On (temporary) track for Longfellow Bridge

On (temporary) track for Longfellow Bridge
By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff | February 18, 2005

State transportation officials are considering an unprecedented solution to refurbish the Longfellow Bridge while keeping the historic, but crumbling, span open to both motor vehicles and Red Line trains.

Check out the rest of the article at http://www.boston.com/news/local/articl ... ow_bridge/

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac ... longfellow

Here's the kicker in the whole article.......

They want to maintain train service, and the person who should be a big advocate of that, isn't....

"But Michael H. Mulhern, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, said another idea for accommodating the construction is shutting down transit service across the bridge at 9 p.m. on weeknights and all day on weekends and replacing it with bus service."

This guy LOVES buses. BRT here, bus shuttle there.... no lightrail here, make people walk there....

A bus bridge would be a wihkid pissah.


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Participant, MBTA Forum
I like buses. Trains ok okay. Oh wait, its the other way around.

jumbotusk wrote:This guy LOVES buses. BRT here, bus shuttle there.... no lightrail here, make people walk there....


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Participant, MBTA Forum
I like buses. Trains ok okay. Oh wait, its the other way around.

Maybe he is getting some kick back $$ from the bus manufacturers.

CSX Conductor
Maybe he is getting some kick back $$ from the bus manufacturers.

Just like all the transit operators got back in the late 1940s and 1950s...

- Stephen

Unbelievable... So the guy whose job it is to keep the trains running, doesn't want to keep the trains running? Yet the guy in charge of roads wants to keep the trains running?

He did start off as a bus driver for the T, so he has a bus bias.

Mulhern is a bus freak. Has he proposed replacing the Green line with busses yet, or is that his next press confrence???

Robert Prince Jr., why did you have to leave???

Are you saying he's another George Bush?

Enough with this garbage. Mulhern's bias towards buses has absolutely nothing to do with the Red Line's temporary tracks so drop it. You are piling on about something that has nothing to do with the article nor the Red Line. Mulhern is doing the only thing he can do with the Red Line so don't give him any of the crap you guys are flinging. Would you prefer that the Red Line be cut off for months on end like the bridges down in New York were? How about extremely limited service and disruptions every weekend like the Blue and Orange Lines?

Enough is enough. You guys are acting like trolls whenever you hear his name in the news regardless of what it is. Give it a rest.

Mulhern has done some things to push Buses above rail services but I agree with you Ed, they would never replace the Red Line with buses. He said its an option, and you have to look at all options. If you read the full article, he also said if they relocated the tracks, bustitution wouldn't be necessary. The problem is that the Longfellow Bridge needs to be renovated, and its tough to do so with the red line running over it. They are just looking at all options right now. Bustitution might be an option, but to say that its because Mulhern is pro bus is an apples to oranges comparison. This is much different than the Arborway restoration, or the Silver Line and I think Mulherns comments are being spinned.

If they do take one lane from each side of the Longfellow, wouldn't that be similar to the old days when they used to run Blue Line trains along those lanes and joined the tracks to Harvard on the other side of the bridge while deadheading cars to the Eliot Shops? This will be a great photo op boys, get your pics while you can.

Enough is enough. You guys are acting like trolls whenever you hear his name in the news regardless of what it is. Give it a rest.

Yes, let's not turn this into more bus discussions, this is about the Red Line subway tracks being re-aligned on the Longfellow.

would operating the buses after 9 pm be alot cheaper instead of running the red subway lines?

MBTA F40PH-2C 1050 wrote:would operating the buses after 9 pm be alot cheaper instead of running the red subway lines?

Not really cheaper since you would only require the costs of two weekends of closure on the Red Line and the cost of constructing the temporary trackway...you lose alot of revenue due to the shuttle busses and the transfers that would be required.

The nature of the project sounds like it's either shut the line down for the duration of the project or run the line at slower speeds on the temporary tracks(probably not much slower than normal speed anyway) while maintaining service...As was learned on the Orange Line and past Red Line construction- you keep it running and avoid the shuttle buses at all cost.

It is hard to imagine that the Red Line would not be significantly impacted without the temporary tracks.

When major bridgework is required to car bridges, they usually shutdown one lane or more of the bridge, tear up the decking, replace the structure, replace the decking and then move to the other side.

Would something simliar not be required under the tracks on the Longfellow? Wouldn't you either have to tear up both tracks or one at a time?

If you did it one track at a time, you would be single tracked between Park and Kendal ? (I'm not sure where they have switches on the Red Line ). This would cause significant delays.