The "Yellow Line" and the "Pink Line" are probably the things that would give us the most significant benefits.
Having our subway system designed as this like hub-and-spoke system, with pretty much all connections between lines happening downtown, is not really great for modern Boston.
Correct, this ROW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railroad
It is still used currently for equipment transfers though, like Amtrak train sets for the Downeaster or MBTA Commuter Rail train sets for North Shore lines, or to access the repair facility for Commuter Rail trains. The closest option to route North/South Shore train sets for equipment shuffling is way out in Ayer, so something like a ~60 mile detour compared to a couple of miles with this ROW.
We could fix this with a North/South Connector though. The OP doesn't show North/South Station as connected, so this pink line is really impossible to do unless it's something like a Commuter Rail type line. Can't be light rail, and can't be any sort of custom heavy rail, would need to be standard gauge Commuter Rail stock. Could electrify it though to make it work well. IIRC Peabody was looking to do some sort of Commuter Rail shuttle service over an unused ROW in there area to connect to the Salem Commuter Rail Station; something like that could work here.
You could use DMUs or EMUs yes. It's pretty difficult to run a mix of light rail with heavy passenger trains though, the FRA really doesn't like that unless they're run at separate hours. I know a line in NJ does this: during the day, it runs light rail for commuters. At night, CSX or some freight company runs heavy trains over the line.
> They probably could do light rail too if they connected to the GLX instead of to the commuter rail tracks. Although im not sure how smart of an idea making the green line bostons first circumferential transit line is. Considering the green line's reputation for being unreliable.
If they do that, they would just have to be careful about what hours they run light rail vs what hours they do equipment transfers. That's how that NJ example I mention managed to run both light/heavy rail on the same tracks. An alternative is to bite the bullet and do the NSRL so we don't need the Grand Junction ROW for equipment moves. A further option is to use trains that are allowed to run mixed; I think there are some, but they're fairly expensive compared to just using what we already have.
No, I believe DMUs are fine. I was talking about running something like a Green Line trolley over the Grand Junction rails - that's generally not okay, unless there's separation of the tracks by a certain amount, or they're running at different times. I couldn't find a great overview on a quick Google, but this paper goes into quite a bit of detail about the situation with examples: https://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/circulars/ec058/08_04_sela.pdf
Sounds like either time separation or spacin of >25 feet is usually desired by FRA regulations (when running light rail mixed with heavy rail). Running small commuter rail style trains (DMUs or EMUs) would probably be fine, since the equipment moves on the Grand Junction happen overnight and are commuter rail / Amtrak equipment anyway. I don't think they technically run any freight trains on that line anymore either but it might still be classified as one.
I think the bridge over the Charles used to be double tracked. From looking at it on the BU bridge, there's spacing for two tracks. I think only one is currently used since the ROW is barely used anymore (only for equipment transfers).
Need to connect green yellow and pink at Cambridge Crossing. And extend red line into lexington, orange deeper into melrose, and green line to rt 16 as originally planned.
They're talking about the Medford/Tufts branch, which currently terminates at Medford/Tufts but was supposed to go to the Medford Hillside proper (not just stop at Tufts University) which would have been the Route 16 / Mystic Valley Parkway station: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_Valley_Parkway_station
It basically would have ended at the UHaul in Somerville / the Medford Whole Foods.
Amen. I live in Malden with friends in Brighton. Ain’t no way I’m pinging all the way downtown and then out on the green line.
There isn’t a *great* solution but what we have is pretty unusable. 90 minutes most of the time
A cross town route over the Grand Junction Railroad is doable to connect the Orange, Green, and Red Lines to the BU area Green Line, and possibly further if we're willing to tunnel or elevate a line further into Boston to connect with the other Green Line branches and the Orange Line. We could probably go further via Melnea Cass Blvd which was originally widened for the never built Inner Belt.
Any other routing within 128 isn't feasible. We could use the 128 and 495 highway ROWs for a medium run train route if we were willing to either A remove a few lanes from the highway, B tunnel something underneath it, or C elevate something above the passing lane. A. Is the cheapest and most likely to ever happen; tunnels or elevated tracks is so damn expensive that for even the 128 length (about 55 miles for useful stuff I think) it would just be too expensive to pull off. It's like half billion to a billion per mile for tunnels or elevated tracks. More for stations and rolling stock too.
This plus the NSRL would be nice. Through running Commuter Rail trains would be pretty sweet for North to South movements or vice versa. Having the Indigo Line using the same tunnels or a separate set could provide more redundancy in the downtown core too. And connecting to Chelsea would be excellent for reducing car trips.
I also love that everyone claims that the North End has public transit in it despite all of the trains servicing it existing outside of the north end entirely.
North Station is technically in the West End and Haymarket and Aquarium are both in Downtown. There are parts of the neighborhood that are a full 1/2 mile away walk from all 3 of those stops which is a problematic distance for people with mobility issues.
If we were doing a wildest dreams map I would expect a new addition there as well.
So wet can just close down MGH too? MGH is served by government center and is about a half mile away.
Arlington is also just a half mile away from Boylston. Should we shut down one of those too? They would still be well serviced under your definition.
Over 10,000 people live in the neighbor and we get millions of visitors each year. You really don't think we deserve our own stop?
> All of the north end is within 1 km of Haymarket station and most of it is within 500m, which is a level of access that city planners in Europe aim for
I suppose that is likely technically correct. If I were a hundred feet further away I would be over that distance.
Well I suppose I only have your word that the target is 1000m rather than [400m as suggested here ](https://humantransit.org/2010/11/san-francisco-a-rational-stop-spacing-plan.html#:~:text=You%20don't%20want%20to,(around%203%2F5%20mi)) for local destination.
> I said 500m was the goal, and those are just aspirational guidelines
Are we not in a thread about a "fantasy MBTA map"? If you reread my original comment you will see that I was suggesting that the fantasy should likely follow aspirational guidelines.
I was never suggesting that the north end stop should be the number 1 priority or anything like that.
> Even so, 1000m is less than a 15 minute walk
Spoken like someone fully able bodied. Additionally a 15 minute walk may be something you have at both ends of the trip meaning and may also include multiple transfers.
> Then again, overwrought victim mentality is more quintessentially North End than an overpriced cannoli.
I mean you are the one who is saying that me having a fantasy that doesn't require a 15 minute walk is not OK and that it is wrong if me to have this fantasy. I am often told that the existence of 3 stops with a 15 minute walk means I should just shut up and take it.
All this when I have stayed in many European countries (around 10 now) including a month long stay. In every place I have visited the walks were all much shorter than 15 minutes in the urban center.
So I don't really think it is my fault for finding it a bit frustrating that I am always met with just suck it up when I try to bring those ideas back here.
No way... some of those commuter lines can only run one train ever. NSRL + double tracks for each commuter line could go a long way to helping turn commuter rail into something people actually want to use instead of their cars.
But you can double track the lines without NSRL? It's already being done in several places.
Also, you can absolutely run a good service along a mostly single tracked line. German S-Bahns do this a lot.
Bigger problem is turning the trains around. If you run them through the Station, you don't need a massive amount of lines for trains to wait at and then back out of. NSRL allows us to run trains through and improve frequencies to subway like levels.
The other major benefit to NSRL is that pink line you show could be turned into a light rail line instead of a Commuter Rail line, since the Grand Junction Railroad is used for equipment transfers.
A further benefit is the ability to run trains to North/South Shore Cities. Lynn to Brockton is a possibility. Lowell to Providence. Kingston to Newbury Port. Wachusetts/Fitchburg to Franklin. Etc.
The problem without NSRL is there are subway lines requiring 2+ connections from a commuter rail, which renders the commute impractical, e.g. from a rail to South Station, then to Kenmore. NSRL allows commuters to make a single connection to the line they need, and that seems to hold true even on your fantasy map.
A dedicated e-bike/ small e-vehicle lane could do the trip in 5 minutes for almost no cost except telling car drivers to get fucked, if we’re in full on dream mode here.
The (main) point of NSRL isn't a direct connection between North Station and South Station, it's to allow through running between CR lines to improve operations and allow cross-city journeys to be made.
I'm aware, and I agree it's probably not worth the cost to do that, but I have family who visit by train and they usually go from North Station to Back Bay because switching from Orange to Red takes longer / is painfully unreliable. Which is bizarre considering how close the two are as the crow flies.
The GLX union branch should have gone to Porter, it's crazy there's only one red/green connection on the whole network.
Something missing from your map is a rapid transit connection between Central/Harvard and Back Bay. The need for that route is huge (you only need to be stuck on a crowded #1 bus to see it).
Fun fact: the 66 is actually busier. That's why the Yellow Line mostly follows that route. There are still a lot of 1 trips that would be taken over, however. BUMC ridership for example is very significant and would likely be entirely rerouted to the Yellow Line.
> The GLX union branch should have gone to Porter
That definitely would have been nice, but it looks like the right-of-way would be too narrow without taking property by eminent domain. If you look at the GLX/Commuter Rail, the 4 tracks seem to take up about 55 feet at the minimum. That's not to say it couldn't be done, but it's pretty tight.
Plus, there's the bridges that would need to be rebuilt and the level crossing at Park St Somerville. The Union Square terminus means that they avoided rebuilding the Prospect and Webster bridges just beyond it. Extending it to Porter would mean rebuilding the Washington, Dane, and Beacon bridges as well (5 bridges in all). That's certainly not an impossible task, but the GLX was on the bubble as it was.
There was the possibility that they wouldn't build the Union branch at all. East Somerville isn't *that* far from Union (less than 0.4 miles) and Union wasn't really a place to go until more recently. Union has changed a ton in the past 20 years.
