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Quickly jumping on to reply to some of the points here, while I have not given the rest of this proposal the attention that it deserves. Apologies in advance if I miss something because of this. One alternative is what @Riverside suggested as an "East Somerville alignment" for the Grand...

Actually, no. I had considered that, but a few reasons why I didn't: It appears that turning from Route 1 to Revere Beach Pkwy requires going through a high school and its stadium. I have no idea if it's advised to build an El above a stadium, but if not, this requires a short capped-cut...

I came back to this to run some numbers. The numbers alone are actually slightly in favor of the "two radial routes to Everett and Chelsea" combo over "BLX-Waltham + your UR" combo, with 7.4 TBM miles for the former and 9.15 TBM-equivalent miles for the latter. Of course, specifics of...

Yes, and that's an issue I faced when creating this very map too, and partly why so many crayon proposals just end up creating a branch of the Orange Line at Sullivan instead. I think the "best" radial route for Everett alone would be via the Red X to North Station, South Station and beyond, in...

A north-south connection through Somerville (and connecting Cambridge to Somerville) is indeed intriguing and necessary, but I have my reservations that a rail line, especially a grade-separated one, is the best option. I imagine such a connection will serve a lot of local demands, so a bus...

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/05/13/mbta-is-finally-showing-progress-on-bus-operator-hiring

I'm not too hot about a line to Medford Square. The 101's route closely parallels GLX, and density drops off a bit north of your Winter Hill station. Medford as a whole is pretty auto-centric and less dense, and the parts that aren't (along the Salem St corridor) would require a bus connection...

I just posted this on Reddit, and wrote a few fact checks that I'll copy over here: California is not running any electric trains yet as of writing, though EMUs are scheduled to begin service on Caltrain this fall. Caltrain electrification is also known for high costs due to hiring of...

And apparently I replied to you with the exact same thing about Red X's involvement last time... But this time I actually made a map!

Isn't that the exact same thing you said last time? :ROFLMAO: Anyway, in my unlimited-budget (or in other words, purely merit-based) crayon world, I actually prefer sending radial lines to both Everett and Chelsea, and there are two routes downtown that nicely pair with them: one via the Red X...

You may find this (god-mode-ish) proposal of mine interesting: While I didn't draw it explicitly here, you can easily imagine the line being extended further into South Boston. More realistically, though, a streetcar through South Boston sounds more realistic. Personally, I have the following...

My blog has a page with some of this info: MBTA’s Red Line has maximum grade of 4% (for 1200′). Orange Line has a very short segment with a 5.6% grade (for 60′); otherwise, the maximum grade is 4% (for 750′). (Source: MBTA vehicle procurement technical specifications)

Gotcha. This is roughly in line with what I thought, but I didn't know you did plan a short bored section. Using the (encroached) Watertown Branch and Pleasant St is an interesting idea: Main St (the 70 bus) technically serves more residents, but I imagine you might have been looking at TOD...

Regarding your proposed line, the section between Nubian and Longwood (D) makes perfect sense, and I had implicitly suggested a similar L-hook line in the past. Where it worries me in an ideal world is that sections west of Coolidge Corner becomes a tangential line again, as Brighton Center...

The interesting twist in this whole discussion of "tangential lines to the north" is that, according to the SLX Alternative Analysis, the SL6 route's alternatives from Everett (Glendale) to Kendall outperformed the alternative to Haymarket in both ridership and public support. I wouldn't...

My interpretation of Alon's blogpost goes both ways: there's also "If you're building a radial line, don't make it go round and round avoiding the downtown core for the purpose of getting a circumferential bit in." And yes, I've seen various examples elsewhere where such lines underperform in...

Damn, stop giving me even more stuff to read when I don't have time to do so! /sarcasm

I understand it's tempting to have a "tangential" line that offers circumferential-like service around the core and radial-like service further out (conceptual sketch below). That said, as I elaborated in this comment (motivated by this Alon Levy post), such routes typically underperform in...

There is a recent discussion on Reddit's r/transit sub about why cities stopped building cut-and-cover (C&C) tunnels, motivated by this article. While I haven't read the original article yet, the discussion seems interesting. A lot of common points include C&C's disruption to neighborhoods, with...

I'm having an extremely hard time catching up with the flurry of activity all around (both in this thread and on the rest of this forum), but I'll throw in a very quick and very minor comment: I believe you mean "Audubon Circle" for the C's St Mary's St, not "Adubon Circle", right? (I'll try...