Railroad Forums
johnpbarlow wrote:Recent give and take at the "Red-Blue Connector" thread proposed use of DMU service via the Grand Junction as a means of providing west of Boston to north of Boston travel (specifically Suffolk Downs/Amazon). One detailed reply talked about street traffic impact in Cambridge due to frequent blocking of Broadway and Mass Ave crossings. Using this point as background and considering downtown Cambridge (ie, MIT/Kendall Square area) as the destination/origin for metrowest suburb commuting (ie, not North Station), why not the operate DMU shuttles (or maybe selected rush hour trains) only as far east as a platform at Vassar St and Mass Ave to avoid crossing any streets at all? This location would be about a quarter of mile from Kendall Square station for Charles/MGH or Harvard Square commuters.The Worcester study ID's the intermediate at Kendall as the only ridership catchment worthy of its own platform, not Mass Ave. The problem is the #1/CT1 would get delayed by gates-down too much of the time for 15-minute bi-directional headways if the Grand Junction were an Indigo route, and those bus routes carry many more daily passengers than the Indigo route. But it's not true that those bus routes carry so many people because they hold any significant share of the transfer patronage coming inbound Brighton/Newton/MetroWest. That demand's coming from elsewhere, and thus is not any sort of critical 'get' for a Grand Junction route. So it's a complete waste and mis-read of the demand sources to severely truncate that routing at Mass Ave. for the sake of avoiding grade crossings but to skip the only places on that routing that the study ID's significant ridership demand. You'd be sacrificing too many riders peeling off and stubbing out vs. doing more Worcester frequencies to Yawkey, BBY, and SS. The study said that was a problem with all but the rush-hour, peak-direction frequencies because ridership the rest of the day when Red/Orange were functioning normally was much higher by self-containing B&A frequencies to SS instead of diluting them to NS or anywhere on the Grand Junction short of that route. This holds true for the Mass Ave./1/CT1 midday demand, too; that doesn't inversely spike on the off-peak, so more is lost trying to gerrymander a 1-seat poke there vs. stiffening mainline frequencies to Yawkey/BBY/SS all day and across-the-board.
BandA wrote:Who is more powerful, lobbyists or Nimbys?The nimbys who pay the lobbyists.
Keolis has been the operating partner for trials of the Navya shuttle in the public transport market both in Europe and North America. ‘The USA is not yet ready to go fully autonomous’, suggested Maurice Bell, Vice President for Mobility Solutions at Keolis Transit America. Widespread adoption ‘could take up to 10 years’, he felt, but the economic advantages of the operating model were likely to appeal to many city authorities, especially where on-demand options could replace full-scale bus operations. ‘Equally I envisage 10 or 15 of these shuttles operating in tandem — that would mean the end of the streetcar in urban centres’, he added.Hopefully in the real world the shuttle would have a max speed >> than 7km/hr (a brisk walk) as it buzzes down Cambridge St from Boston Landing toward Kendall Square...
deathtopumpkins wrote:A shuttle from Boston Landing to Kendall would be a horrible idea. That's a 25-30 minute drive in rush hour traffic. It's far from a straight shot down Cambridge Street.FWIW, Commuter rail trip duration Boston Landing to South Station is 15 minutes per MBTA schedule. Red Line trip duration from South Station to Kendall Square is 9 minutes per T on-line schedule so that's 24 minutes not considering the time it takes to get off the Framingham line train and walk to the Red Line station to catch a train to Kendall Square - at least 5 more minutes. So it would be a wash timewise going Boston Landing - Kendall Square via Cambridge St v. South Station. I'm guessing the autonomous shuttle would have WiFi to permit one to do email/FaceBook/web surfing/texting and all those other work related activities.