Where were you on April 30, 1987?

RailBus63 wrote:

3rdrail wrote:The finished result was a highly watered down mismanaged joke. I think that if you were to complement most persons living between 1000 and 3600 Washington St. now on their "improved line", that they might have a response which you might find surprising.

I'll agree with your characterization of the Silver Line Washington St. service as mismanaged, but ridership still almost doubled over the route 49 bus service it replaced.

That's because 49 ridership collapsed after the loss of the OL because service was so miserably bad for so many years. It's the same phenomenon that's depressed the 39's ridership so badly since 1985. SL1 ridership is a far cry from the El's even though population density is even higher, but it goes to show that even tolerable upgrades can guarantee much higher ridership. Only the T uses the SL1 ridership bump as proof positive that BRT is the holy grail while it uses the 39's problems as an argument AGAINST transit improvements on the Arborway corridor (since LRT is the only major upgrade you can do without room for bus lanes for quasi-BRT that's a noticeable improvement from the 39).

That's still one of the most transit-underserved corridors in the city. Dudley is a huge bus transfer point, and it's just not easy enough to get down the gut of that corridor to make the transfers. Ridership everywhere out of that hub has suffered since the El was bustituted. Nothing short of a subway will ever return it to what it should be given pop density, but LRT is probably the best of the rest of the solutions. That corridor's still going to waste because of the T's stubborn need to prove BRT's worth by connecting it to the airport. Roxbury riders don't need to get to the airport in their day-to-day lives...they need to get to and from downtown efficiently and hit their out-of-Dudley transfers without wasting too much of their lives getting there. The "Super 49" still isn't half the solution the El used to be.

Well thought-out post there, F-Line. You've got me thinking what the possibilities may have been in making a light rail loop on the Washington Street El - Park Street, Boylston, NE Medical, up on the iron to Forest Hills, then half of the trains turning into the old Arborway Line route back into Park.The other half could reverse inbound up Washington St. again. Providing the trolleys could handle the peak traffic at rush-hour, this would satisfy all these needs. But, alas, it is all now merely a fantasy ! Our progressive transit system !

Robert Paniagua wrote:Ok everyone, if nobody was aware, today was the 17th anniversary of the last trip of the Washington Street EL. I personally miss it, and I'm sure the rest of you all miss it too. However, I found this interesting link to the OL above Washington Street.

http://main.wgbh.org/ton/programs/5071_clip.html

And another one.

http://www.romaband.com/trains/ol/ol.html

Enjoy and have fun!

(It was actually May 1, 1987.)

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... ullman0517

It was the 30th, the clock flipped past midnight making the actual date the 1st of May, but it was the end of service for the 30th of April. The beginning of the new corridor was the 1st of May.

As I recall, there was no revenue Orange Line service for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the changeover weekend, on either route. The line was bustituted from Forest Hills to downtown Boston. One of the weekend days had free demonstration service on part of the new route, but not connecting into downtown.

Ok, so scratch the last sentence in my previous post. Thanks Ron.

I was a little guy back then, probably sleeping in my crib seeing i was born in '86

Ron Newman is right, service didn't begin till 5/4/87, in between 5/1-2-3/87, there was a "Special" bus for the vacated EL starting at 5AM 5/1/87.

3rd Rail,Vansh and F line: This turned out to be an interesting debate of new vs.old on the MBTA SW Corridor. As much as an improvement the SW Corridor was,the old el served a distinct Boston clientele and what became the Silver Line-nothing more than a bus as mentioned elsewhere-could not serve the Washington Street corridor as well as the el did. I did not realize that an I-95 reconstruction was also in the fray-could we all imagine if some of the money squandered on the Big Boondoggle could have been used to fund MBTA transit projects with just the waste and cost overrun dollars? The SW Corridor Orange line going further S than Forest Hills? The Blue Line NE extension to Lynn? The N-S station connector tunnel for commuter rail trains? This list can go on but this debate here on this subject turned out to be quite interesting. MACTRAXX