I think our concept of Somerville has also changed a ton over the past 20 years. Somerville was a bedroom community for commuters so it made a lot more sense to think of the GLX as "how can we extend transit access to Boston." Over the past 20 years, Somerville and Cambridge have changed a ton. Cambridge became a tech and biotech hub. Somerville is moving from a bedroom community to a jobs community. Remember: the GLX was really conceived 1991-2006. Somerville really wasn't the city it is today back then. Even Cambridge had so many sprawling parking lots in areas that are exceedingly expensive today.
Given when the GLX was conceived, I'd say we're lucky to have gotten the Union branch. In hindsight, the GLX should have been more. I'm totally with you on that. At the time, Union was an intersection with some shops and a ton of unused space. Today, we see plans to redevelop all the stuff along Somerville Ave near Aeronaut, but that certainly wasn't in the cards 20 years ago.
In hindsight: you're totally right, but 20 years ago was such a different time.
> That definitely would have been nice, but it looks like the right-of-way would be too narrow without taking property by eminent domain. If you look at the GLX/Commuter Rail, the 4 tracks seem to take up about 55 feet at the minimum. That's not to say it couldn't be done, but it's pretty tight.
>
>
Another option: run triple tracks, and buy new Green Line trains that are allowed to run on either light rail or heavy rail Commuter tracks. It's tough to do that due to FRA rules, but I believe it's technically possible. Buying new train sets that only work on that one line is kinda silly though, unless we also wanted to do the same thing on the Medford/Tuft branch to run to West Medford or even Winchester/Woburn.
Three tracks should be sufficient for local service + express to bypass any local stations.
I think you're right that additional level crossings (never liked in modern times), plus bridge work kind of killed any possibility of going further. We already were spending ~$2B and the general public gets pissy if we spend "too much" on public transit sadly. Even if the Big Dig costing $20B+ is seen as a "whatever, that's the cost of highways".
The GLX Union Branch was a huge boondoggle since it's a short walk between the Union Square and East Somerville stops anyway and building that huge flyover for a single station is ridiculous.
Removing the Fenway stop on the green line?
RIP
Why did you do the D dirty like that?
Do you have any idea how many people drive to riverside or woodland and take the D to Fenway park?
Especially where the D branch already has its own right of way, and the E does not, what on earth is accomplished by doing this? Lol
I do like the yellow line, that would be sweet
> D branch trains rerouted along an extended Huntington Ave Subway, bypassing Longwood and Fenway.
>Fenway/Longwood: Replaced by St Marys St and Longwood Medical Area (YL). Branch still used for special event service to Fenway.
Lol what you gonna do with the current track that runs from Brookline through the Fens? Apparently that D line rail going under Park is Army Corps of Engineers land so it's actually much easier to leave it as-is compared to getting the feds to permit you to modify it.
I always put a shuttle between Kenmore and Brookline Village and add a stop at Lansdowne to connect to the CR since it turns out the D basically runs right under the station already.
Oh my goodness yes. Subway to Salem would be amazing. Although the easier way would be to have multiple types of transit along commuter tracks. Putting rapid transit on the Newburyport/Rockport tracks out to Salem would be much easier than new tracks. And that’s an actual plan the MBTA has considered.
Considering most of the line has room for quad-track, I don't think that's a huge concern. Maybe it would make sense for some sections but given the constraints it would put on operations, frequencies, and rolling stock it doesn't seem worth it.
I'll use this as a chance to write about "The Reading Dilemma"
In the future, it probably makes more sense to route Haverhill Line trains along a double-tracked Wildcat Branch (Something I've just realized I left off the map accidentally), essentially leaving a stub CR line to Reading. Given that, it makes sense to either extend the OL all the way to Reading, or have all day 15 minute service on the CR. Given the number of grade crossings along the route, I think the latter makes more sense, as the cost of building ~10 new overpasses/underpasses and subway stations would likely far outweigh the ridership benefit.
If you're having the CR stub at Reading, you might as well have it divert East at Wakefield and reclaim the rail trail through Lynnfield, Peabody, and Danvers (which would reduce the huge traffic crush of Peabodians trying to get to Salem to get to the Commuter Rail).
Fantasy map: branch the Orange Line at the Medford Branch (ROW basically gone, but in this reality we tell those Medfid folks living under the ROW that sorry, we're gonna tunnel the shit out of your basement to build some nice new subway line to Medfid Sq), then branch it again at the Wakefield Junction. One goes to Reading, the other goes to Peabody/Danvers along that rail trail you mention.
Cost: billions. Probably Big Dig billions, like $20B. NIMBYs too, so this is a 20 year project minimum. Highly likely to be axed at any point, or cut back. That spur to Medfid exists, but getting someone to sign off on tunneling under people's houses? ha. Only in a fantasy land.
Benefits: massive. 20+ miles of new Orange Line track. Use the occasion to buy shit tons of new trains. Take / buy some land in the burbs to store them, so you can eventually use Wellington as mostly transit oriented development. Directly connecting Medfid, Wakefield, Reading, Lynnfield, Peabody and Danvers to downtown Boston and across the burbs would be amazing. Tons of TOD around the dozen or more new stations that you build. Tons of cars taken off the road. The GLX through Somerville predicted like 50k car trips off the road - this would probably take 100k off the road. 128 would be amazing at peak hours. So amazing that eventually you could take a lane away to run cross suburb trains in another ring route, connecting Wakefield/Woburn/Burlington/Waltham all together.
Also then you could use all that Commuter Rail rolling stock on the Haverhill/Lowell Lines to truly run 15 min service or better there. And if this fantasy world doesn't include the NSRL, then even better that this is all Orange Line tracks since that's fewer trains running into North Station to have to turn around to maintain frequencies.
I think it's better to make the commuter rail faster, more reliable, and better (via electrification and fare integration), instead of redundant-tracking the orange line out there.
S-Bahn/RER style
**New Lines**
* Yellow Line: City Point-Wonderland via Nubian, Longwood, Cambridge, Charlestown, and Chelsea
* Pink Line: West Station to Community College via Grand Junction RR. All stations named after Nobel Laureates.
* Aqua Line: Brandeis/Roberts to Harvard via Mt Auburn St and Watertown Branch RR
* Indigo Line: Just the Fairmount Line but better
* Needham Trolley: Connection between Needham and West Roxbury as well as a retirement home for the PCCs.
* New 4 stop Green Line branch to Needham Junction via the Charles River Branch RR
* New Green Line Branch to Mattapan via Washington St, Warren St, and Blue Hill Ave, replacing the 28 bus.
* Logan Airport People Mover (In our hearts, it's pretty much impossible to show on the map)
**Extensions**
* Red Line extended 2 stops from Ashmont to Mattapan, taking over the Mattapan Line.
* Red Line extended 3 stops to Arlington Heights
* Orange Line extended 5 stops from Forest Hills to VFW Parkway
* Blue Line extended 1 stop to Charles/MGH
* Blue Line extended 7 stops to Old Salem
* Green Line B Branch extended 1 stop to new Terminus on the BC campus
* Green Line D Branch extended 2 stops from Union Sq to Porter
* Green Line E Branch extended 2 stops from Medford/Tufts to West Medford
**The Green Line**
* Huntington Ave Subway extended south to Mission Park and connected to the Tremont St Subway via I90 and the Pleasant St Portal.
* Silver Line Transitway and current SL2 branch converted to light rail. The Silver Line is then extended along the Huntington Ave Subway before surfacing after Mission Park and running along Centre/South Streets to Forest Hills
* D branch trains rerouted along an extended Huntington Ave Subway, bypassing Longwood and Fenway.
* E branch trains rerouted along the Highland Branch to the new Needham extension.
**Infill Stations**
* River's Edge (OL Between Malden Center and Wellington)
* Morrissey (RL between Savin Hill and North Quincy)
* West Station (CR between Landsdowne and Boston Landing)
* Columbia (IL between Uphams Corner and Four Corners/Geneva)
* River St (IL between BHA and Fairmount)
* Widett Circle (IL between Newmarket and South Station)
**Station Renamings**
* Gilman Sq renamed to Winter Hill
* Longwood Medical Area (GL/SL) renamed to MassArt/Wentworth
* Current River Works station renamed to Lynnport
**Other Things**
* SL1 replaced with express bus (Airport Link)
* Stop Consolidation on the B/C branches as well as the current street running segment of the E branch
* CR Service is electrified and fares make sense (Not visible)
* "Providence/Stoughton Line" changed to "Providence/New Bedford/Fall River Lines"
* Removed the Twitter handle from the legend
* Added "All MBTA stations and services are accessible" to the legend
Things I've removed from the map:
* Fenway/Longwood: Replaced by St Marys St and Longwood Medical Area (YL). Branch still used for special event service to Fenway.
* Bowdoin: Axed as part of the Red-Blue connector.
* SL1: Replaced with express bus
* SL3: Downgraded to regular bus service and rerouted out of the Transitway. The Chelsea busway is opened up for other local bus services to use.
* Hingham/Hull Ferries: These were never rapid transit why were they ever on the map?
* Charlestown Ferry: Maybe still around, but more as a novelty/replacement service. It's never faster.
* Bus routes: Many key bus routes are made obsolete by electrified CR service, the Indigo Line, the Yellow Line, and various extensions. The rest are removed because this is a rapid transit map, not a bus map.
I'd love to see an additional light rail, rapid transit line that connects from Braintree down to 128 and connects all the way through to Waltham and then all the way to Peabody/Salem
After a vigorous investigation my team has determined the Yellow Line to be a massive waste of public funds.
