News on Green Line to Somerville

I think its really gonna happen, but I'll only believe it when I walk into Governmnet Center and see trains marked "C UNION SQ" and "E WEST MEDFORD," although with the LCD destination signs, will anyone be able to read them?

octr202 wrote:I think its really gonna happen, but I'll only believe it when I walk into Governmnet Center and see trains marked "C UNION SQ" and "E WEST MEDFORD," although with the LCD destination signs, will anyone be able to read them?

I know, those LCD signs suck as do the ones on the Red Line 1800-series cars. But it would take a significant time commitment and a lot of money to retrofit the Type 8's, modified Type 7's and 1800's with newer, more readable LED signs. Like I posted in the New Blue Line Cars thread, those cars will hopefully have LED signs.

As for your choices of destinations, it could certainly be done that way. I also think an A branch from West Medford to Government Center's Brattle Loop would be helpful because the E's headways aren't as frequent as the C's, and there's always the chance that the E line can get messed up along Huntington Avenue.

With the line split into a Union Square Branch and a West Medford Branch, I'm wondering how they'll route trains. If they don't just turn them at Gov't Center, would we see C Union Sq and E West Medford? I'm not familiar with the E-line's headway, but I think that the C line has the shortest track mileage of all the branches and a headway of 26 mintues to Park Street. So, in my mind, it would make more sense to route E to Union Square and C to West Medford. But I could be wrong.
Anyway, I think that the MBTA has taken some big steps in the past few days. It's not everything we want, but it's more than I expected. I'm actually feeling confident that this will happen.

Look foward to riding to Union Square in 2014!

darksun23c wrote: So, in my mind, it would make more sense to route E to Union Square and C to West Medford. But I could be wrong.
Anyway, I think that the MBTA has taken some big steps in the past few days. It's not everything we want, but it's more than I expected. I'm actually feeling confident that this will happen.

Look foward to riding to Union Square in 2014!

But you could be right on that too. We'll know as we get closer to the first day of service, still well off in the future. Just as long as they don't send the B and/or D branches up there. Those two branches should continue to short-turn at GC because both are long enough as it is.

Doubt if they'd send the D branch up there; don't think
there'd be that many people wanting to go from those
two areas to each other via Green Line. Don't know about the B; they might do it. After all, that way BU
students could live in Somerville and have a one seat
ride in.

What they should do is send two existing branches that's closest to the respective projected ridership of the two new branches to Somerville.

trainhq wrote:Doubt if they'd send the D branch up there; don't think
there'd be that many people wanting to go from those
two areas to each other via Green Line. Don't know about the B; they might do it. After all, that way BU
students could live in Somerville and have a one seat
ride in.

B-Line: 1 seat ride from Boston College to Union Square - 3 hours.

C or E would be the likely candidates for extention seeing as they already run north of Government Center and they can take the bump in rideship easily compared to the B and D. E also is the shortest route and needs the yard space that comes with the extention.

darksun23c wrote:With the line split into a Union Square Branch and a West Medford Branch, I'm wondering how they'll route trains. If they don't just turn them at Gov't Center, would we see C Union Sq and E West Medford? I'm not familiar with the E-line's headway, but I think that the C line has the shortest track mileage of all the branches and a headway of 26 mintues to Park Street. So, in my mind, it would make more sense to route E to Union Square and C to West Medford. But I could be wrong.
Anyway, I think that the MBTA has taken some big steps in the past few days. It's not everything we want, but it's more than I expected. I'm actually feeling confident that this will happen.

Look foward to riding to Union Square in 2014!

Union Square will be easy...you just extend all the Lechmere-bound lines out that way to loop. Medford would be a little tougher. Easiest thing to do there is make it an "A" branch looping at Government Center. It would be too long a haul and too big a scheduling headache to send B's, C's, and D's out there...and the Brattle Loop is practically unused so there is enough capacity at that end of the subway to do a lot more frequent service. I would assume Lechmere's going to get a much bigger yard across the street and probably an A- and E-heavy fleet, so there wouldn't be a need to send too many Riverside/Reservoir-based cars out that way. I could see a Medford-Heath Street run working on off-peak hours IF Huntington Ave. gets signal priority...but only to Heath or Brigham Circle. If Arborway cars figure into the equation they would need to loop at Park or Government Center because of all the added schedule variability from all that street-running trackage. If you did a mix of Heath and Arborway cars that would improve the headways on the reservation-running portion of the E--which could probably use a few more trains--without overloading the street-running portion, which definitely shouldn't get too many trains.