Yes, it was an interesting conversation. I agree that that money was mis-spent. If nothing else, had the Orange Line S/W Corridor not had the $ put there, it is very possible that you might have seen an extension (as opposed to a replacement) for the Orange Line, probably going through Roslindale and Hyde Park, perhaps into Dedham. This would have made the commuter rail system faster by being able to bypass those locations, and would have made a local trip into town on the El more convenient also for local residents. I would have much preferred to have seen the El restored to its previous splendor, with an accompanying extension along the RR ROW. The Corridor was the wrong place at the wrong time, in that in the early 70's, Bostonians were getting tired of concrete, and the full "Southwest Corridor" died due to the fact that the idea of "neighborhood improvement" was taking hold. (Rte. 95 ends at Braintree and starts up again about 30 miles later in Peabody - Rte 128 is Rte 128 !). As usual, public transportation took a beating, and to me, the construction of the Orange Line "Southwest Corridor" seemed to have been the result of "someone" beating a dead (expensive) horse.

Found the following while browsing, this is kinda neat. Some of you may have seen it before... Main Line El data from historic engineering records, courtesy of Wikisource:

http://tinyurl.com/3cfuma

I just want to point out a little fact that usually goes unmentioned when talking about the SWC/El. The reason the SWC was built was to get rapid transit to people in the suburbs, not people in the inner-city. The suburbs were booming and the highways were filling up fast. The old MTA plan from the 1950's was to extend all the lines out to Route 128 and have commuter rail lines end there at transfer stations.

Now you are probably thinking, "Great, lets promote suburban growth even more! Why didn't they build the subway through the inner city where people who really need transit live?"

Basically because, from a traffic planning stand point, there was more traffic coming from outside Boston to downtown then from the inner city to downtown. Inner cities (Roxbury, Dorchester, etc) were loosing population in the 1907's and 80's due to white flight to the 'burbs. The idea of concentrating people into the central city, at that time, was antiquated. The suburbs were growing and the only other option to highways was mass transit.

I want to make one thing clean, I don't oppose the El. I think they should have kept the section to Dudley and the fact that they didn't seems to be horrible planning, borderline racist.

BUT

I don't think the SWC was a mistake nor a waste of money. What the problem was is that it was never built to its full potential. It ended up being a duplicate to the El but serving less people. Had it been extended to 128 like originally planned then it would be much more successful.

The SWC makes more sense for a longer El service to Needham and Rte. 128 , at least, it would if it had been built with express tracks... were these ever planned?

vanshnookenraggen wrote:I don't think the SWC was a mistake nor a waste of money. What the problem was is that it was never built to its full potential. It ended up being a duplicate to the El but serving less people. Had it been extended to 128 like originally planned then it would be much more successful.

Vanshnooky - By saying that the SWC (as built) was not a mistake nor a waste of money, but then adding that it duplicated the El but served less people, is a contradiction in terms.

(Also, Roxbury and Dorchester are not cities. They are sections and neighborhoods within the City of Boston.)

3rdrail wrote:Vanshnook - By saying that the SWC (as built) was not a mistake nor a waste of money, but then adding that it duplicated the El but served less people, is a contradiction in terms.

Hmm, you have me there. Perhaps what I mean is that had it been built as planned it would not have been a waste. Since most traffic going into Dudley Sq came from Dorchester and Roxbury it would have been smarter to extend whatever transit line down Warren St to Grove Hall. So lets say the SWC was meant to serve suburban commuters from the south and west rather than from Roxbury and Dorchester. A waste? Up to you. I prefer to think it was a plan that was never fully thought out and never fully realized, not a mistake. I-95 through Roxbury was a mistake and thank god the powers that be realized it when they did.

(Also, Roxbury and Dorchester are not cities. They are sections and neighborhoods within the City of Boston.)

Thats why I said "inner cities". That term refers to the central residential areas of a city, usually having a large poor and/or minority population. Roxbury and Dorchester fit that description.