tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post3487333445861677557..comments2024-03-29T03:02:00.140-07:00Comments on The Amateur Planner: What if the Allston Viaduct was rebuilt … without a huge highway viaduct?Arihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-15426588986559638932015-08-16T06:15:38.355-07:002015-08-16T06:15:38.355-07:00To clarify, when thinking of a relocated SFR, I...To clarify, when thinking of a relocated SFR, I'm thinking of<br />http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2013/11/allston-brighton-toll-straightening.html?m=1 and not MassDOT's proposal to relocate the road 20'.<br /><br />Also, it turns out MassDOT is planning to put a rail yard between the platform tracks and highway, so the real key to making the grades work for a freight spur under the highway would likely be lowering the rail yard.<br /><br />An alternative also worth exploring would be to design one of the MBTA's yard tracks so that it could store a commuter train at the mid day, and late at night it could unload tank cars into a pipeline that would run from the yard to Houghton Chemical; if that would meet Houghton's requirements, the relatively small diameter of one or more pipes may be cheaper to deal with than constructing an underpass large enough for a railcar.Joel N. Weber IInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-67344747072724126752015-08-11T16:26:39.957-07:002015-08-11T16:26:39.957-07:00Houghton Chemical could be served by constructing ...Houghton Chemical could be served by constructing a track that would pass under the Pike if you want to avoid the potential challenges of relocating the business.<br /><br />If we assume a relocated SFR, eastbound I-90 could have an exit to the right which would duck under the Pike to connect to SFR northbound, and a freight spur could be constructed to duck under the Pike next to the exit ramp. Presumably space would need to be reserved for that extra track between the four platform tracks and the highway so that the freight spur would have space to descend adequately.Joel N. Weber IInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-31170522940995875992015-08-11T15:51:19.458-07:002015-08-11T15:51:19.458-07:00The four feet isn't so much of a problem when ...The four feet isn't so much of a problem when you notice that two barriers vanish from the at grade section, saving 4' or 6', when you elevate one side of SFR and integrate the other with the Pike.Joel N. Weber IInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-29494655280523159102015-08-11T10:23:55.361-07:002015-08-11T10:23:55.361-07:00Another possible variation:
At grade, from south ...Another possible variation:<br /><br />At grade, from south to north:<br /><br />30' Worcester Line to Back Bay Station<br /><br />68' I-90 eastbound (2 x 10' shoulders, 4 x 12' lanes)<br /><br />92' I-90 + Soldiers Field Road westbound, as a single 6 lane road with I-90 on the left four lanes and Soldiers Field Road on the right two lanes (2 x 10' shoulders, 6 x 12' lanes)<br /><br />parkland + bike path<br /><br />Then, build a viaduct above the full width of I-90 eastbound, and use the northern part of the top of the viaduct for Soldiers Field Road eastbound, the part next to that for the Grand Junction Railroad, and possibly include a bike path on the southern part of the top of the viaduct.<br /><br />The 24' freed up by removing one direction of Soldiers Field Road from the at grade section doesn't quite provide the 2 x 14' I'm trying to include to get the full 10' shoulders on each side that Interstate standards want for three or more lanes in each direction, but it may be possible to squeeze that extra four feet out of narrower barriers between sections or the bike path.<br /><br />(I'm not entirely clear on whether it really makes sense to have one bike path along the river and another on the viaduct; it seems like a bridge at the western end of the constrained section to connect the river bike path to West Station might go a long way towards meeting at least some of the goals of the bike path on the viaduct.)Joel N. Weber IInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-43338398237312936552015-07-26T12:07:55.396-07:002015-07-26T12:07:55.396-07:00Potential routes on southern part of 39 corridor:
...Potential routes on southern part of 39 corridor:<br /><br />39 status quo<br /><br />frequent, reliable service on the part of 41 to the west of the Orange Line<br /><br />43, operated with battery powered buses, reverted back to the Pleasant St Incline with Park St as northern terminus, extended along 66 from Ruggles to Huntington, then mirror 39 the rest of the way to Forest Hills<br /><br />to Kendall<br /><br />to Central<br /><br />to Harvard via Coolidge Corner and possibly Babcock St and West StationJoel N. Weber IInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-88131150003481809312015-07-26T11:46:12.283-07:002015-07-26T11:46:12.283-07:00http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2014/08/no-need...http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2014/08/no-need-to-duplicate-transit-on-comm-ave.html?m=1 has a comment from Matthew claiming that, as of about a year ago, MassDOT was planning to rework the intersection at the southern end of the BU bridge; and it appears that construction at the northern end of the BU bridge is ongoing. Do we have any reliable data on whether or not traffic will be functional in this area when all of the construction is done?<br /><br />Once West Station exists, a shuttle could serve it instead of Yawkee, but I'm not sure if any timeline exists for West Station construction.