Ron Newman wrote:It ran passenger service until the 1940s, I believe, with many more stations that it has now. The stations that the neighborhoods and the T want to add are in roughly the same places the old stations were.
True, but it was never a major passenger route because it doesn't really go anywhere. The Uphams Corner station is not conveniently located. It misses Codman Square. The Mattapan station is not conveniently located. Even if bus routes are rerouted to these stations, most passengers would still need to make a second transfer to the Red Line at South Station to get where they're going.
Fix up the stations and open new ones, get some nice DMU's, run more frequent service and see how it goes. If it becomes a huge success, then we can talk light rail or something, but don't sink a ton of money into this line just yet.
Jim