Arlington wrote:Revisiting the plan at a high level, note that there are just 4 "compass point" DMU termini:
- Lynn (N-G Line)
- Anderson Woburn (Lowell Line)
- Riverside (Worcester Line)
- Readville (but not Amtrak 128?) Fairmont Line
These don't make total sense: probably about 80% sense.
- Lynn probably makes the most raw sense. It already is TOD without the transit (and later you might take it to a Danvers-area park and ride and TOD terminus)
- Anderson, sure, as a park and ride, but the land use planning is soooo bad out there
- Riverside probably makes second-best sense, but not without structured parking and TOD
- Readville...why not all the way to Amtrak 128 for its connectivity and TOD?
If DMUs are going to "work" in these places, they need to work as more than just a glorified parking shuttle from the surface lots.
Aside: What is the real pronunciation of Mishawum?
Why has neither Mishawum nor Anderson RTC gotten any real TOD? They should be the Tysons Corner and DMUs would be their Silver Line. Instead, all the "nice" new stuff is on Presidential Way...as if purposely put beyond walking distance to Anderson. It should have either been closer to Anderson (walkable) or "put" at Mishawum to begin with.
Really...I think Lynn makes far and away the least sense of any of these. It goes the shortest distance out, fewest number of stations out by a lot, and is the only one that doesn't trace the outer margins of the T bus district. There's 4 routes at Swampscott, 7 routes at Salem, and the most direct transfers for the routes to Marblehead, Peabody, Danvers, and Beverly pinging those 3 omitted inside-128 stations. It's a joke to say "well, Lynn's the home terminal so let's draw the line at Lynn". Just look at the system map and the route duplication through Swampscott and Salem and how much of that still has to go an extra +5 miles against traffic on Routes 1A and 107 for sake of reaching the "terminal". And all of them continue right on to Wonderland...so who's going to opt for the Indigo transfer over Blue?
That one's hopelessly broken if they don't bring it out to Salem. And they won't bring it out to Salem because the Eastern Route has Zone fares way higher than any other inside-128 line and they refuse to recalibrate. Swampscott is the nearest-to-Boston Zone 3 on the entire system, and no other line on the system exceeds Zone 2 before it crosses Route 128 (or the geographical average of it). Swampscott and Salem have the same Zone fares as the 3 Wellesleys, the 2 Norwoods, the 3 Westons, the 2 Wilmingtons, Sharon, Stoughton, Holbrook/Randolph, Islington, South Weymouth, and West Hingham. It's also the only line on the system that has no Zone 1 stations whatsoever...it jumps from 1A at Chelsea straight to 2 at Riverworks.
The service is broken if they can't get that in line with what's fair for every other line. And the rigors of the bus routes out there pretty much demand a Salem terminus or it won't be useful for more than a small slice of the North Shore. The extremely distended territory the Lynn/Wonderland bus routes have to cover makes Lynn's catchment area way more than big-city Lynn. It's joined at the hip by Swampscott and Salem because of the way transit in that part of the district is organized. This isn't a serious plan cast as a Lynn-terminating dinky.
Westwood/128 extension of Fairmount might not be too far away. Don't forget...
1) The current Readville platform has to be moved. It's on the single-track Franklin connector which pinches turnback capacity. It only allows thru-routing to Franklin at the moment. And it's on the CSX freight clearance route into the yard meaning that one spot can't get a full-high platform. They have to move it about 250-300 ft. north past the diamond in the island space between tracks, reconfigure some switches so it's accessible on both tracks, and reconfigure the CSX turnout so they pull clear of the start of the full-high when they're backing in/out of the yard off the Franklin. Minor stuff, busywork...but it has to go first. And that's what'll enable thru-routing to Franklin or the NEC. Pre-2024...all in due time.
2) NEC is going to be tri-tracked from Readville to Canton Jct. and the outbound side platform at 128 will turn into a 2-track island when the new track is plopped down. But Amtrak is responsible for the trackwork itself while the T funds station mods, so the Amtrak side of the funding and scheduling has to come through before the T can ponder anything. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind until then.
3) 128 station has
this much extra space on the easterly (inbound) side. That's the former access driveway to the previous station's platforms which poked out the other side of the 128 overpass. The NEC 3rd track is going on the westerly (outbound) side. There's enough room for a 2-track turnout under here, widening the outbound platform into an island, and adding still 1 more side platform...like, 5 tracks total. If NEC growth alone is going to fill in that 3rd track's slots in due time, then a
permanent 128 terminus for Fairmount really needs to be looking at building its own track turnouts and platforms on this empty side. A moderate-sized expense that will take awhile to plot. And they may want to give it a few years to see how this Westwood Landing development takes off behind the station. As well as wait to see if these Indigo headways to Readville are truly going to be real or just a mirage tarted up in expensive toy vehicles that don't run nearly often enough to matter.
They can do this. They can step it out to 128 on a reasonable timetable. It's just not something they can pin with a bullet on that 2024 fantasy map because of various other stakeholders (Amtrak and Westwood Landing) that have to come through first.
I think it's "MISH-AH-WUM".
MISH-AH-WUM is a failed location that, frankly, ought to be closed Indigo or no Indigo. Woburn-proper needs its infill stop at Montvale Ave. near the buses, the Stoneham Branch trail head, and the easy walking distance to Woburn Ctr. way way way more badly than Mishawum needs more money lit on fire trying to bail out 30 years of failure to attract ridership. Cut it. It's a distraction from better improvements to this route more than it is a gimme. Indigo's not going to boost ridership demand that has been proven many times over not to exist here.
As for Anderson...jeez, will they build a footbridge to the New Boston St. side already? There's a dense-ish pocket of residential a 1500 ft. walk down Merrimac St. who stare every day at a station they can't physically get to without a 3-mile detour to the other side they're also staring at. Seriously...who builds a pretty nice intermodal center then forgets to put an entrance on
the side where the local street grid is. This
guy right here can see the light fixtures in the parking lot from his front lawn of a train station he should be able to walk to in 4 minutes. But he has a shorter drive to Wilmington station up in Zone 3 than he does getting on the other side of that fence to the Zone 2 stop that lights up his 2nd floor windows at night. Wow.
Also...where the hell are the Anderson buses? The 134 blows right past it on the west side...oops, the same side you can't get to the station from. The 355 bails out and terminates at Mishawum instead of looping or hanging the right a block earlier onto Commerce Way. The 354 gets as close as Salem St. then bails west for Burlington Mall. Why is there not an Anderson-Burlington Mall bus? Reading has decent bus coverage...why is there no link-up 2 miles to the east? Whose bright idea was it to let the nonprofit 128 Business Shuttle that used to operate out of Anderson to the office parks die after 2 years when the economy turned sour when a little token grant could've helped them ride out the downturn? That's not going to restart itself from scratch.
Etc., etc. At a pretty fundamental level the T still doesn't "get" what makes 128 tick. All those office parks, all that redevelopment money pouring in the whole length of the highway...so little transit accessibility. And they're just deer-in-headlights at what to do with their surroundings beyond "well, we built a big parking lot...I give up."