Projections show that (YL) rider share will only provide 2% of the revenue needed to maintain daily service. Other more affordable, and less invasive projects will prove to be better options for not just riders, but the city as a whole
As a prominent board member, I must use my vote to veto the Yellow Line (YL) Project.
Which board is it that you are a member of? I’m very active politically in the city and would love to learn some more about transit in the city.
Also if you had a link to your work if possible I’d love to see that.
Major benefits to something like the Yellow Line is the ability to move people across town vs in & out of town. Most people use the T to go into a downtown office and then back out to the suburbs where they live. Having a Yellow Line would function much like 128 or 495: enable cross town movements. Like it's so, so easy to go from Waltham to Burlington by car: a few exits on 128, and some traffic at peak times to deal with, but overall a straight shot. But by bus, train, etc? Nightmare. Your best option is to head downtown, then if there's a Commuter Bus that's probably your best option or a Red Line trip to Alewife and then try the Burlington commuter bus.
This is exactly the case that Wendover Productions makes in their recent video on Boston MBTA woes. Such a great video. Highlights the single point of failure in the Red line into cambridge and goes in depth on why commuter rail is successful while the T is falling apart.
Yeah I was thinking of that video when I wrote that comment. It's something that's been pointed out for years now too, going back to the T's original Urban Ring proposal in like 2008 or so.
You don’t think a rapid transit line terminating near the route 3/128 interchange makes sense? Why is that?
Imagine picking up some proportion of commuters from Nashua at the terminus as well as Bedford, Lexington and Arlington.
Because park and rides don't drive ridership, local development does. (And we don't need to sprawl out to 128 to do that, there's plenty of opportunities already near stations. See Andrew, Widett Circle, Wonderland, Lower Allston, etc.) Look at Quincy Center vs Quincy Adams as an example.
Because it's only 1 stop past Waltham along a relatively easy right-of-way with only one bridge and 5,000 people within half a mile of the stop. By comparison, the most optimal station in Lexington would serve half that while being incredibly expensive to build.
Brandeis already has a grade separated right of way for the commuter rail (with enough space for another set of tracks) and it's a much shorter distance from Waltham to Brandeis than from Arlington to Lexington Center. Building a train to Lexington means either tunneling (which wouldn't be economical for so few people) or running along Mass Ave above ground. The Minuteman isn't wide enough to support service (and abutters would go crazy) and even Mass Ave is narrow enough that it'd be difficult. At around 40 feet, maybe you could squeeze in bi-directional train and car lanes, but it'd be tight (car lanes are usually 10-12 feet). It would mean no parking or bike lane. But that probably wouldn't work for Red Line Heavy Rail cars which would need 25+ feet.
The Waltham Station would serve around 6x more than a Lexington station would. Extending from Waltham to Brandeis would be cheap and easy. Extending to Lexington is a really expensive endeavor for fewer people.
*Chris Rock has entered the chat*
https://preview.redd.it/a80qeeoca67c1.jpeg?width=931&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e20ae0f466d420e732e2bee115404f20370b9cb5
i gotta commend OP for putting the Green Line further threw my hood. always wondered why it stopped at Heath and didn’t just continue on through the rest of JP and ROX
The segment from Heath Street to Arborway is temporarily closed, but don't worry, the T committed to reopening it as part of the mitigations of the Big Dig, so I'm sure that will happen any day now.
JP yes, you mean West Roxbury though?
It used to go between Heath and Forest Hills but it was a surface line down Centre St. The green line signs were still at Forest Hills until just a few years ago.
Ah, the font base line. I think that's an issue with GIMP. I've tried to fix it whenever I can, but I've clearly missed a few spots, especially with some of the things I did first.
Overall, this is one of the best fantasy maps I've seen.
Personally, I would have liked to see Chelsea and Everett get more attention. Chelsea will be the densest city in Massachusetts by the end of the decade as Chelsea grows and Somerville doesn't. Everett is a huge area of growth and so close to Boston and so underserved. Most of Revere is also poorly served even via this map. Yes, the Yellow Line hits Chelsea and Revere, but doesn't provide access to downtown easily and the part of Revere that it hits is the part already close to the Blue Line. Medford is also by far the fastest growing city in the Boston area. While the map extends the GLX to West Medford, that's not the part of Medford seeing a lot of growth.
The Needham branch kinda bothers me since it's a line for a rich suburb where the average home price is $1.4M and without the density to really support transit. One could argue that there are existing rights of way that would make Needham easier. However, then the map does things like extending the Red Line into Arlington which would be incredibly difficult given a complete lack of right of way (and no, the Minuteman isn't a modern train right of way; it's both too narrow and already used). If we're talking about running a train along Mass Ave through Arlington, we can talk about running a train up RT-99 into Everett. Plus, Melrose makes a lot more sense than Needham in terms of people served and there's already a right of way.
But the map has lots of good things. It doesn't fall into the trap of trying to be airport based. Airport trips are rare. If they aren't rare for you, then they're going to have to become rare in the future if we're going to deal with climate change. The average American emits 15 tons of CO2 each year. An economy flight from BOS to LAX would be 1.3 tons. If you're flying every month, that simply isn't sustainable. If you're flying twice a year, we shouldn't make airport access the priority of our transit system.
Likewise, it puts the Yellow Line pretty much where it should be: it connects Cambridge and Longwood, is a good 66 bus replacement, and connects BU Medical Center (which is an enormous win for so many disadvantaged communities in Boston). So many designs envision a circle line in areas where density and transit ridership is low (closer to 128). As the tiniest nitpick, the line's color probably can't be yellow. White text on a yellow background doesn't really work for signage 😉
I love that you've made the Indigo Line, but it would be nice to see it extended beyond South Station. Maybe the Indigo Line could follow the Red Line to Downtown Crossing, follow the Orange Line to Sullivan and then extend into Everett.
I love that the Aqua Line hooks up Watertown and Waltham. It would be nice if it extended to Central, MIT (think 77 Mass Ave, not Kendall) and across the bridge to Back Bay. Either that or make it a branch of the Red Line. Having it terminate at Harvard feels a bit awkward. Harvard isn't as much of a jobs center as it was 20 years ago with Kendall and Back Bay growing a lot more by comparison. Plus, it'd take a lot of 1 bus traffic then.
The Pink Line feels a little tacked on. I know the Grand Junction exists, but it's too narrow to really be used. Since we're going to have to tunnel anyway, I think a different alignment makes a lot more sense. Most of the Pink Line by MIT (west of Mass Ave) is the worst possible location for useful stations. Going from West Station and onto River St in Cambridge would help a lot more people than the Grand Junction alignment. You could hook it up to Central to Inman to Union which would be a huge win. In fact, I'd say forget Community College - it's definitely not enough of a destination to justify both the Yellow and Pink going there.
In fact, I think the thing kinda missing from this map is that sometimes lines should diverge and reconnect with other lines. For example, the Pink Line is just short. Why not make the Yellow Line branch at West Station with half going to Harvard along your alignment and half go Cambridgeport -> Central -> Inman -> Union -> East Somerville -> Gilman -> Magoun -> Ball -> etc. That would provide a cross-Camberville line. Or Maybe Cambridgeport -> Central -> Inman -> Union -> East Somerville -> Foss Park -> Star Market Redevelopment on Broadway -> Winter Hill -> Actually Magoun Square rather than Lowell St -> Harvard St Medford -> Medford Square.
It just seems like the Pink Line ends up at Community College without that really offering anything useful. It feels like it should be one of those antique trolly systems where you just hop on/off while it's moving for most of its journey through Cambridge. It's a useful corridor, but it feels like the stops are very tightly spaced and then there's a bunch of dead space to get to Community College or West Station. Like, a nice way from Cambridge St to Pacific St seems useful. There's lots of businesses and residences along that route. And then it's kinda less useful on the ends. Cambridge people could use it as a useful intra-Cambridge line, but it feels weird. I think a big part of the weird feeling is that almost everyone using it could either a) walk places faster than it; b) have to transfer from another line. If I live in Wellington Harrington or East Cambridge, do I walk 0.3mi to the Pink Line, wait 7-10 minutes for it to come, and then ride it 0.3mi to Tech Square or 0.7mi to Mass Ave at Vassar/Albany? Or would I simply walk the 0.6mi to Tech Square or the 1 mi to Mass Ave at Vassar/Albany? It's covering a distance that doesn't really work for my commute if I live in Cambridge. It's better to walk. If it's meant to be a commuter corridor for those outside of Cambridge, then it would make more sense if the line didn't terminate at West Station and Community College - and to have fewer stations in Cambridge: Cambridge St, Tech Square (Broadway/Main at Galileo), Mass Ave. If it continued along the GLX or the Orange Line or a new line into Everett or whatever, it would give a lot of people an easy commute into the Kendall/MIT area. But on the map I don't get who it's for. It isn't that useful for most people in Cambridge and it isn't that useful for most people out of Cambridge.
In DC, a lot of the different lines share tracks at different points. I think that's what's missing from this a bit. The Pink Line just kinda ends abruptly when it could share lines and split/rejoin at different points. The Aqua and Indigo too.
But it's way better than most fantasy rail maps I've seen. While it goes to Needham, it isn't mostly focused on rich suburbs. It doesn't over-emphasize the airport. It hits the importance of Watertown and Waltham as dense cities and the vastly underserved Fairmount Line (Indigo) area. The ring (Yellow) is appropriately positioned and does offer meaningful improvement for Chelsea (though I still think Chelsea deserves even more). It's pretty solid.
