1. Introductory.
2. Difference?
3. Numbers.
4. Current Daily Use.
5. Urban Ring: Cambridge, the good guys and the bad guys.
A. The alternatives, briefly.
(1) The official position.
(2) New Orange Line Route.
(3) Streetcars.
B. The MassDOT Meeting.
(1) MassDOT.
(2) Cambridge.
(3) Your Editor.
(4) Street car enthusiast.
6. Summary.
7. Media Coverage.
1. Introductory.
There was a good crowd at the auditorium of the Morse School the evening of June 16, 2001.
The first thing to catch the eye was a flier on the front door of Morse School advertising the Cambridge Pols’ fraudulent “celebration” of Magazine Beach on which I have reported. My response to this con game was printed in the Cambridge Chronicle the same day and has seen links by the Boston Globe on line.
The issue is MassDOT’s consideration of passenger commuter use of the Grand Junction railroad running from the Beacon Yards in Allston to North Station in Boston for trains running between Framingham/Worcester and Boston. The Grand Junction railroad includes the rail bridge under the BU Bridge. It goes directly through the tiny part of the habitat of the Charles River White Geese which has not been destroyed for them.
As usual, the Cambridge Pols are running around blaming everybody else for attacking Cambridge and claiming to be saving people. The reality appears to be that key Cambridge Pols are the strongest entity fighting for this nonsense. They are playing their usual con game, trying to fool concerned people into stabbing themselves in the back while claiming to be their friends.
The proposal is silly. The state’s figures indicate a possible for an increase in round trips in the next 25 years from 21 per day now to 30 per day then.
2. Difference?
A big difference from the prior presentation was that the presenters were a lot more positive a few months ago that South Station, the current terminus, is being greatly expanded as a result of the South Coast (Fall River and New Bedford) passenger service resumption. This would be done by moving the South Postal annex to a location further in the South Boston waterfront area, tearing it down, and putting in trackage that was destroyed 50 or 60 years ago before the building was constructed. The additional trackage would leave plenty of room for Worcester expansion of service.
When I pointed out the change, the speakers suddenly got more positive about the possibility of South Station expansion.
3. Numbers.
There is a small fraction of the current passengers who are going to the North Station area by their studies (8%) or to the Cambridge Kendall Square area (5%). To service these passengers, the state is considering instituting passenger service which would interfere with traffic on 6 roadways in Cambridge, crossing at grade, and add to the environmental destruction Cambridge and other Cambridge friends are inflicting on the Charles River.
No tracks would be added to the Grand Junction railroad. Train speed would vary from 15 to 30 miles per hour.
The route would clearly be greatly inferior to the current route and would use a transportation technique, at grade crossings with drop down gates, which went out of favor more than 50 years ago, at least in densely developed communities.
However, key Cambridge Pols want to help Cambridge industrial developers and they are trying to scare the public into savaging themselves.
4. Current Daily Use.
Current daily use of the Grand Junction is as follows:
One scheduled freight.
MBTA moves to their repair shops.
Amtrak moves of cars from service on their Downeaster trains to their Northeast Corridor trains.
Sporadic freight.
5. Urban Ring: Cambridge, the good guys and the bad guys.
A. The alternatives, briefly.
(1) The official position.
The official position is a bunch of bus rearrangements with real rapid transit somewhere in the future.
The rapid transit aspects are plans I have been working on since 1985. There are two alternate proposals.
(2) New Orange Line Route.
The state has invested $20 million in Yawkey Station, a crucial part of an Orange Line alternative which would start at Ruggles Station on the Orange line, stop at Longwood Medical Area, then at Yawkey, then at a number of stops which both proposals use north of the Charles, ending in Charlestown with a transfer at Bunker Hill Community College or further out.
Yawkey Station is the key the Orange Line alternative would have a new stop under Brookline Avenue over the Mass. Pike connecting Commuter Rail at Yawkey to the existing Green Line station at Kenmore. This would provide excellent covered connections among three Green Line branches, the new Orange Line station, the Commuter Rail and Fenway Park.
