FP10 wrote:Would a Millis/Milford extension make sense if a new Green Line branch were made to Needham Junction like planned in the 50s? Therefore instead of 2 new CR lines crowding South Station you still only have one (longer) line, and a GL transfer allowing the Franklin and Millis/Milford passengers metro-west and northern boston access sooner, without having to get on the red line.
This of course would create crowding issues in the central subway, but I feel these must be addressed in some form when the Medford Extension opens, and revised routing could probably handle another line (after all, the numbers of trains going through there has been decreasing thanks to the abandonment of Arborway and the A)
EDIT: I agree this is low-priority to other projects, but still something that should be on the table
It is on the table, wish-list wise. Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization screened it for its 2004 Transportation Plan (
http://www.bostonmpo.org/bostonmpo/3_pr ... /plan.html). Of the unfunded line extensions it screened, here's how they broke them down:
Highest priority:
-- North-South Rail Link
-- Fall River/New Bedford
-- Peabody/Danvers (medium-priority in the '04 plan...they've since upped it to high on the long-range plan)
Medium priority (and why):
-- *Haverhill-Plaistow extension (high-ish ridership, high air quality improvements, cheapest total cost and per-rider cost of all extensions on the table)
-- *Lowell-Nashua extension (high ridership, high air quality improvements, midrange total cost, low per-rider cost)
-- Millis (high ridership, medium total cost)**
-- Leominster via Northborough branch (rated high for ridership and new transit riders, poor for capital and operating cost)
-- Forge Park-Milford extension (medium-priority for ridership, but low per-rider capital/operating costs)
-- Middleborough-Wareham extension (low-ish ridership, low capital costs but high-ish per-rider cost)
-- Fitchburg-Gardner re-extension (rated very low for ridership, highest operating cost of any extension...only medium-priority because of economic opportunities would bring)
*obviously these are contingent on NH kicking in, which lowers the (MA-only) rating. These are, however, guaranteed high-priority if they pay up.
**priority not higher because they think increased Needham service could absorb some of the ridership increase without the capital costs
N-S Link (96,100), FR/NB (8700), Millis (4000), Nashua (3100), Leominster (3000), Milford (1800), Peabody/Danvers (1700), Plaistow (1700), Wareham (1300), and Gardner (50) were how these ranked in terms of daily riders. Quite surprised Leominster was that big...I wonder if at least going to Northborough/290 would've been higher up on the priority scale if those were T-owned instead of CSX-owned tracks. Gardner obviously is a mirage overweighted by economic stimuli factors...I don't think anyone's really taking that one seriously.
I think they're cheating a bit by figuring the Millis riders would be served by just running more Needham trains. Needham already has issues with its parking lots and roads being choked by out-of-town commuters trying to hit their CR stations, and the studies on the Millis extension haven't factored that in. The Needham line also can't have its ridership expand enough to absorb the full load of out-of-towners because of the not-abundant parking near its stations. Honestly, I think it's lower than it should be on the priority pile because the ridership factors haven't been studied correctly and they haven't taken enough into account the relationship between the two line branches here. That ridership more than justifies the not-bad costs.
At any rate, it's insane to give up an active line with that kind of ridership potential to the bicyclists. And the T might agree there.