Former Green Line A Branch

Before the elimination of outer fare zones on the Green Line, the Newton commuter stations should have been
the same rate as the D branch.

The three MassPike commuter stations seem to be done on the cheap in 1964, as if commuters were an
afterthought. But this was just before MBTA began public subsidy.

The 90,000 people in Newton have only skeleton bus service, so they need to drive into crowded local business centers to catch the T downtown to work, and there need to be new garages in those places?

Increase the bus service! Make it more frequent and more widespread and run it in the evening. Coordinate it with the train service. Redesign the routes to match where people need to go now. That way Newton Corner and Watertown Sq and whatnot can stay pedestrian friendly or even get better, instead of having whole blocks of buildings blasted away to build parking garages that will draw in even more cars than now. If we can't make old streetcar suburbs like Newton easy to commute from by bus and train we might as well give up and go home to some car-only subdivision with no sidewalks.

R36 Combine Coach wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 11:50 pmThe three MassPike commuter stations seem to be done on the cheap in 1964, as if commuters were an
afterthought.

That's exactly what happened. The New York Central figured the passenger trains would be gone entirely in a decade or so, and put as little money into them as it could get away with.

From the May 1965 Official Guide, shortly after the MassPike was completed, there were three weekday local
commuter round trips from Framingham (one of them serving Worcester) plus an Worcester express.
All trains, even the two daily through trains to Albany, stopped at Newtonville which is interesting to note.

Newtonville was an Inland Route stop in the early Amtrak days too.

It might be worth trying having the new Inland Route trains or Albany trains stop at one of those stations, too, only to board westbound pax and alight eastbound pax. Might be a good number of people near the station wanting to commute to Springfield or head to Hartford or points west for daytrips, and just a few people per train would justify the extra few minutes to stop there.

Newtonville was directly on Rt 128 before it was relocated in the 1950s. Also the train station before the Pike tore it down was fully baggage capable, I was told. The one platform on Track 2 is quite long, could accommodate anything likely to be run.

There is a need for a "128 station" for the Framingham/Worcester line. Too bad they apparently sold off land to a developer and built a Liberty Mutual office building in the ideal location...

Isn't the "128 station" in that location effectively Riverside/Waban? The design frequency of service makes it much more appropriate than CR for the catchment. In my "ideal" world the Newton CR stops would get the axe and be replaced with improved BRT/Express Bus service, granting the Newton riders more frequent service and giving the remaining Worcester line riders a speedier trip.

Better yet, give them 15-minute regional rail headways while still speeding up Worcester Line trips with EMUs... or run more express trains past whatever boundary you want to set for 15-minute headways.

Komarovsky wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 1:52 pmIsn't the "128 station" in that location effectively Riverside/Waban? The design frequency of service makes it much more appropriate than CR for the catchment. In my "ideal" world the Newton CR stops would get the axe and be replaced with improved BRT/Express Bus service, granting the Newton riders more frequent service and giving the remaining Worcester line riders a speedier trip.

Riverside / Highland Branch and Commuter Rail at the 128 / 90 Interchange Newton/Weston border is getting a little off topic for the Watertown A Line, but the key decisions were made at the peak of highway construction / nadir of Commuter Rail. The MTA severed the Highland Branch from the B&A Main Line (Framingham / Worcester Line), moved Riverside station about 1500 feet short of the junction. So about 1500 feet between the 1958 Riverside MTA Station and the Riverside Commuter Rail Station (abandoned about 1975), about half a mile between Riverside MTA and Auburndale Commuter Rail Station, and a little more to a foamer 128 Commuter Rail Station with all the fixins'. It would be trivial to run "Indigo service" Commuter Rail trains onto the branch and into the MTA's Riverside Station, but then you would need layover tracks which would have to go somewhere...