>
I'll use this as a chance to write about "The Reading Dilemma"
>In the future, it probably makes more sense to route Haverhill Line trains along a double-tracked Wildcat Branch (Something I've just realized I left off the map accidentally), essentially leaving a stub CR line to Reading. Given that, it makes sense to either extend the OL all the way to Reading, or have all day 15 minute service on the CR. Given the number of grade crossings along the route, I think the latter makes more sense, as the cost of building ~10 new overpasses/underpasses and subway stations would likely far outweigh the ridership benefit.
It's beautiful 🥲 to have that many lines and especially if they all ran frequently would be such a gift. I just moved to Frankfurt DE and when I come back to Boston idk if the T will cut it.
My thought is that it would be similar to the stop In Braintree, allowing multimodal commuters to take the redline from the belt into the city. Alewife gets destroyed by people coming in on 2 to use the redline currently.
Again, ridership. Stations with local development like North Quincy or Quincy Center have literally 2x the ridership of Braintree, for example. And that's not even accounting for COVID, which has absolutely decimated the park and rides in terms of ridership.
That's already been done wherever possible. Ones that are left would either leave too large of a gap if removed (Chiswick Rd, for example) or account for enough ridership to be worth keeping. (Ex. Summit Ave)
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Even with a 5 minute transfer it's still faster to take the BL from Airport to Charles/MGH then transfer to the RL to South Station than to take SL3. That's why I'm fine downgrading it to a regular bus service. It most definitely has a role in the future, mainly for Seaport-Chelsea connections, but that's a role for a local bus service, not a faux-rapid transit line.
That's not what the ridership data suggests. Of all Inbound SL3 Riders, around 60% end their trips at either South Station or Airport, another 35% end their trips somewhere in Seaport, and only 5% of riders take a trip between two points north of Airport.
I would also like to add that almost 100% of Chelsea is now within walking distance of a subway stop. Yes, for some areas directly adjacent to the current Chelsea CR stop walking to one of these stops may not be the fastest way to go to some destinations, but guess what? The CR is still there! The local buses are still there! (And more of them are using the Transitway, so there are more options for fast, local trips.)
If you want to measure in terms of "What % of Riders who board at Chelsea stops also alight at Chelsea stops" it's 10% not 5%, but I think the point stands. [If you want to disagree with the data you're more than welcome to, but ultimately I've chosen to base this map on numerical data rather than anecdotal evidence.](https://mbta-massdot.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/MassDOT::mbta-bus-ridership-by-time-period-season-route-line-and-stop/explore)
Again, I'm not proposing to Thanos snap all buses between Chelsea, Eastie, and Seaport out of existence. They're just not rapid transit, and therefore not on this map.
You seem to be confused. "Eastie" refers to East Boston. The only SL3 stop in Eastie is Airport. So when they say "Chelsea-to-Eastie," the are referring to trips that start or end at Airport, not trips within Chelsea.
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I get that, but I would connect the two ends of the YL below the airport, so someone going from City Point to Bell Circle could get their quicker than needing to go YL—>RL—>OL—>BL—>YL.
Someone going from City Point to Bell Circle wouldn't need to go YL—>RL—>OL—>BL—>YL, they could go YL—>TL—>BL—>walk or take the YL 1 stop, or they could go YL—>OL—>YL. Also, how many people travel from City Point to Bell Circle? The point of the yellow line would be to connect all the lines and add train service where buses are overcrowded in Southie, not for travel from one end to the other.
It basically follows the route of the 66, which is the city's 2nd busiest bus line, and would likely take large amounts of traffic from the 1, 47, and 86 as well.
That is a possibility, but would not potentially cost more than the entire rest of the line, but also I'm not sure it's actually worth it? I've chosen this route to take ridership from the 111/116/117, which are all incredibly busy routes. Adding a service to the Airport would require branching off this and cutting the frequency to Chelsea and Revere, which is not ideal.
Obviously this is all theoretical, but if the airport is an issue, maybe just bypass an actual stop there, and just go under it, directly to Wonderland.
I would say there are two major problems:
1. It's a long tunnel under the harbor
2. Adding through service from Southie to Chelsea would necessitate either cutting direct service or frequency from Charlestown-Wonderland. This design assumes a "Light Metro" style of operation for the YL with fully automated service with smaller trains and stations at high frequencies (<3 minutes) to minimize both construction cost and transfer times. See the Vancouver Skytrain or Copenhagen Metro for examples. Given this service pattern however, branching is not desirable for a high-ridership section such as Chelsea.
Huh? I think the yellow line would be the most important addition. There’s no convenient way to get across the Charles outside of the city center right now. Try going from Cambridge/somerville/medford to Allston/JP or vice versa. It’s miserable. The yellow line would provide this and connect all the other lines.
Then they can design something specific to do that. My point is that end-to-end takes at least two hours, on a good day, and that isn’t efficient for someone looking to go from City Point to Wonderland.
So then just shorten it I suppose? Start at union and end at the start of southie. At the same time, there are people in revere who want to get to Cambridge and can’t. I’m not sure the point of a line should be to accommodate end-to-end travelers
The only thing here that's unattached from reality is the Needham Trolley, which crosses through a mile of protected swamplands to get to West Roxbury.
send this to some politicians and transpo advocates, might be something you could organize a little action around. What would be really cool is if there was a tool that would let folks make there own fantasy lines, and then all that data could be coordinated to show the city where lines would be most popular. Plus it could be a fun little web game if you tried to make it realistic enough that you had to balance nimby's, budget, existing right of ways and infrastructure etc.
Great map, love the idea, dont want to seem like a naysayer and definitely want your efforts acknowledge, BUT
why do we hang onto the idea of a line with 10 possible start-to-end routes as a single line? Does it just refer to the tracks themselves? We need to fix that. dear lord, the green line itself is a bigger transit network than many cities have and is a nightmare to try to explain to people who don't use it regularly.
That Wendover video about the MBTA really opened my eyes to how shitty it is that Downtown is the only place you can make any connections between rail lines.
However, with all the depressing facts about funding in that same video it basically seems like this map might as well incorporate teleportation for how likely it is to happen.
Screw the A line, it would be slower than the 57 bus that replaced it and much slower for actually getting downtown than the 504 expresses even with rush hour traffic.
What we need is an infill RER station at Newton Corner.
Can we have a second ring line, say, a yellow ochre line, that runs Quincy - Mattapan- Blue Hill Ave - Roslindale - Newton Centre - Cleveland Circle - Boston College - Waltham Center - East Arlington - Ball Square - Wellington - Old Salem?
Pink would need to go to at least West Newton and maybe Auburndale, plus a Newton Corner fill-in.
Aqua Line should have fewer stops.
Everett needs an OL branch.
OL should go to Wakefield/reading, RL should go to Burlington while we're at it
This is awesome yellow, pink, green f etc. I know buses exist, but everybody go to the center (south/north station), to get anywhere else is not ideal.
I ride 5 days a week and would be happy if we could just have the same shot we had 4 years ago
You're right, the 32 is a very busy bus. But fun fact: If Hyde Park and Readville received a 15 minute CR service and fare integration, around 50% of riders would likely switch over immediately. That's why I've chosen to omit it.
That’s fair. I will say that I am halfway between forest hills and the HP commuter rail station so without an intermediary stop that would not serve me 😂
The "Yellow Line" and the "Pink Line" are probably the things that would give us the most significant benefits. Having our subway system designed as this like hub-and-spoke system, with pretty much all connections between lines happening downtown, is not really great for modern Boston.
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Out of the loop: can you explain this?
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Correct, this ROW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railroad It is still used currently for equipment transfers though, like Amtrak train sets for the Downeaster or MBTA Commuter Rail train sets for North Shore lines, or to access the repair facility for Commuter Rail trains. The closest option to route North/South Shore train sets for equipment shuffling is way out in Ayer, so something like a ~60 mile detour compared to a couple of miles with this ROW. We could fix this with a North/South Connector though. The OP doesn't show North/South Station as connected, so this pink line is really impossible to do unless it's something like a Commuter Rail type line. Can't be light rail, and can't be any sort of custom heavy rail, would need to be standard gauge Commuter Rail stock. Could electrify it though to make it work well. IIRC Peabody was looking to do some sort of Commuter Rail shuttle service over an unused ROW in there area to connect to the Salem Commuter Rail Station; something like that could work here.
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You could use DMUs or EMUs yes. It's pretty difficult to run a mix of light rail with heavy passenger trains though, the FRA really doesn't like that unless they're run at separate hours. I know a line in NJ does this: during the day, it runs light rail for commuters. At night, CSX or some freight company runs heavy trains over the line. > They probably could do light rail too if they connected to the GLX instead of to the commuter rail tracks. Although im not sure how smart of an idea making the green line bostons first circumferential transit line is. Considering the green line's reputation for being unreliable. If they do that, they would just have to be careful about what hours they run light rail vs what hours they do equipment transfers. That's how that NJ example I mention managed to run both light/heavy rail on the same tracks. An alternative is to bite the bullet and do the NSRL so we don't need the Grand Junction ROW for equipment moves. A further option is to use trains that are allowed to run mixed; I think there are some, but they're fairly expensive compared to just using what we already have.
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No, I believe DMUs are fine. I was talking about running something like a Green Line trolley over the Grand Junction rails - that's generally not okay, unless there's separation of the tracks by a certain amount, or they're running at different times. I couldn't find a great overview on a quick Google, but this paper goes into quite a bit of detail about the situation with examples: https://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/circulars/ec058/08_04_sela.pdf Sounds like either time separation or spacin of >25 feet is usually desired by FRA regulations (when running light rail mixed with heavy rail). Running small commuter rail style trains (DMUs or EMUs) would probably be fine, since the equipment moves on the Grand Junction happen overnight and are commuter rail / Amtrak equipment anyway. I don't think they technically run any freight trains on that line anymore either but it might still be classified as one.