<br /><br />You can perfectly well put 200 people into a pair of 60' buses if you know you need to have that pair of buses waiting empty when the train arrives. But when EZ-Ride has been running 35' buses on 8 minute headways at North Station, it's not obvious to me why the Worcester Line would be expected to require any more than that.Joel N. Weber IInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-20762238489522618452015-07-26T10:57:13.956-07:002015-07-26T10:57:13.956-07:00If West Station were a transfer point with (from t...If West Station were a transfer point with (from the AM peak perspective) an express train arriving at one side of an island platform and a local train arriving simultaneously at the other side of that platform, and they then would exchange passengers and one would continue to Yawkee / Back Bay / South Station and the other to Kendall, I suspect the dwell time with bi-level cars would be longer than is desired, which makes me wonder if I shouldn't have been so concerned with frequency. Also, IIRC one of Cambridge's concerns with Grand Junction revenue service was how fast and often trains would go through grade crossings; a plan with a limited number of trips through Cambridge might be politically advantageous among proposals for revenue service on the Grand Junction.<br /><br />I'm wondering if building a side platform between Main St and Mass Ave, installing quad gates at Mass Ave and then operating revenue trains no faster than 10 MPH across Mass Ave would be a feasible approach to a minimal level of service.<br /><br />Perhaps the first inbound train to Kendall of the morning, after dropping off passengers at Kendall, could head back across the Charles and take over train 507's slot (maybe the trainset at South Station which would otherwise use that slot could deadhead to the yard at Readville or something), and then the second inbound train of the morning, after dropping off passengers at Kendall, could slowly deadhead through the northern five Grand Junction crossings to spend the mid-day at Boston Engine Terminal.Joel N. Weber IInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-82049970085063363892015-07-19T13:33:11.324-07:002015-07-19T13:33:11.324-07:00I think the key is not to split, but to have a tra...I think the key is not to split, but to have a transfer at West Station. Splitting would work with increased frequencies, which the line could probably support (especially if Cambridge—Kendall and Harvard—were more easily in the commute shed). Local and express trains could meet there and passengers could transfer to different locations, a very downscaled version of, say, how Jamaica works in Queens where people transfer between Atlantic Terminal, Long Island City and Penn Station.<br /><br />That bus route makes empirical sense, but you have to get it across the river somehow, and the BU Bridge and rotary just don't work for that, especially in the evening when rotary traffic can cause 20 minute delays. Plus you have to get in and out of Yawkey Station, which is not really located in a straight line, so you wind up with a zigzagging bus. This might work in the less-trafficky morning, but bus operations with unreliable traffic become very difficult, especially if they are trying to meet train schedules. Add to the fact that buses don't work well for high-density, last mile links (they don't have the capacity to easily absorb 100-200 people). The Grand Junction railroad bridge is untapped capacity across the river. Even a DMU shuttle would serve this purpose well.<br /><br />But rerouting the 39: this makes sense. I have a blog post simmering somewhere about this, but the basic idea is to do something with the 39 and 47 akin to what was done with the 63, 64, 66 and 86 in the late '80s. The 39 has two overlapping peak loads: one from downtown to Mission Hill/Hyde Square and another from the LMA to central and south JP. (Downtown to JP commuters are likely to use the Orange Line.) If the Hyde Square streetcar is built, this addresses the downtown-to-Hyde Square portion of the demand. The 41 could be extended to Forest Hills, and the 39 could run through JP to the LMA, and the across the bridge to Cambridge. <br /><br />The 47 is a similarly cobbled-together line; no one really rides it through the LMA. The 39 could run through the LMA and take over the LMA-Cambridge portion of the 47. The Broadway-LMA portion of the 47 could be routed along Broadway in South Boston to provide a direct link from South Boston to the LMA. There's still the issue of traffic, but breaking long routes in to shorter segments makes sense.Arihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-40147693238466311942015-07-18T21:08:05.236-07:002015-07-18T21:08:05.236-07:00Splitting Worcester Line frequency with some train...Splitting Worcester Line frequency with some trains going to South Station and others going to Kendall seems suboptimal if doing so makes achieving frequent service more difficult.<br /><br />Why not have a frequent bus that originates at Forest Hills, mirrors 39 along South St, Centre St, S Huntington, then continues along Brookline Ave including a stop at Yawkee and another at Kenmore, then makes its way across the Harvard Bridge to Kendall? (I'm wondering if offering multiple routes with multiple destinations along the southern part of 39 would reduce the effect of everyone crowding into the first bus that comes.)<br /><br />Or, maybe an organization with experience running shuttle bus service from a major commuter rail station to Kendall area office buildings could add service to Yawkee.Joel N. Weber IInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-85085302236977272392015-07-18T19:07:50.883-07:002015-07-18T19:07:50.883-07:00That's certainly an option. If you depressed S...That's certainly an option. If you depressed Soldier's Field Road, which only needs 10' or so of clearance, you could ramp up the path on top of it in the narrowest section without having to have it go up more than 8 feet or so. You still do need to cross the Grand Junction over the turnpike. Moving the path in to the river (or putting in fill) leads to a lot more environmental permitting issues (I believe the Army Corps of Engineers might even be involved); it's not like the '40s when they just built the lagoon islands to "compensate" for Storrow construction.