How about this (assuming better signal priority comes into the mix):

A - West Medford-Government Center via Brattle Loop (peak hours and a portion of off-peak service)
A - Heath Street-West Medford (off-peak and as schedule permits)
B - Boston College-Government Center
C - Cleveland Circle-Union Square
D - Riverside-Union Square (most service)
D - Riverside-Government Center or North Station (something a little shorter for those extra peak-hour runs)
E - Arborway-Park Street
E - Heath Street-Government Center (peak hours and as Arborway schedules permit)

This would be a confusing nightmare to pull off from a rollsign perspective, so here's hoping the full fleet has LCD's (or better yet, LED's) and ASA by the time the extensions open. I definitely wouldn't try to mix and match simultaneous different-destination runs on the same lines unless the signage was crystal clear and accurate from terminal-to-terminal...unless I wanted to really piss people off.

An interesting point comes up in fare if you create an 'A' branch. As the West Medford branch is a surface line, the current policy would be to make outbound trips from Lechemere free. I doubt this is a HUGE factor in MBTA policymaking, but if there was no symbol associated with the line, they could still charge full fare both ways, I guess.
That said, the routings F-line came up with make the most sense to me. IIRC, the Green line fleet is at about 174 (out the planned 206) and with through routing, headways might be too high on both sides. But I doubt a new line would be created. The map would make too much sense.

I'm betting on C to West Medford, E to Union Square. With signal priority, I think the C-line could make it from Cleveland Circle to West Medford in 1:30. Is there a set line assignment, or does it change as service demands?

Apologies if this idea has already been proposed...How about an A1 train to Medford Center using the old B&M Medford Branch? Obviously this would be way "down the road" if ever. Might be redundant given the Orange Line Station in Malden but just wanted to throw that "out there". True the 94, 95 and 96 buses would connect with the proposed Green Line in West Medford and Tufts but converting the Medford Branch to a branch of the Green Line would eliminate any transfers in greater Medford.

NRGeep wrote:Apologies if this idea has already been proposed...How about an A1 train to Medford Center using the old B&M Medford Branch?

The Medford Branch is off the Haverhill Line, not the Lowell Line, and the Orange Line already goes up that way. I don't think an Orange Line branch would work either; the ROW is pretty much completely gone past the in-use portion, and it's blocked by I-93.

ceo wrote:
The Medford Branch is off the Haverhill Line, not the Lowell Line, and the Orange Line already goes up that way. I don't think an Orange Line branch would work either; the ROW is pretty much completely gone past the in-use portion, and it's blocked by I-93.

I think the ROW is pretty much intact most of the way to Medford Square, albeit abandoned beyond a certain point (also, the branch's Park St. station is still standing). Regarding I-93, when it was first built, there was a bridge over the tracks to allow trains access to the square, I think it may still exist, also, an underpass or tunnel under I-93 would be a rather minor endevor in the grand scheme of things, should such a branch ever be built. I have always thought that incorporating this ROW with the Saugus Branch ROW as part of a larger line would be quite feasable, but where to go from there...

ceo wrote:

NRGeep wrote:Apologies if this idea has already been proposed...How about an A1 train to Medford Center using the old B&M Medford Branch?

The Medford Branch is off the Haverhill Line, not the Lowell Line, and the Orange Line already goes up that way. I don't think an Orange Line branch would work either; the ROW is pretty much completely gone past the in-use portion, and it's blocked by I-93.

I stand corrected! No wonder I've not been able to see any evidence of the branch coming off the Lowell Line when taking Commuter Rail.

If you support the Green Line's Extension all the way to the West Medford commuter rail station (instead of terminating at Tufts/Medford Hillside), please get involved at these two new locations:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/medford_g ... extension/

Which has a nice set of links, and these sites, in particular:

http://www.bringthegreenlinetomedford.org/

With nifty graphics at:

http://www.cafepress.com/green_t_medford