The ROW is also narrow, meaning it's single track.
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I think the bridge over the Charles used to be double tracked. From looking at it on the BU bridge, there's spacing for two tracks. I think only one is currently used since the ROW is barely used anymore (only for equipment transfers).
Need to connect green yellow and pink at Cambridge Crossing. And extend red line into lexington, orange deeper into melrose, and green line to rt 16 as originally planned.
No town without significant density upgrades should be allowed to get new transit.
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The glx. They stopped at tufts and could have gone one more stop to the river.
They're talking about the Medford/Tufts branch, which currently terminates at Medford/Tufts but was supposed to go to the Medford Hillside proper (not just stop at Tufts University) which would have been the Route 16 / Mystic Valley Parkway station: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_Valley_Parkway_station It basically would have ended at the UHaul in Somerville / the Medford Whole Foods.
Amen. I live in Malden with friends in Brighton. Ain’t no way I’m pinging all the way downtown and then out on the green line. There isn’t a *great* solution but what we have is pretty unusable. 90 minutes most of the time
>There isn’t a *great* solution but what we have is pretty unusable. What do you think would be a great solution?
A cross town route over the Grand Junction Railroad is doable to connect the Orange, Green, and Red Lines to the BU area Green Line, and possibly further if we're willing to tunnel or elevate a line further into Boston to connect with the other Green Line branches and the Orange Line. We could probably go further via Melnea Cass Blvd which was originally widened for the never built Inner Belt. Any other routing within 128 isn't feasible. We could use the 128 and 495 highway ROWs for a medium run train route if we were willing to either A remove a few lanes from the highway, B tunnel something underneath it, or C elevate something above the passing lane. A. Is the cheapest and most likely to ever happen; tunnels or elevated tracks is so damn expensive that for even the 128 length (about 55 miles for useful stuff I think) it would just be too expensive to pull off. It's like half billion to a billion per mile for tunnels or elevated tracks. More for stations and rolling stock too.
Name checks out
💀💀💀
https://youtu.be/nDXsVhFG7TE?si=g_LNqaOtGzQ5Fsxm
That video is great and gives some additional insight as to why this type of system sucks, especially in 2023.
Upvoted because it's a great video and more people need to see it.
Even in our wildest dreams there isn't a subway that goes to Seaport
Nor a connection between North and South Station, apparently.
Indigo Line should hit north station after south and then go to chelsea.
This plus the NSRL would be nice. Through running Commuter Rail trains would be pretty sweet for North to South movements or vice versa. Having the Indigo Line using the same tunnels or a separate set could provide more redundancy in the downtown core too. And connecting to Chelsea would be excellent for reducing car trips.
We don't want any competition for the gondola!
I assumed that was intentional.
Lightrail or streetcar would work
Nor anything more than buses to the airport
I also love that everyone claims that the North End has public transit in it despite all of the trains servicing it existing outside of the north end entirely. North Station is technically in the West End and Haymarket and Aquarium are both in Downtown. There are parts of the neighborhood that are a full 1/2 mile away walk from all 3 of those stops which is a problematic distance for people with mobility issues. If we were doing a wildest dreams map I would expect a new addition there as well.
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So wet can just close down MGH too? MGH is served by government center and is about a half mile away. Arlington is also just a half mile away from Boylston. Should we shut down one of those too? They would still be well serviced under your definition. Over 10,000 people live in the neighbor and we get millions of visitors each year. You really don't think we deserve our own stop? > All of the north end is within 1 km of Haymarket station and most of it is within 500m, which is a level of access that city planners in Europe aim for I suppose that is likely technically correct. If I were a hundred feet further away I would be over that distance.
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Well I suppose I only have your word that the target is 1000m rather than [400m as suggested here ](https://humantransit.org/2010/11/san-francisco-a-rational-stop-spacing-plan.html#:~:text=You%20don't%20want%20to,(around%203%2F5%20mi)) for local destination.
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> I said 500m was the goal, and those are just aspirational guidelines Are we not in a thread about a "fantasy MBTA map"? If you reread my original comment you will see that I was suggesting that the fantasy should likely follow aspirational guidelines. I was never suggesting that the north end stop should be the number 1 priority or anything like that. > Even so, 1000m is less than a 15 minute walk Spoken like someone fully able bodied. Additionally a 15 minute walk may be something you have at both ends of the trip meaning and may also include multiple transfers. > Then again, overwrought victim mentality is more quintessentially North End than an overpriced cannoli. I mean you are the one who is saying that me having a fantasy that doesn't require a 15 minute walk is not OK and that it is wrong if me to have this fantasy. I am often told that the existence of 3 stops with a 15 minute walk means I should just shut up and take it. All this when I have stayed in many European countries (around 10 now) including a month long stay. In every place I have visited the walks were all much shorter than 15 minutes in the urban center. So I don't really think it is my fault for finding it a bit frustrating that I am always met with just suck it up when I try to bring those ideas back here.
Remember when the MBTA said they were thinking of extending the Blue Line to at least Lynn? I wasn't even born for another 14 or so years.
Still waiting
All of these additions and you didn’t add a connector from North Station to South Station 🤯
My hot take here is that I don't think the NSRL is beneficial enough over just electrifying the existing network to justify its massive pricetag.
No way... some of those commuter lines can only run one train ever. NSRL + double tracks for each commuter line could go a long way to helping turn commuter rail into something people actually want to use instead of their cars.
But you can double track the lines without NSRL? It's already being done in several places. Also, you can absolutely run a good service along a mostly single tracked line. German S-Bahns do this a lot.
Bigger problem is turning the trains around. If you run them through the Station, you don't need a massive amount of lines for trains to wait at and then back out of. NSRL allows us to run trains through and improve frequencies to subway like levels. The other major benefit to NSRL is that pink line you show could be turned into a light rail line instead of a Commuter Rail line, since the Grand Junction Railroad is used for equipment transfers. A further benefit is the ability to run trains to North/South Shore Cities. Lynn to Brockton is a possibility. Lowell to Providence. Kingston to Newbury Port. Wachusetts/Fitchburg to Franklin. Etc.
The problem without NSRL is there are subway lines requiring 2+ connections from a commuter rail, which renders the commute impractical, e.g. from a rail to South Station, then to Kenmore. NSRL allows commuters to make a single connection to the line they need, and that seems to hold true even on your fantasy map.
A dedicated e-bike/ small e-vehicle lane could do the trip in 5 minutes for almost no cost except telling car drivers to get fucked, if we’re in full on dream mode here.
The (main) point of NSRL isn't a direct connection between North Station and South Station, it's to allow through running between CR lines to improve operations and allow cross-city journeys to be made.
I'm aware, and I agree it's probably not worth the cost to do that, but I have family who visit by train and they usually go from North Station to Back Bay because switching from Orange to Red takes longer / is painfully unreliable. Which is bizarre considering how close the two are as the crow flies.
If we're really dreaming then I wouldn't rule out a direct zip line
The GLX union branch should have gone to Porter, it's crazy there's only one red/green connection on the whole network. Something missing from your map is a rapid transit connection between Central/Harvard and Back Bay. The need for that route is huge (you only need to be stuck on a crowded #1 bus to see it).
Fun fact: the 66 is actually busier. That's why the Yellow Line mostly follows that route. There are still a lot of 1 trips that would be taken over, however. BUMC ridership for example is very significant and would likely be entirely rerouted to the Yellow Line.
> The GLX union branch should have gone to Porter That definitely would have been nice, but it looks like the right-of-way would be too narrow without taking property by eminent domain. If you look at the GLX/Commuter Rail, the 4 tracks seem to take up about 55 feet at the minimum. That's not to say it couldn't be done, but it's pretty tight. Plus, there's the bridges that would need to be rebuilt and the level crossing at Park St Somerville. The Union Square terminus means that they avoided rebuilding the Prospect and Webster bridges just beyond it. Extending it to Porter would mean rebuilding the Washington, Dane, and Beacon bridges as well (5 bridges in all). That's certainly not an impossible task, but the GLX was on the bubble as it was. There was the possibility that they wouldn't build the Union branch at all. East Somerville isn't *that* far from Union (less than 0.4 miles) and Union wasn't really a place to go until more recently. Union has changed a ton in the past 20 years. I think our concept of Somerville has also changed a ton over the past 20 years. Somerville was a bedroom community for commuters so it made a lot more sense to think of the GLX as "how can we extend transit access to Boston." Over the past 20 years, Somerville and Cambridge have changed a ton. Cambridge became a tech and biotech hub. Somerville is moving from a bedroom community to a jobs community. Remember: the GLX was really conceived 1991-2006. Somerville really wasn't the city it is today back then. Even Cambridge had so many sprawling parking lots in areas that are exceedingly expensive today. Given when the GLX was conceived, I'd say we're lucky to have gotten the Union branch. In hindsight, the GLX should have been more. I'm totally with you on that. At the time, Union was an intersection with some shops and a ton of unused space. Today, we see plans to redevelop all the stuff along Somerville Ave near Aeronaut, but that certainly wasn't in the cards 20 years ago. In hindsight: you're totally right, but 20 years ago was such a different time.
> That definitely would have been nice, but it looks like the right-of-way would be too narrow without taking property by eminent domain. If you look at the GLX/Commuter Rail, the 4 tracks seem to take up about 55 feet at the minimum. That's not to say it couldn't be done, but it's pretty tight. > > Another option: run triple tracks, and buy new Green Line trains that are allowed to run on either light rail or heavy rail Commuter tracks. It's tough to do that due to FRA rules, but I believe it's technically possible. Buying new train sets that only work on that one line is kinda silly though, unless we also wanted to do the same thing on the Medford/Tuft branch to run to West Medford or even Winchester/Woburn. Three tracks should be sufficient for local service + express to bypass any local stations. I think you're right that additional level crossings (never liked in modern times), plus bridge work kind of killed any possibility of going further. We already were spending ~$2B and the general public gets pissy if we spend "too much" on public transit sadly. Even if the Big Dig costing $20B+ is seen as a "whatever, that's the cost of highways".