The Orange Line connections would allow such a route to be connected to trains on the existing Orange Line service. Phase 1 would be excellent. It could allow a spur off Ruggles station to Longwood Medical Area and the Kenmore-Yawkey Station. This spur could be arranged to allow direct, non transfer service from Dowtown Boston, Charlestown and west to Longwood and Kenmore.
Really excellent.
This route was initially proposed by me in 1986 and made part of the state considerations in about 1991.
(3) Streetcars.
Cambridge, its developers, and organizations influenced by Cambridge have put out a very consistent lie that there is only one alternative: a street car proposal which could not possibly get people off the Downtown Subway, a goal the Cambridge FORMAL representative pushed.
It would be quite destructive of the Charles River, and needlessly destructive because it is far inferior to the Orange Line proposal.
The different stations from the Orange Line proposal are south of the commonly proposed Mass. Ave. Station in the middle of the MIT Campus.
Then the route has a stop at Putnam Avenue in Cambridge which would be quite destructive to the residential neighborhood. It crosses the Charles River and then stops at Mountfort and St. Mary’s a block south of BU’s Marsh Chapel, this would connect to commuter rail at this point and connect to Fenway Park but be 4 to 6 blocks further away. Then it would have a station under Park Drive between the Riverside line (connecting to Fenway Park station) and the Beacon Street line (connecting to a new station under Audubon Circle).
This alternative stinks of the Grand Junction commuter rail.
B. The MassDOT Meeting.
The part of the meeting which I found more enlightening included three presentations on the Urban Ring transportation system.
(1) MassDOT.
MassDOT called the plans in great hiatus and not meaningfully being considered. They described it as a bus proposal and neglected to mention the rapid transit aspects.
(2) Cambridge.
Cambridge’s representative put in a pitch for the rapid transit aspects without being specific.
But the nonsense put out by the Cambridge Pols denies the existence of the Orange Line route.
(3) Your Editor.
I called the bus proposal silly in the core area of Boston while having possible value in the outer areas. I pointed out that Yawkey Station, with the state funding, is highly valuable to the Framingham - Worcester people, and a crucial part of the meaningful rapid transit proposals. The streetcar proposal crosses the train line too far out, causing significantly inferior service. This is the Mountfort Station, next to the Mass. Pike, near Boston University’s Marsh Chapel.
I objected to Grand Junction use as far inferior, and expressed concern that the state could be trying to save money on the South Coast project at the expense of Worcester / Framingham and Cambridge by moving the trains to the Grand Junction. I pointed out that moving them would kill the value of the Urban Ring to Framingham/Worcester for which the state has spent $20 million on the Yawkey Station.
(4) Street car enthusiast.
A streetcar enthusiast from Somerville responded to me (not mentioning names) by pushing a transfer at Mountfort from the Mass. Pike. Drivers would have to be very foolish to want to get off to transfer to streetcars, to put it mildly. Such a proposal would require a garage on air rights over the Mass. Pike near BU’s Marsh Chapel, on air rights over the Mass. Pike in a number of possible locations perhaps going as far east as Brookline Avenue or as far west as the meadow just west of the BU Bridge.
I take such comments out of the blue from such a person as not at all to be ignored. This could very easily his exposing the pitch from Cambridge or their friends for their silly streetcars, trying to give Mountfort Station value in place of Yawkey.
6. Summary.
One succinct comment may be of value. Like so many things, dealing with MassDOT is day and night different from dealing with the City of Cambridge, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and their controlled "organizations."
The con game from the Cambridge pols is very real and very much part of the usual script, except that MassDOT looks meaningful neutral, unless you listen to the scare tactics being put out by the Cambridge pols.
When the Cambridge pols tell me they are protecting me from something, I have a very strong tendency to believe the opposite.
You need look no farther than Alewife where a woman apparently trying to save the Alewife reservation certainly looks like she was fooled by the Cambridge pols into being a main cause of its destruction. She spent 15 years or so telling people to look at everything except for the core part which her “friends” in Cambridge wanted to and are now destroying.
Further studies and meetings will occur.
7. Media Coverage.
The Boston Globe’s on line report did not say much. It is at: http://articles.boston.com/2011-06-17/yourtown/29670836_1_commuter-rail-rail-line-light-rail.