<br /><br />Why does the Turnpike needs 12 foot lanes and full shoulders? Hard to say. A waiver could certainly be obtained. This seems to be MassHighway nonsense. Given that you can have shoulders all through the toll plaza area, you can get away with no shoulders for a third of a miles.<br /><br />As for the Grand Junction, yes, it does need to be built for two tracks. Otherwise you are building it for obsolescence. As I've written <a href="http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2015/07/beyond-better-buses-build-better-network.html" rel="nofollow">before</a>, the Grand Junction is a fantastic link between North Station, Assembly Square, Sullivan Square, Kendall, MIT and Allston, linking together several Commuter Rail lines with the potential to provide massive last mile connections which don't exist today. (For example: currently it takes 1:04 to travel from Framingham to Kendall by transit, about as long as it takes to drive in rush hour traffic. A direct train via the Grand Junction would take about 35 minutes; even with a transfer it would only take about 40 minutes, saving those commuters an hour of travel a day and attracting many new commuters from the western suburbs away from their cars.) Building anything less than a full two-track right-of-way would lack the necessary scalability for the future that needs to be built to ensure that Allston and Kendall can be linked as necessary.Arihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-9703316063005032972015-07-18T14:00:15.647-07:002015-07-18T14:00:15.647-07:00Schuylkill Banks seems to have put parts of their ...Schuylkill Banks seems to have put parts of their bike path on a bridge where waterfront land was unavailable.<br /><br />Would moving the Charles River bike path onto a bridge over the river to free up land to be reallocated to meet the full Interstate Highway standards be worth considering here if MassDOT doesn't think an 8 foot outside shoulder with 11 foot lanes is good enough? (And what exactly is the major concern with 8' shoulder and 11' lanes?)<br /><br />What are the concerns with landfill to narrow the Charles River by 10' to 50' to create more parkland and more land for the bike path, which seems like it might be the obvious approach if it doesn't have unacceptable environmental impacts?<br /><br />Does the Grand Junction bridge really need to be built wide enough for two tracks in its initial iteration? Would there be any downside to building a smaller bridge for one track that could be widened for a second track later if there's ever a need for the second track?Joel N. Weber IInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-85208803955552584842015-07-17T11:46:11.048-07:002015-07-17T11:46:11.048-07:00I think some of their concern regarding breakdown ...I think some of their concern regarding breakdown lanes is the godawful sight lines along their alignment. At the Comm Ave end of the viaduct, you have a 3.5% grade, which is steeper than anything else on the extension. With no view lines, you have an issue where if someone breaks down another car could be on top of it with little warning, hence breakdown lanes. Build a flatter, straighter road, and you have better sight lines and less of an argument for breakdown lanes.Arihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-26440552948687772362015-07-17T09:16:05.753-07:002015-07-17T09:16:05.753-07:00Wow this is awesome. MassDOT should seriously cons...Wow this is awesome. MassDOT should seriously consider it. The width of their proposed rebuilt viaduct is absurd. First of all, it should be designed for 55 or even 45 mph like the other sections of the Mass Pike in the area. Second of all, it doesn't need full breakdown lanes, because unless the rest of it through downtown gets a lane diet, that part won't either (there are some pull-offs though.) Their inability to design a highway for an URBAN setting is really quite disappointing. It's the same thing they did when they studied new ramps to/from Back Bay. They tried to jam long wide suburban-style ramps into an urban setting, and guess what? They don't fit! So frustrating...Charlie D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/12894581357760437121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-47429827423774663632015-07-15T18:12:58.236-07:002015-07-15T18:12:58.236-07:00Uhm, yes. Good catch. Will fix.Uhm, yes. Good catch. Will fix.Arihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-38017505835151496852015-07-15T17:34:31.833-07:002015-07-15T17:34:31.833-07:00Are E&H swapped on the map?Are E&H swapped on the map?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-48073228208406167592015-07-15T08:35:22.900-07:002015-07-15T08:35:22.900-07:00I'm sold. Git 'er done!I'm sold. Git 'er done!Rob O'Brienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00291848550027050695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-85860418591415616422015-07-15T08:04:29.177-07:002015-07-15T08:04:29.177-07:00Yes and no. You'd have to depress one of the W...Yes and no. You'd have to depress one of the Worcester Line tracks significantly in order to fit it under the Grand Junction. Which is doable, of course.Arihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-38056535550760854102015-07-15T07:41:30.205-07:002015-07-15T07:41:30.205-07:00This arrangement also has potential benefits for r...This arrangement also has potential benefits for railroad operations, if the Grand Junction tracks can fly over the outbound Worcester Line track and end up in the middle between the two Worcester line tracks at West Station. Then the latter can be build either with three tracks and two island platforms so that you can have a cross-platform transfer from both directions to Grand Junction shuttles, or with four tracks and through-running from the west to the Grand Junction. crzwdjkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06394805356595604336noreply@blogger.com