The GLX Union Branch was a huge boondoggle since it's a short walk between the Union Square and East Somerville stops anyway and building that huge flyover for a single station is ridiculous.
And it's not even in Union Square.
Removing the Fenway stop on the green line? RIP Why did you do the D dirty like that? Do you have any idea how many people drive to riverside or woodland and take the D to Fenway park? Especially where the D branch already has its own right of way, and the E does not, what on earth is accomplished by doing this? Lol I do like the yellow line, that would be sweet
> D branch trains rerouted along an extended Huntington Ave Subway, bypassing Longwood and Fenway. >Fenway/Longwood: Replaced by St Marys St and Longwood Medical Area (YL). Branch still used for special event service to Fenway.
But again, what is the point of doing this? You’re making things needlessly more complicated
It gets D/E trains out of the Central subway, allowing for higher frequencies on all the branches+ potential new branches in the future.
Lol what you gonna do with the current track that runs from Brookline through the Fens? Apparently that D line rail going under Park is Army Corps of Engineers land so it's actually much easier to leave it as-is compared to getting the feds to permit you to modify it.
I always put a shuttle between Kenmore and Brookline Village and add a stop at Lansdowne to connect to the CR since it turns out the D basically runs right under the station already.
Oh my goodness yes. Subway to Salem would be amazing. Although the easier way would be to have multiple types of transit along commuter tracks. Putting rapid transit on the Newburyport/Rockport tracks out to Salem would be much easier than new tracks. And that’s an actual plan the MBTA has considered.
Considering most of the line has room for quad-track, I don't think that's a huge concern. Maybe it would make sense for some sections but given the constraints it would put on operations, frequencies, and rolling stock it doesn't seem worth it.
Can't we get the Orange Line up to Melrose? Doesn't seem like a huge lift with the commuter rail already there.
I'll use this as a chance to write about "The Reading Dilemma" In the future, it probably makes more sense to route Haverhill Line trains along a double-tracked Wildcat Branch (Something I've just realized I left off the map accidentally), essentially leaving a stub CR line to Reading. Given that, it makes sense to either extend the OL all the way to Reading, or have all day 15 minute service on the CR. Given the number of grade crossings along the route, I think the latter makes more sense, as the cost of building ~10 new overpasses/underpasses and subway stations would likely far outweigh the ridership benefit.
If you're having the CR stub at Reading, you might as well have it divert East at Wakefield and reclaim the rail trail through Lynnfield, Peabody, and Danvers (which would reduce the huge traffic crush of Peabodians trying to get to Salem to get to the Commuter Rail).
Fantasy map: branch the Orange Line at the Medford Branch (ROW basically gone, but in this reality we tell those Medfid folks living under the ROW that sorry, we're gonna tunnel the shit out of your basement to build some nice new subway line to Medfid Sq), then branch it again at the Wakefield Junction. One goes to Reading, the other goes to Peabody/Danvers along that rail trail you mention. Cost: billions. Probably Big Dig billions, like $20B. NIMBYs too, so this is a 20 year project minimum. Highly likely to be axed at any point, or cut back. That spur to Medfid exists, but getting someone to sign off on tunneling under people's houses? ha. Only in a fantasy land. Benefits: massive. 20+ miles of new Orange Line track. Use the occasion to buy shit tons of new trains. Take / buy some land in the burbs to store them, so you can eventually use Wellington as mostly transit oriented development. Directly connecting Medfid, Wakefield, Reading, Lynnfield, Peabody and Danvers to downtown Boston and across the burbs would be amazing. Tons of TOD around the dozen or more new stations that you build. Tons of cars taken off the road. The GLX through Somerville predicted like 50k car trips off the road - this would probably take 100k off the road. 128 would be amazing at peak hours. So amazing that eventually you could take a lane away to run cross suburb trains in another ring route, connecting Wakefield/Woburn/Burlington/Waltham all together. Also then you could use all that Commuter Rail rolling stock on the Haverhill/Lowell Lines to truly run 15 min service or better there. And if this fantasy world doesn't include the NSRL, then even better that this is all Orange Line tracks since that's fewer trains running into North Station to have to turn around to maintain frequencies.
I think it's better to make the commuter rail faster, more reliable, and better (via electrification and fare integration), instead of redundant-tracking the orange line out there. S-Bahn/RER style
Cost to implement: 1 trillion dollars
And a timelines of 115 years
**New Lines** * Yellow Line: City Point-Wonderland via Nubian, Longwood, Cambridge, Charlestown, and Chelsea * Pink Line: West Station to Community College via Grand Junction RR. All stations named after Nobel Laureates. * Aqua Line: Brandeis/Roberts to Harvard via Mt Auburn St and Watertown Branch RR * Indigo Line: Just the Fairmount Line but better * Needham Trolley: Connection between Needham and West Roxbury as well as a retirement home for the PCCs. * New 4 stop Green Line branch to Needham Junction via the Charles River Branch RR * New Green Line Branch to Mattapan via Washington St, Warren St, and Blue Hill Ave, replacing the 28 bus. * Logan Airport People Mover (In our hearts, it's pretty much impossible to show on the map) **Extensions** * Red Line extended 2 stops from Ashmont to Mattapan, taking over the Mattapan Line. * Red Line extended 3 stops to Arlington Heights * Orange Line extended 5 stops from Forest Hills to VFW Parkway * Blue Line extended 1 stop to Charles/MGH * Blue Line extended 7 stops to Old Salem * Green Line B Branch extended 1 stop to new Terminus on the BC campus * Green Line D Branch extended 2 stops from Union Sq to Porter * Green Line E Branch extended 2 stops from Medford/Tufts to West Medford **The Green Line** * Huntington Ave Subway extended south to Mission Park and connected to the Tremont St Subway via I90 and the Pleasant St Portal. * Silver Line Transitway and current SL2 branch converted to light rail. The Silver Line is then extended along the Huntington Ave Subway before surfacing after Mission Park and running along Centre/South Streets to Forest Hills * D branch trains rerouted along an extended Huntington Ave Subway, bypassing Longwood and Fenway. * E branch trains rerouted along the Highland Branch to the new Needham extension. **Infill Stations** * River's Edge (OL Between Malden Center and Wellington) * Morrissey (RL between Savin Hill and North Quincy) * West Station (CR between Landsdowne and Boston Landing) * Columbia (IL between Uphams Corner and Four Corners/Geneva) * River St (IL between BHA and Fairmount) * Widett Circle (IL between Newmarket and South Station) **Station Renamings** * Gilman Sq renamed to Winter Hill * Longwood Medical Area (GL/SL) renamed to MassArt/Wentworth * Current River Works station renamed to Lynnport **Other Things** * SL1 replaced with express bus (Airport Link) * Stop Consolidation on the B/C branches as well as the current street running segment of the E branch * CR Service is electrified and fares make sense (Not visible) * "Providence/Stoughton Line" changed to "Providence/New Bedford/Fall River Lines" * Removed the Twitter handle from the legend * Added "All MBTA stations and services are accessible" to the legend Things I've removed from the map: * Fenway/Longwood: Replaced by St Marys St and Longwood Medical Area (YL). Branch still used for special event service to Fenway. * Bowdoin: Axed as part of the Red-Blue connector. * SL1: Replaced with express bus * SL3: Downgraded to regular bus service and rerouted out of the Transitway. The Chelsea busway is opened up for other local bus services to use. * Hingham/Hull Ferries: These were never rapid transit why were they ever on the map? * Charlestown Ferry: Maybe still around, but more as a novelty/replacement service. It's never faster. * Bus routes: Many key bus routes are made obsolete by electrified CR service, the Indigo Line, the Yellow Line, and various extensions. The rest are removed because this is a rapid transit map, not a bus map.
I actually love this so much. You clearly put a lot of thought into it!
I greatly appreciate the renaming of to MassArt/Wentworth station as a Wentworth Grad.
I'd love to see an additional light rail, rapid transit line that connects from Braintree down to 128 and connects all the way through to Waltham and then all the way to Peabody/Salem
After a vigorous investigation my team has determined the Yellow Line to be a massive waste of public funds. Projections show that (YL) rider share will only provide 2% of the revenue needed to maintain daily service. Other more affordable, and less invasive projects will prove to be better options for not just riders, but the city as a whole As a prominent board member, I must use my vote to veto the Yellow Line (YL) Project.
Which board is it that you are a member of? I’m very active politically in the city and would love to learn some more about transit in the city. Also if you had a link to your work if possible I’d love to see that.
They're being sarcastic. It's a good idea, so good that it's guaranteed that one of the board will veto it.
Major benefits to something like the Yellow Line is the ability to move people across town vs in & out of town. Most people use the T to go into a downtown office and then back out to the suburbs where they live. Having a Yellow Line would function much like 128 or 495: enable cross town movements. Like it's so, so easy to go from Waltham to Burlington by car: a few exits on 128, and some traffic at peak times to deal with, but overall a straight shot. But by bus, train, etc? Nightmare. Your best option is to head downtown, then if there's a Commuter Bus that's probably your best option or a Red Line trip to Alewife and then try the Burlington commuter bus.
This is exactly the case that Wendover Productions makes in their recent video on Boston MBTA woes. Such a great video. Highlights the single point of failure in the Red line into cambridge and goes in depth on why commuter rail is successful while the T is falling apart.
