Huntington Ave subway

Here's a variation on the "use Chestnut Hill Ave" suggestion ...

Motivation: When discussing ways to expand Green Line service, the usual objection is that the central subway is running at full capacity -- and any additional capacity created by system improvements can easily get swallowed up by improving headways on existing lines. Therefore, I want to suggest a new route that improves overall service WITHOUT using the central subway.

Objective: Improve service to the outer reaches of Commonwealth Ave, and also improve service to the Longwood region.

Solution: A new route, either "Kenmore to Boston College" or "Kenmore to Commonwealth & Washington". The route would use the Highland branch between Kenmore and Reservoir, then take Chestnut Hill Ave to reach the B tracks on Commonwealth Ave, and continue either west to Boston College or east to Washington Street.

This would provide an "express" service between Brighton and Kenmore, dramatically improving travel time for commuters living in Brighton (even allowing for the fact that an extra transfer would be required for going beyond Kenmore). Commute times might be cut by even 15-20 minutes with this proposal.

From the MBTA's perspective, I believe this would improve service efficiency. Travel times from Brighton to Kenmore would be reduced by about 50% (relative to existing B line service). Because riders on the new express route wouldn't spend as long aboard a train, the MBTA can transport more passengers per vehicle-hour of operation. So long as there are enough commuters in Brighton to fill a car, it's efficient to allocate a car to this kind of express route. And since the route wouldn't go through the central subway, the MBTA could operate just single-car trains at rush hour (they run longer trains to get max capacity out of each trainset in the subway, but that doesn't matter here).

This express would reduce overcrowding on the surface segment of the B line, by drawing riders to the new route. In addition, the extra service provided along the crowded Reservoir-Kenmore segment of the Highland branch would reduce overcrowding on the D line trains. It would also create direct Brighton-Longwood train service for the first time, probably useful since Longwood is a major employment center.

Boston College is an obvious endpoint for service. But I think that going east from Chestnut Hill Ave is also worthwhile, since this would provide express service from a dense residential area. My guess is that Washington St is a sensible endpoint in this direction, since the benefit of an express is reduced as you go east (the B line becomes shorter and the express becomes longer ...) Of course, express trains moving west on the Washington St - Chestnut Hill Ave segment would actually be inbound trains, and would require a fare for boarding.

Such a route could be rush-hour only (when there's the most demand for efficient commute service from Brighton), or it could be all-hours. To provide 10 minute headways, using single-car trains, my guess is that it might take about four cars to make it happen. Yes, that's some extra service. But if Green Line service is limited by central subway capacity, not cars or employee hours, this is a way to boost service without stressing the limiting factor.

The main problem, I suppose, is whether revenue service is permitted on the Chestnut Hill Ave segment. There might be legal or liability constraints that would make this unattractive to the MBTA (besides their general reluctance to have street-running operations). However, I'll note that it would be easy for the MBTA to have a "good weather only" policy, and simply ditch the express service on snow days.

Another variation: I assume that Boston College is an employment center to some degree, but unattractive to potential riders due to the long trip on the B line. Also, I assume that rush-hour B line passenger load is mostly in the standard direction. How about a "reverse commute express" option, where the MBTA runs some outbound B trains via the Highland branch in the AM, and inbound B trains via the Highland branch in the PM? The MBTA would get their trains to the start of the run more quickly (why run an empty train on slow Commonwealth Ave against the commute direction, when you can get it positioned for another peak-direction trip more quickly via the Highland branch?)

Arborwayfan wrote:I have an even easier plan that I'd like to see the T at least study: Run through rush hour trains over the connecting tracks around Cleveland Circle, so that people could easily ride, say, BC-Longwood Ave. They'd have to do ridership studies to see which routes to do. They'd need a few new turnouts and short connecting tracks, but not many.

The simplest in terms of trackwork would be BC via Higland Branch (Riverside Line). The tracks are there for inbound BC cars to run onto the riverside line and head into town that way; there's even a platform in the right place at Reservoir. The outbound track is there, but it has that funny through the cars waiting on Beacon St. (it surprises some folks in cars when a trolley tries to get through at the beginning of rush hour) and they'd want to build a straighter connection if they were running service regularly.

The simplest in terms of equipment utitlization would be a BC-Beacon St. connection: just extend some or all Cleveland Circle cars to BC, or even just to the first stop on Comm Ave beyond the junction with the tracks to Cleveland Circle. It's not that much further, so it wouldn't take that much more equipment, and it would make it much easier to get to-from the area around Coolidge Corner, which must be half a mile or so from Comm Ave. Beacon St. -- BC is there, and BC Beacon street would just require two new switches and 100 feet of track so that the trains could go directly onto the Beacon St. line without going through the yard.

The most complicated route would be Riverside to Park via Comm Ave, but it would have a big effect by making it easier to get from say Newton to Brighton and BU. Looking at the T's schedules, this might not be any faster than changing at Kenmore and going back, but it might be more attractive to people who were unsure whether they wanted to go by trolley.

