20th Anniversary of the Arborway shutdown

Boston Drivers, and a police dept. that won't enforce traffic rules, and signal systems that need to favor the trolleys

It is true sir... I know many poeple on the inside of the T for years...al silloway was the arboway house man for decades

dudeursistershot wrote:

aline1969 wrote:The MBTA put the most crapy PCC cars on the E Arborway on purpose so they would break down and cause headaches for autos and business people, the T wanted to make the people hate streetcars so they could get rid of that line.

Oh, come on, enough conspiracy theories...

The T doesn't like street-running light rail for the same reasons most people don't like it - it's slow, dangerous, inflexible, expensive, and it combines the worst characteristics of heavy rail and buses. Like heavy rail, it's expensive to build, maintain, and run, and can only run where there is rail. And like buses, it has to compete with regular traffic, ensuring an unusual level of terrible service that can only be found in street running rail.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:At some point one of the LRV's got involved in a side-impact collision on the street-running portion of the line and one of its side battery compartments shorted out and electrified the entire exterior of the car.....

I remember hearing that back in the day as the #1 reason why the Boeings were never used beyond Brigham Circle.

Rail Bus63 wrote:I rode the Arborway line many times between the early 1970’s and 1985, and there were always delays on Centre St. Always. I've been stuck on cars waiting for double-parked vehicles to be moved (usually delivery trucks and vans) and I was on a PCC once that was involved in a fender-bender with a car. The city of Boston has never done much to help the MBTA by enforcing the traffic and parking rules either, which is probably a significant part of the T’s reluctance to reopen this line.

I have always blamed the Boston Police Dept. for the double-parking problem being used as a reason for not restoring trolley service in JP. The longer we went without trolley service on Centre St. & South St., the more people got used to it and got in a habit of double-parking. Perhaps instead of relying on the BPD to keep cars from double-parking they should have had meter-maids and others from the Boston Parking & Traffic Dept. keeping the traffic flowing, but I guess it's too late for this.

As for the MBTA's intentions of restoring Arborway Service, I thought that when they connected the new track at Forest Hills Station to the existing track on South Street and in the Arborway that we would see trolleys in JP again, especially since they made several stops more accesible for trolleys. Remember how they brought the sidewalk out into the street along South Street in a few places to prevent passengers from having to walk into the street as well as prevent autos from passing a stopped trolley and also prevent them from illegally parking at the trolley stop. In my opinion all these extra modifications done were a huge waste of money which should have been spent in other ways.

Sorry, I'm not buying the conspiracy either. What crappy cars were transferred to Arborway? During the 1960's and 1970's, the Huntington Ave. fleet was made up of the 3022-3071 series Wartimes, the All-Electrics and the Dallas cars. Many of these PCC's were repainted in the green scheme during the 1970's and generally looked better than the numerous Reservoir PCC's still running around in tangerine. When the rebuild program began in the late 1970's, almost every rebuilt car was assigned to the Arborway line. When the introduction of the LRV's made some PCC's surplus at Reservoir, they moved the Picture Window cars to Arborway in 1978 instead of the numerous beat-up Wartime cars they had.

Let's just agree that the MBTA was looking for an opportunity to get away from running the Arborway line and leave it at that. I don't think there was any grand conspiracy to sour the folks in Jamaica Plain about streetcar service in order to pave the way for buses.

Jim

You don't have to if you don't want, but I know my facts. I will trust the words of inside mechanics and house man from the system. I will also trust the words of retired inspectors from the green line during those days of the 70's and early 80's.

About how many years ago did the T tear down the carhouse at arborway?

Also, how many years has the current Arborway/Forest Hills been sitting idle?

In 1998 I helped Danny clean that building out of PCC parts, then the building was torn down between 2001-2002.

rhodiecub2 wrote:Also, how many years has the current Arborway/Forest Hills been sitting idle?

Since 1987, I believe, when trolley service to Arborway station was discontinued. Shameful. The T gets an F for its efforts to restore this important service!

December, 1985, actually.

Jeff Ferris isn't crazy. He runs a good bike shop, he cares about JP, and if he thinks trolleys and their tracks are a risk, folks should at least listen nicely. I've talked to him about this and he doesn't foam or rave. As an urban cyclist, I know that RR tracks of any kind make it harder to manage a bike. They also tend to increase potholes, which are pretty scary to a biker in traffic. Transit-biker relations are important, because the same kinds of people and issues fit into both camps -- less spending on parking, more places to walk, denser development. Pulling together might get bike racks on the fronts of T buses, which work well in some other places.
I don't say I agree with him: I have been hoping for the trolleys to come back since I noticed they were gone, in the 7th grade in 1986. I watched them going under the old granite bridge at Forest Hills on their own separate ROW while we waited for my Dad to get off the Orange Line. I saw trolleys every day on the school bus from kindergarten to the 6th grade. (I also saw all the stages of the construction of the SWC, which was pretty cool, including the demolition of the old embankment into the granite blocks that are now in parks all over town.) I watched the tracks get replaced and then not used. I watched the T build a new trolley ROW across the SWC on the NE side of that connecting street next to the overpass (New Washington, maybe?), put up all the catenary, and then tear it out and put in the current unwired station. What was that all about? I moved to Illinois ten years ago and I still think about those trolleys. I wished they were there when I went back and forth to Latin School on the 39. I wished they were there when I got married in the First Church by the monument. I think they should be there.
Why not build a stub terminal and platform in the middle of the wide end of S. Huntington at Ctr. St.? Trolleys pull in, unload, load, change ends, and pull out without disrupting traffic at all.
If no restoration, why not cut the 39 back to Heath St. and have a real, convenient transfer to the Green Line there? Buses could pull into the loop to the left of a waiting train, and people could just step across (the way they did between trolleys and trains at Dudley and Sullivan Square a hundred years ago, or do now between Mattapan cars and the Red Line at Ashmont). They'd get a seat and not have to go down stairs. It would be a little less convenient for folks going to places between Heath and Copley, but not much. I guess the question would be where people would actually be going by trolley.
If not cut back the 39, why not at least make the transfers you can buy valid at Heath St. so folks could get a seat? I remember those buses being so crowded at rush hour that getting a few people onto the parallel trolleys would be a big help.

Is it my imagination, or did trolleys leaving Arborway in the last few years of service head up Washington Street on the wrong side of the street from the northeast corner of the yard, where they left the yard, to their very short separated ROW that went under one of the arches of the big railroad bridge?
One thought: is it possible that the T was actually telling almost the truth about equipment shortages, but with one important change? It might be that they were already thinking of the A and the E as bus routes, which they served with buses except when there were shortages, when they pressed the trolleys back into service. That would make sense, since they pretty clearly kept those two street running routes rather than any others because they were also "yard leads" as much as for any intrinsic transit factors (except maybe the Hunt. Av. subway.
By the way, does anyone know when the last other street running routes ended service?

ArborwayFan, I believe the last track configuration was across Washington and the along a right of way perpendicular to the NEC, which is what is now New Washington Street.

I see my comment was removed about mr. ferris, we will see about this.

aline1969 wrote:I see my comment was removed about mr. ferris, we will see about this.

That's because it was a bit insensitive so that's why it was killed.

Let's be more nicer about people like the bike shop owner. If he wants to stay on So. Huntington Ave, then that's his choice. No-one can force him out of there.