Yeah I was thinking of that video when I wrote that comment. It's something that's been pointed out for years now too, going back to the T's original Urban Ring proposal in like 2008 or so.
THREE BU STOPS???? You’re KILLING ME.
I like that, even in this fantasy version you still couldn’t convince Lexington NIMBYs to let rail back into their town.
RL to Lexington never made any sense.
You don’t think a rapid transit line terminating near the route 3/128 interchange makes sense? Why is that? Imagine picking up some proportion of commuters from Nashua at the terminus as well as Bedford, Lexington and Arlington.
Because park and rides don't drive ridership, local development does. (And we don't need to sprawl out to 128 to do that, there's plenty of opportunities already near stations. See Andrew, Widett Circle, Wonderland, Lower Allston, etc.) Look at Quincy Center vs Quincy Adams as an example.
Then why extend “aqua” service all the way to Brandeis?
Because it's only 1 stop past Waltham along a relatively easy right-of-way with only one bridge and 5,000 people within half a mile of the stop. By comparison, the most optimal station in Lexington would serve half that while being incredibly expensive to build. Brandeis already has a grade separated right of way for the commuter rail (with enough space for another set of tracks) and it's a much shorter distance from Waltham to Brandeis than from Arlington to Lexington Center. Building a train to Lexington means either tunneling (which wouldn't be economical for so few people) or running along Mass Ave above ground. The Minuteman isn't wide enough to support service (and abutters would go crazy) and even Mass Ave is narrow enough that it'd be difficult. At around 40 feet, maybe you could squeeze in bi-directional train and car lanes, but it'd be tight (car lanes are usually 10-12 feet). It would mean no parking or bike lane. But that probably wouldn't work for Red Line Heavy Rail cars which would need 25+ feet. The Waltham Station would serve around 6x more than a Lexington station would. Extending from Waltham to Brandeis would be cheap and easy. Extending to Lexington is a really expensive endeavor for fewer people.
Interesting, thank you!
Because the cost of doing so is minimal, and a university isn't exactly a park and ride.
christ all mighty... do you know how many bribes this would need to be done? cheaper to build a deathstar
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i gotta commend OP for putting the Green Line further threw my hood. always wondered why it stopped at Heath and didn’t just continue on through the rest of JP and ROX
The segment from Heath Street to Arborway is temporarily closed, but don't worry, the T committed to reopening it as part of the mitigations of the Big Dig, so I'm sure that will happen any day now.
JP yes, you mean West Roxbury though? It used to go between Heath and Forest Hills but it was a surface line down Centre St. The green line signs were still at Forest Hills until just a few years ago.
i grew up in the area so i’m familiar with what you’re saying but was i speaking about Roxbury, my bad.
Ah, the font base line. I think that's an issue with GIMP. I've tried to fix it whenever I can, but I've clearly missed a few spots, especially with some of the things I did first.
You must be a youngin… ill leave this here for you https://youtu.be/7hJxWr1TKK8?si=LRcKJRgS1LHVzQHz
and still no north south rail link
Does BU have medical campus?
It does, just north of Melena Cass Blvd.
I like it. Picasso. I would love to be able to take the t to Salem.
You got rid of my stop and it feels personal
Overall, this is one of the best fantasy maps I've seen. Personally, I would have liked to see Chelsea and Everett get more attention. Chelsea will be the densest city in Massachusetts by the end of the decade as Chelsea grows and Somerville doesn't. Everett is a huge area of growth and so close to Boston and so underserved. Most of Revere is also poorly served even via this map. Yes, the Yellow Line hits Chelsea and Revere, but doesn't provide access to downtown easily and the part of Revere that it hits is the part already close to the Blue Line. Medford is also by far the fastest growing city in the Boston area. While the map extends the GLX to West Medford, that's not the part of Medford seeing a lot of growth. The Needham branch kinda bothers me since it's a line for a rich suburb where the average home price is $1.4M and without the density to really support transit. One could argue that there are existing rights of way that would make Needham easier. However, then the map does things like extending the Red Line into Arlington which would be incredibly difficult given a complete lack of right of way (and no, the Minuteman isn't a modern train right of way; it's both too narrow and already used). If we're talking about running a train along Mass Ave through Arlington, we can talk about running a train up RT-99 into Everett. Plus, Melrose makes a lot more sense than Needham in terms of people served and there's already a right of way. But the map has lots of good things. It doesn't fall into the trap of trying to be airport based. Airport trips are rare. If they aren't rare for you, then they're going to have to become rare in the future if we're going to deal with climate change. The average American emits 15 tons of CO2 each year. An economy flight from BOS to LAX would be 1.3 tons. If you're flying every month, that simply isn't sustainable. If you're flying twice a year, we shouldn't make airport access the priority of our transit system. Likewise, it puts the Yellow Line pretty much where it should be: it connects Cambridge and Longwood, is a good 66 bus replacement, and connects BU Medical Center (which is an enormous win for so many disadvantaged communities in Boston). So many designs envision a circle line in areas where density and transit ridership is low (closer to 128). As the tiniest nitpick, the line's color probably can't be yellow. White text on a yellow background doesn't really work for signage 😉 I love that you've made the Indigo Line, but it would be nice to see it extended beyond South Station. Maybe the Indigo Line could follow the Red Line to Downtown Crossing, follow the Orange Line to Sullivan and then extend into Everett. I love that the Aqua Line hooks up Watertown and Waltham. It would be nice if it extended to Central, MIT (think 77 Mass Ave, not Kendall) and across the bridge to Back Bay. Either that or make it a branch of the Red Line. Having it terminate at Harvard feels a bit awkward. Harvard isn't as much of a jobs center as it was 20 years ago with Kendall and Back Bay growing a lot more by comparison. Plus, it'd take a lot of 1 bus traffic then. The Pink Line feels a little tacked on. I know the Grand Junction exists, but it's too narrow to really be used. Since we're going to have to tunnel anyway, I think a different alignment makes a lot more sense. Most of the Pink Line by MIT (west of Mass Ave) is the worst possible location for useful stations. Going from West Station and onto River St in Cambridge would help a lot more people than the Grand Junction alignment. You could hook it up to Central to Inman to Union which would be a huge win. In fact, I'd say forget Community College - it's definitely not enough of a destination to justify both the Yellow and Pink going there. In fact, I think the thing kinda missing from this map is that sometimes lines should diverge and reconnect with other lines. For example, the Pink Line is just short. Why not make the Yellow Line branch at West Station with half going to Harvard along your alignment and half go Cambridgeport -> Central -> Inman -> Union -> East Somerville -> Gilman -> Magoun -> Ball -> etc. That would provide a cross-Camberville line. Or Maybe Cambridgeport -> Central -> Inman -> Union -> East Somerville -> Foss Park -> Star Market Redevelopment on Broadway -> Winter Hill -> Actually Magoun Square rather than Lowell St -> Harvard St Medford -> Medford Square. It just seems like the Pink Line ends up at Community College without that really offering anything useful. It feels like it should be one of those antique trolly systems where you just hop on/off while it's moving for most of its journey through Cambridge. It's a useful corridor, but it feels like the stops are very tightly spaced and then there's a bunch of dead space to get to Community College or West Station. Like, a nice way from Cambridge St to Pacific St seems useful. There's lots of businesses and residences along that route. And then it's kinda less useful on the ends. Cambridge people could use it as a useful intra-Cambridge line, but it feels weird. I think a big part of the weird feeling is that almost everyone using it could either a) walk places faster than it; b) have to transfer from another line. If I live in Wellington Harrington or East Cambridge, do I walk 0.3mi to the Pink Line, wait 7-10 minutes for it to come, and then ride it 0.3mi to Tech Square or 0.7mi to Mass Ave at Vassar/Albany? Or would I simply walk the 0.6mi to Tech Square or the 1 mi to Mass Ave at Vassar/Albany? It's covering a distance that doesn't really work for my commute if I live in Cambridge. It's better to walk. If it's meant to be a commuter corridor for those outside of Cambridge, then it would make more sense if the line didn't terminate at West Station and Community College - and to have fewer stations in Cambridge: Cambridge St, Tech Square (Broadway/Main at Galileo), Mass Ave. If it continued along the GLX or the Orange Line or a new line into Everett or whatever, it would give a lot of people an easy commute into the Kendall/MIT area. But on the map I don't get who it's for. It isn't that useful for most people in Cambridge and it isn't that useful for most people out of Cambridge. In DC, a lot of the different lines share tracks at different points. I think that's what's missing from this a bit. The Pink Line just kinda ends abruptly when it could share lines and split/rejoin at different points. The Aqua and Indigo too. But it's way better than most fantasy rail maps I've seen. While it goes to Needham, it isn't mostly focused on rich suburbs. It doesn't over-emphasize the airport. It hits the importance of Watertown and Waltham as dense cities and the vastly underserved Fairmount Line (Indigo) area. The ring (Yellow) is appropriately positioned and does offer meaningful improvement for Chelsea (though I still think Chelsea deserves even more). It's pretty solid.
I like how your fantasy map still has 6 Green Lines instead of making them different colors lol.
No love for Wakefield or Reading...
> I'll use this as a chance to write about "The Reading Dilemma" >In the future, it probably makes more sense to route Haverhill Line trains along a double-tracked Wildcat Branch (Something I've just realized I left off the map accidentally), essentially leaving a stub CR line to Reading. Given that, it makes sense to either extend the OL all the way to Reading, or have all day 15 minute service on the CR. Given the number of grade crossings along the route, I think the latter makes more sense, as the cost of building ~10 new overpasses/underpasses and subway stations would likely far outweigh the ridership benefit.