Truncating the B to Washington St. isn't much of an option. Washington St. in and of itself isn't much of a destination. However, the Chestnut Hill-to-BC part of Comm. Ave. doesn't have many signaled grade crossings except for that troublesome last one into the BC terminus so it can probably handle an increase in trolley traffic much better than the rest of the B. So merging two lines on that last stretch shouldn't be a problem. Careful headway adjustment should do the trick (and maybe this would be easier to implement if signal priority were actually in-place).

I'd like to see lots of BC Express trains via the Highland Branch and Chestnut Hill during rush hour to take some of the load off the B during the toughest hours of the day to maintain headways because of all the passengers and college kids, and all the criss-crossing vehicle traffic. Chestnut Hill Ave. isn't a bad stretch of street-running...it's short, wide, would have no actual street-running stops on it because of proximity to the Chestnut Hill stop on the B reservation and Cleveland Circle/Reservoir, and it only has 2 traffic lights (even though they're both major intersections). It's do-able. I can't fathom why there'd be any revenue-service restrictions on it if such a routing was proposed. If they can do it on Huntington and South Huntington already, it's WAY easier to do it on that straightforward little Chestnut Hill connector. On the B I'd implement longer headways but with 3-car trains. They tried that this summer without it doing much to alleviate the congestion, but taking the BC commuters out of circulation will cut down a lot on the door time and actually give people on the hill and through BU a place to move around by having 3 cars. That'll make up for the longer headways big-time because door time is the BIGGEST cause for delays on the BU stretch when everyone's packed like sardines inbound. Fewer trains and longer headways on the B and more trains on the protected ROW of the D also makes subway schedules a TON easier to maintain without those freakin' B's gumming up the works...and again those couple blocks of Chestnut Hill Ave. mixed traffic aren't a huge deal to the overall picture. The only challenging part is how to manage the traffic to Boston College after the lines merge. Would be nice if the Express/D trains could skip all the intermediate stops and go Reservoir-Chestnut Hill/Comm Ave (for transfers)-BC...but that may not be feasible. But there's got to be a way to manage it sanely...it's such a small stretch of dual-line track.

During non-rush hour they can keep the B headways more-or-less constant with longer rush hour headways and maybe just drop the third car from the set, but limit the Express headways to maybe 1 every half-hour on a rigid schedule. That way there's more reliance on the B the hours of the day when it's easier to navigate. Midday there's probably greater need to get in and around the intermediate stops on the B as opposed to a straight shot downtown, so the Expresses don't have to run often so long as they run on-time when they do run. And then definitely send last trains of the night out on both routes at once to move as many people in and away from BC as quickly as possible...the overcrowding at that hour on the B is just insane.


All of this would've been easier to swing if the A-line was still around, because that was Brighton's load-bearing line in its day...not the B. Under that oldtrack alignment I'd run A's up and down all day at normal headways, run BC Expresses via Chestnut Hill for rush hour, and then run really long-headway cars on the B with single-car trains at non-rush hour...because basically the only load the line would need to carry by its lonesome was traffic on the intermediate stops on the hill between Chestnut Hill Ave. and Harvard Ave. where the A stops started becoming redundant. That setup would give BU and BC the benefit of two lines each, with the sparser connecting gap up the hill between the two schools getting appropriately less-frequent service. Or the T could've gotten even more creative and extended the Blandford St. third track to Packard's corner...expressed the A's to or from there at rush hour like the 57 bus does, run B's from Blandford to Chestnut Hill making all stops, and expressed BC trains via the D and had both BC and the Harvard Ave./Brighton Ave./BU West Campus areas covered by express trolleys at once. It's too bad Chestunut Hill Ave. was/is too narrow past Comm. Ave. to throw down connecting tracks to Oak Square. They could've even done quasi-Urban Ring loop service from Kenmore Loop to the D to Chestnut Hill to Oak Square thru Brighton Center to Comm. Ave. to Kenmore Loop again, which would've been really convenient for shuttling around all of Brighton and Brookline. If service couldn't have been restored all the way back to Watertown, that would've been a great way to utilize the sorely-missed A trackage in Brighton.

A couple thoughts...

1. Is the time savings involved in getting through all the intersections on Chestnut Hill Ave. worth waiting for an express? In my BC days, we used to take the BC shuttles to Reservoir, until we started to realize that the total time was pretty much the same. Now, I realize that these expresses will serve stops other than just BC, but still, only a couple (South St. and Chestnut Hill (actually, there's another problem there...see #2). Considering that by the time you get to CHA, you're already in easy walking distance (and can probably walk faster than a train in the street) of CC and Reservior, why wait for the Express.

2. The BC-CHestnut Hill Ave-Reservior routing misses the stop at CHA/Comm. Ave. The platforms are east of CHA, and I don't think there's room without taking away lanes from Comm Ave. to add platforms west of CHA (plus, that'd put the stop too close to South St.).

3. While the idea of running Washington St.-CHA-Reservior-Longwood-Kenmore is interesting, I wonder just how many people would figure out that roundabout routing. It may well be faster (assuming switches can be powered at CHA/Comm. Ave, they're manual right now, and traffic lights altered to speed trolleys) its not common sense to someone to backtrack that way to go into the city. Speeding up the B Line (I know, the T's not likely to, but, we're all dreaming here) so people can transfer to the outbound D at Kenmore is probably a shorter, adn more logical trip.