It needs to provide local service. It's been 55+ years since the local stations came off (University or Cottage Farm, Allston Depot, Brighton, Faneuil, Newton), 40+ years for Riverside. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Watertown "A" line "temporary" bustitution. There is just too much auto traffic for the local and express buses to work. Meanwhile the Framingham-Worcester line is way underutilized, with little to show so far for the hundreds of millions the state has spent recently.deathtopumpkins wrote:There's also a lot of people who want the Worcester Line to be something it's not (local transit).
Is West station to be a replacement for Allston Depot, or a junction node for service to Cambridge?The state has the right idea postponing West Station into the indefinite future. It's a good idea to put a station there - so long as it is served by something other than already crowded commuter trains from far away Worcester. Build West Station once there is local service that is appropriate to serve it. Until then, walk to the B line.
BandA wrote:It needs to provide local service. It's been 55+ years since the local stations came off (University or Cottage Farm, Allston Depot, Brighton, Faneuil, Newton), 40+ years for Riverside. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Watertown "A" line "temporary" bustitution. There is just too much auto traffic for the local and express buses to work. Meanwhile the Framingham-Worcester line is way underutilized, with little to show so far for the hundreds of millions the state has spent recently.
deathtopumpkins wrote:The problem is that a lot of the 'activists' clamoring for West Station are doing so from the perspective of "every transit proposal is good and must be pursued!" usually without any appreciation for how it ties into the whole network, or how it affects operations.
deathtopumpkins wrote:There's also a lot of people who want the Worcester Line to be something it's not (local transit).
deathtopumpkins wrote:Build West Station once there is local service that is appropriate to serve it. Until then, walk to the B line.
BostonUrbEx wrote:You're literally advocating to squander the land on auto-dependent development and then shoe-horn in a station (and the connections dependent upon that station which would even make a walk to the B Line feasible) after that auto-centric development takes root.
deathtopumpkins wrote:BostonUrbEx wrote:As you yourself say, commuter rail sucks. The solution is not adding yet another closely spaced stop to it. That's just making it suck more. The solution is planning for the future of the line - which logically includes either layers of service (longer-distance commuter trains AND frequent local trains, with only the local trains making these stops), or a parallel local transit line (e.g. restoring the A line, or potentially a green line branch into Lower Allston through this development).
deathtopumpkins wrote:I'm not advocating auto-dependent development at all.
deathtopumpkins wrote:I highly doubt more than a handful of people would actually depend on them.
deathtopumpkins wrote:Anyone buying a condo or working in an office in Harvard's future development is going to drive if that is all they're given as a transit option.
deathtopumpkins wrote:I'm sure a pedestrian overpass will be provided with or without the station
deathtopumpkins wrote:This development needs to include transit from the start, but a West Station that only serves Worcester line commuter trains is not the answer. It's thinking inside a very small box with no regard for anything outside of it.
deathtopumpkins wrote:The solution is planning for the future of the line
deathtopumpkins wrote:Figure out a concrete plan for decent local transit service along the Worcester line, then build a station designed for that... ...Saying "just build it, we can figure out what to do with it later" seems really backward and inefficient to me. We can and should do better than that.
deathtopumpkins wrote:And CRail, I know you (or someone else) deleted my last post asking for such, but if you're going to make these claims, please provide something to back them up.
deathtopumpkins wrote:And that's exactly what I'm saying - think outside the box. Don't just build a commuter rail station there. Figure out a concrete plan for decent local transit service along the Worcester line, then build a station designed for that.
Sure, you can go ahead and keep building commuter rail stations with full 800 ft platforms in the hope of eventually running some other type of service to them, but what if the Worcester Line becomes so saturated with commuter and intercity rail that you need to build additional tracks for local service? Now you're likely to need to rip them out and build new. Or what if a future study determines a light rail line, or BRT line, etc. along the corridor is a better option?
Saying "just build it, we can figure out what to do with it later" seems really backward and inefficient to me. We can and should do better than that.
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