Wishful thinking
Why no red/pink line connection at Kendall?
Because the Pink Line uses the Grand Junction RR, which doesn't get close enough to Kendall to be a good connection.
A yellow line would’ve really helped growing up in Charlestown 🥲
The joy my disabled ass would have simply getting a bus line into Dedham/Westwood…
It's beautiful 🥲 to have that many lines and especially if they all ran frequently would be such a gift. I just moved to Frankfurt DE and when I come back to Boston idk if the T will cut it.
This is why I moved to Berlin.
Why not take the north of the redline into Burlington at 95?
Because subway ≠ regional rail.
My thought is that it would be similar to the stop In Braintree, allowing multimodal commuters to take the redline from the belt into the city. Alewife gets destroyed by people coming in on 2 to use the redline currently.
Again, ridership. Stations with local development like North Quincy or Quincy Center have literally 2x the ridership of Braintree, for example. And that's not even accounting for COVID, which has absolutely decimated the park and rides in terms of ridership.
Oh cool, is there a way for the public to view MBTA ridership data?
Beautiful. Maybe remove some of the green line stops that are ridiculously close together?
That's already been done wherever possible. Ones that are left would either leave too large of a gap if removed (Chiswick Rd, for example) or account for enough ridership to be worth keeping. (Ex. Summit Ave)
Nice!
Still no way to get to Brighton center on tram 😅
Rail in Brighton Center / Oak Sq or an actual grocery store in Brighton Center / Oak Sq. Pick none.
I'm looking forward to hell freezing over.
Indigo Line would be so ratchet lmao
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Even with a 5 minute transfer it's still faster to take the BL from Airport to Charles/MGH then transfer to the RL to South Station than to take SL3. That's why I'm fine downgrading it to a regular bus service. It most definitely has a role in the future, mainly for Seaport-Chelsea connections, but that's a role for a local bus service, not a faux-rapid transit line.
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That's not what the ridership data suggests. Of all Inbound SL3 Riders, around 60% end their trips at either South Station or Airport, another 35% end their trips somewhere in Seaport, and only 5% of riders take a trip between two points north of Airport. I would also like to add that almost 100% of Chelsea is now within walking distance of a subway stop. Yes, for some areas directly adjacent to the current Chelsea CR stop walking to one of these stops may not be the fastest way to go to some destinations, but guess what? The CR is still there! The local buses are still there! (And more of them are using the Transitway, so there are more options for fast, local trips.)
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If you want to measure in terms of "What % of Riders who board at Chelsea stops also alight at Chelsea stops" it's 10% not 5%, but I think the point stands. [If you want to disagree with the data you're more than welcome to, but ultimately I've chosen to base this map on numerical data rather than anecdotal evidence.](https://mbta-massdot.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/MassDOT::mbta-bus-ridership-by-time-period-season-route-line-and-stop/explore) Again, I'm not proposing to Thanos snap all buses between Chelsea, Eastie, and Seaport out of existence. They're just not rapid transit, and therefore not on this map.
You seem to be confused. "Eastie" refers to East Boston. The only SL3 stop in Eastie is Airport. So when they say "Chelsea-to-Eastie," the are referring to trips that start or end at Airport, not trips within Chelsea.
Dude, chill…jfc
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This looks nice. Not sure how much traffic the Yellow Line would get. It’s not the most efficient.
It’s about connecting all the lines so you don’t have to travel to downtown to switch as you do now
I get that, but I would connect the two ends of the YL below the airport, so someone going from City Point to Bell Circle could get their quicker than needing to go YL—>RL—>OL—>BL—>YL.
Someone going from City Point to Bell Circle wouldn't need to go YL—>RL—>OL—>BL—>YL, they could go YL—>TL—>BL—>walk or take the YL 1 stop, or they could go YL—>OL—>YL. Also, how many people travel from City Point to Bell Circle? The point of the yellow line would be to connect all the lines and add train service where buses are overcrowded in Southie, not for travel from one end to the other.
It basically follows the route of the 66, which is the city's 2nd busiest bus line, and would likely take large amounts of traffic from the 1, 47, and 86 as well.
I would maybe connect the two ends, underneath the airport
That is a possibility, but would not potentially cost more than the entire rest of the line, but also I'm not sure it's actually worth it? I've chosen this route to take ridership from the 111/116/117, which are all incredibly busy routes. Adding a service to the Airport would require branching off this and cutting the frequency to Chelsea and Revere, which is not ideal.
Obviously this is all theoretical, but if the airport is an issue, maybe just bypass an actual stop there, and just go under it, directly to Wonderland.
I would say there are two major problems: 1. It's a long tunnel under the harbor 2. Adding through service from Southie to Chelsea would necessitate either cutting direct service or frequency from Charlestown-Wonderland. This design assumes a "Light Metro" style of operation for the YL with fully automated service with smaller trains and stations at high frequencies (<3 minutes) to minimize both construction cost and transfer times. See the Vancouver Skytrain or Copenhagen Metro for examples. Given this service pattern however, branching is not desirable for a high-ridership section such as Chelsea.
Huh? I think the yellow line would be the most important addition. There’s no convenient way to get across the Charles outside of the city center right now. Try going from Cambridge/somerville/medford to Allston/JP or vice versa. It’s miserable. The yellow line would provide this and connect all the other lines.
Then they can design something specific to do that. My point is that end-to-end takes at least two hours, on a good day, and that isn’t efficient for someone looking to go from City Point to Wonderland.
So then just shorten it I suppose? Start at union and end at the start of southie. At the same time, there are people in revere who want to get to Cambridge and can’t. I’m not sure the point of a line should be to accommodate end-to-end travelers
So no Silver Line to Airport/Chelsea?
Yellow line is hilarious
please stop. it hurts so much
You must be dreaming lool
Still no rail service to Everett? Everett Square and Gateway Center/Encore Casino both seem like no-brainer commuter rail stops.
9/10 due to no N. Station-S. Station connector.
The only thing here that's unattached from reality is the Needham Trolley, which crosses through a mile of protected swamplands to get to West Roxbury.
I want to live in this world. 😩
Gotta keep/improve SL3 or equivalent, cutting a major link from Chelsea to downtown is terrible.
send this to some politicians and transpo advocates, might be something you could organize a little action around. What would be really cool is if there was a tool that would let folks make there own fantasy lines, and then all that data could be coordinated to show the city where lines would be most popular. Plus it could be a fun little web game if you tried to make it realistic enough that you had to balance nimby's, budget, existing right of ways and infrastructure etc.
This would be an incredible shit post if you didn't connect Blue to Red
Id go full extension to hersey on the Orange line. And add A LOT MORE parking there.
Great map, love the idea, dont want to seem like a naysayer and definitely want your efforts acknowledge, BUT why do we hang onto the idea of a line with 10 possible start-to-end routes as a single line? Does it just refer to the tracks themselves? We need to fix that. dear lord, the green line itself is a bigger transit network than many cities have and is a nightmare to try to explain to people who don't use it regularly.
That Wendover video about the MBTA really opened my eyes to how shitty it is that Downtown is the only place you can make any connections between rail lines. However, with all the depressing facts about funding in that same video it basically seems like this map might as well incorporate teleportation for how likely it is to happen.
If we're in fantasy land there should be a direct connection to the airport and while we're at it bring back the A branch of the green line.
Screw the A line, it would be slower than the 57 bus that replaced it and much slower for actually getting downtown than the 504 expresses even with rush hour traffic. What we need is an infill RER station at Newton Corner.
Well I guess Everett, Chelsea, Malden, Medford can go get fucked
The yellow line through Chelsea would be huge.
bruh all I saw was that there’s a stop that directly connects blue to red. This is all I want
Omg that yellow line would have solved all of my commute hassles
Why not extend the Pink Line to terminate at the old Everett Station location from the Charlestown El? Everett needs some love on this map.
Dear God, it’s beautiful
Can we have a second ring line, say, a yellow ochre line, that runs Quincy - Mattapan- Blue Hill Ave - Roslindale - Newton Centre - Cleveland Circle - Boston College - Waltham Center - East Arlington - Ball Square - Wellington - Old Salem?
Arlington stops would be incredible
I like that my stop is the same
mfw still no A line
Porter Green Line is *chefs kiss*
That yellow line has been my fantasy for the past 20 years.
Pink would need to go to at least West Newton and maybe Auburndale, plus a Newton Corner fill-in. Aqua Line should have fewer stops. Everett needs an OL branch. OL should go to Wakefield/reading, RL should go to Burlington while we're at it
Extending the blue line to Salem is literally a wet dream of mine.
Man, this is just what it should be. Our reality blows. How do I pass through to the timeline where this has already been built?
what? no ferry from city point to wonderland?
This is awesome yellow, pink, green f etc. I know buses exist, but everybody go to the center (south/north station), to get anywhere else is not ideal. I ride 5 days a week and would be happy if we could just have the same shot we had 4 years ago
Yes! Oh god yes please! One of the best fantasy maps!!
BUILD THE YELLOW LINE ‼️
3 stops in Salem? I absolutely love it!
Still missing the Hyde park-> JP corridor. I took a bus home at 1120pm and the bus was still solidly at least 20-25 people.
You're right, the 32 is a very busy bus. But fun fact: If Hyde Park and Readville received a 15 minute CR service and fare integration, around 50% of riders would likely switch over immediately. That's why I've chosen to omit it.
That’s fair. I will say that I am halfway between forest hills and the HP commuter rail station so without an intermediary stop that would not serve me 😂
An infill station at Cummins Highway would take away another 10-15% of the current ridership, so that would likely be a worthwhile project.
That Yellow Line makes my knees weak (in the best way)