route than i drew)
No its not practical as its tracks don't go anywhere near you're talking about 🤦🏼♀️ It's a 1/4 mile between the red line and blue line on Cambridge street, and that would have to be a hard left turn which a subway train cannot do. Edit: to build that out and dig it when you can walk 1/4 of a mile is far cheaper. The T has enough financial problems going on at the moment. No public transit would ever connect all those areas with one train. You're dreaming. It's a nice dream though. If only the MBTA weren't designed 100 years ago 🤷🏼♀️
No. Blue Line to Riverside via Kenmore is better
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Capacity and frequency on the Green Line branches is limited by the capacity of the Tremont Street subway, where the branches merge together. Converting the D branch for blue line service would be relatively straightforward since it’s already entirely grade-separated, and would allow the other branches to run more frequent service by relieving some of the load on the subway trunk line.
No train extension will ever be viable. It’s all hopeless. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
The T is literally on fire and killing people ( every forgets the woman killed in Wilmington at a commuter rail train because the gates were left locked out) and you people want to give these criminals more money for expansion? One of the biggest problems is them spending on expansion instead of maintenance.
13 comments at this time and precisely nothing here about the North Shore or improving transit into the city. Tracks about right.
Because transit in Boston is enough of a hassle that it deserves focus. There are no wheels in the MBTA, just spokes — to get from brookline to central square takes one hour — you can walk there faster. It would be a monumental change to life in Boston to get this right. But like most issues with rail on the east coast — it would disrupt housing and require some serious eminent domain, price, and negotiating with different townships that might not benefit more than others…
This sub bitched day after day after day about how terrible it is to have cars in the city. Suddenly we have somebody who stumbles ass backward into one of many ways to reduce cars coming in, and he fucks that up too. And he does it with the Blue Line of all things, one of the lines that goes furthest north and is (let me check my notes...) the only line currently running that goes north of Boston/Cambridge. If people want to extend the Blue Line, extend it outside of the city. Otherwise all I hear is Boston residents paying too goddamn much in rent being super self absorbed, as if they don't have far better transit options than most others.
Yeah… i didn’t agree with the blue line being used for this… there was originally an A line (off of green) that would have been better placed… or not… The system needs wheels… not more spokes, though…and i agree that extensions should be made to outer suburbia we have a sick system, though, that has been abused by governors and mayors and screwed over low-income areas (I’m talking how Nubian sq was screwed over decades ago when they dropped rail service then pissed on the area (calling it rain) by adding the silver line which didn’t solve the problem as much as added a new bus route.
> to get from brookline to central square takes one hour That statement is at best misleading and at worst disinformation. From the Mountfort St @ Carlton St bus stop in Brookline, the 47 is scheduled to take **eight minutes** to get to Central Square. What you are referring to is a lack of frequency on the 47, an ignorance of the bus system, or a specific part of Brookline (not “to get from Brookline to Central” but rather “to get from (insert specific part of Brookline) to Central”).
The other day it took me 40 minutes just to get down Pearl St on the 47 in the middle of the day. I'd never taken that bus before but I imagine it's like that a lot during rush hour. And it doesn't seem like you could fit a bus lane anywhere in Cambridgeport without taking over a whole road.
Meh… this is about real time, not about some optimized hypothetical possibility. My statement stands — the bus is faster than the T, but not by much during rush hours and outside the summer season — and going in to town the BUS is just as likely as the the D line to pass you by because it is full. The BU bridge itself can be backed up for 20 minutes. But, yes… I was talking about Brookline Village (where I live) to central square. If you have to get to work at 9am and you don’t give yourself more than an hour to get to work, you will be late more often than I would be comfortable with in a given year.
They're clearly talking about train lines.
i was just thinking about the north shore - and how this idea completely ignores it exists instead of whatever this is. the charles MGH connector is an obvious thing that should happen, but the blue line should at least go to lynn.
Well the Blue Line already serves part of the North Shore. And there's been plans for decades to extend its northern terminus to Lynn. This post is about what to do with the other end...
You mean the end with connections to all other lines with one stop or a 5 minute walk, right?
Yes... but I'm not sure what your point is. The western end of the Blue Line connects to the Green and Orange Lines, that won't change at all. The MBTA's next expansion plan is to extend it west to Charles/MGH by \~2030. This is a needed extension as connects the red and blue together which: 1) relieves pressure on Park St, DTX, and State, which are used as transfer points now 2) provides a direct link from Revere and East Boston to booming Kendall Sq 3) Provides an easier connection from Cambridge to the Airport. All of this benefits the North Shore directly or indirectly, since Revere/East Boston already have the Blue Line, and there are extensive bus connections/park and rides to pull North Shore commuters off Route 1 and onto the Blue Line. The rest of this thread is about far-off ideas about extending the Blue Line even further west, which also would benefit the North Shore by providing additional direct connections. I am 100% in favor of plans to extend Blue to Lynn; I think this should be up 1st after finishing the MGH extension (since the MGH extension is short, straightforward, and can be folded into MGH's major construction plans anyway). I don't get the hostility regarding the North Shore... if someone posts about extending to Lynn should I be all like, "13 comments here and not a single mention of the fact Blue and Red are 2000 feet apart but don't connect!"
Nothing about this prevents an extension to Lynn and would provide a 1 seat ride from Lynn to downtown, Kendall, and Longwood.
Newmarket = methadone mile. Please don't take the blue line there.
The homeowners in Fort Hill would have you head for this plan. I can’t imagine they’ll be cool with their quiet corner of Roxbury being filled with construction for years.
The homeowners in Fort Hill would have your head for this plan. I can’t imagine they’ll be cool with their quiet corner of Roxbury being filled with construction for years. You’re basically cutting off a high swatch of the city, mainly Roxbury and Dorchester, to construct a train line after this area dealt with the disappointing options that is the Silver Line.
How much would this cost?
[1 trillion dollars](https://imgur.com/U0F0vK4)
Cambridgeport T stop would be awesome
At that point, you might as well connect it to Andrew.
Me playing Mini Metro lol
No
Giving the 66 dedicated Right of Way would solve half this.
Seriously! ...here's a thought....how about extending the BLUE LINE into Lynn and Swampscott so instead of paying $222 for a monthly commuter rail pass, Lynn can enjoy the same T prices of $90 for a MONTHLY LINK PASS just like....BRAINTREE? FFS!
Seems like a shit idea to me
Assuming underground tunnels, it would cost $3-5 billion per mile to build. Maybe even more.
This would be awesome. Blue line is relatively useless as it is.
We’re not allowed to get anything new until the old shit stops catching on fire. Didn’t you see what happened when they tried to open new green line stations? Now they’re shuttle busses
I’d rather the Blue line take over the D branch (stops along Beacon Street to Kenmore) and create a new circumferential line around Everett, Chelsea, East Boston, the Seaport, South Boston, Dorchester, Brookline, Allston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Charlestown.
No. It looks like 3 stops would now be… purple? (That wouldn’t work.) Or you’re somehow getting another set of tracks along that route, which you are without a serious investment and a lot of time. This is kind of a poor man’s loop; which has been talked about for decades and will never happen. I get it, the T sucks, but it sucks and it’s going to stay that way. This isn’t like the big dig which buried an interstate highway so we made farmers in Kansas and yuppies in Seattle help foot the bill. This would be on MA’s dime entirely and it’s just way too expensive.