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State makes it official: Urban Ring taken off life support
By adamg on Mon, 01/25/2010 - 12:33pm
State Transportation Secretary Jeff Mullan last week told the state Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs it can stop studying the long planned Urban Ring bus network because the state has no money to build it and what money it does have it needs to use to fix up existing transit lines.
However, in a letter to the department, Mullan said his staff will continue to look at ways to deal with cross-town transit in coming decades, because otherwise, by 2030, both the Red and Green lines will be seriously over-capacity at rush hour.
Among the proposals Mullan said he will back is a plan to connect Chelsea to Logan Airport by "bus rapid transit," in part over a "haul road" Massport wants to build in East Boston. The state will also work with Boston to turn Melnea Cass Boulevard into a route for a similar Silver Line-like service.
Also, he added, he considers the Urban Ring concept so important he will continue to have an office dedicated to "long term" planning of the service, sometime in the coming decades.
Via Archie Mazmanian.
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Comments
Call in the slime molds?
Just as I finished writing that post, I saw this:
We already have slime molds
We already have slime molds who work for us, we pay them 60,000 a year and elected them every two years. Maybe these freelance slime molds would do a better job.
Premium Molds?
City Councilors make $87k - are they the Perrier of slime molds?
Not before 2030?!?
Um, has this guy ridden either recently? Doesn't sound like he's had the pleasure of having his face shoved in a fellow-passenger's armpit and his hair caught in the door that he's pressed against. Unless by over-capacity he means that people are actually crawling on top of the train because the next train with any space won't come through for at least two hours...
I think he's assuming the
I think he's assuming the trains are running on schedule and properly spaced.
By that criteria, he's right. But we all know that in reality, rush hour is more and more becoming a mess due to human error and mechanical failure.
The T should start by putting in some sort of tracking device on each train, and start having dispatch regulate frequency better in conjunction with that real time tracking. As it is right now, the only way that dispatch know where a train is in the system is by verbal communication. That is assuming the conductor is talking to them at all.
even if 2030 is right
To have anything in place before 2030, it needs to be in planning now. That's only twenty years away. Transit projects in Boston easily take that long from conception to construction.
Moreover, there is really very little cost to "keeping a project on life support," especially when compared to the cost of lost opportunities should conditions change and the project becomes feasible. Fred Savlucci got two red line extensions (Alewife and Braintree) and a new orange line. He also lost the once-thought-inevitable blue line extension to Lynn. He understood the value of keeping several projects ready for the right moment. This is poor leadership from Mullan, and the administration.
Long-term planning
Mullan did write he's going to continue to have some staffers continue to work on Urban Ring planning. Doesn't say if it'll be the same people who hold community meetings on the equally far-off Blue Line/Red Line connector, though.
The expansion priorities are
The expansion priorities are Green Line to Somerville, more Fairmount Line stations, and commuter rail to New Bedford/Fall River. Beyond that would be the Red/Blue Connector and the Blue Line to Lynn. It will take another 20-30 years just to get these done. That is on top of the $3 Billion+ needed to maintain existing infrastructure, things like buying new fleets of Red and Orange Line cars, repairing the tunnel from Alewife to Harvard, providing wheelchair access at Governmnet Center, etc. There is more than enough on the plate for the next generation. Even if they found the money to build the Urban Ring, where would they find the money to run it? Seems like a wise move to "park" it.
Spend some money on more cars for the Green Line so they can run the long promised three-car trains instead of two, and maybe some signal improvements on the Red Line, so trains actually move and don't just sit on the Longfellow Bridge for an eternity waiting for the train ahead to clear. If these things were done, the Red and Green Lines could keep up with ridership growth.
the green line could use
the green line could use japanese-style people-pushers. too often riders are clogged up at the door and folks in the extremities of the train refuse to fill in empty spaces so others can get on.
I am your people-pusher (politely, of course).
No need for Japanese people pushers. I very courteously ask people to excuse me while move to the areas of the train away from the doors where (when) there is space. I customarily mention to the people between me and my destination that that is where I intend on going, and that they are free to move there before me if they wish.
Of course, sometimes, there is absolutely no space. Today was one of those days. I essentially maintained a stress position for about 40 minutes between Reservoir and Gov't Center. Perhaps Governor Patrick can help out the President by running on the slogan, "Who needs Gitmo when you have the Green Line?"
Tokyo has the best transit
Tokyo has the best transit system in the world. Tokyo rush hour, DESPITE ridiculously short headways, is also far more "cattle-car" like than Boston, though you'd never guess based on the endless complaints of Green Line riders.
Speaking of Cattle Cars...
why did they do away with the standing-only cars on the Red Line?
I don't think they were tested properly. It seemed they only ran after the peak of Rush Hour.
Still around, I think
I've been on a couple inbound around rush hour in the last couple of months.
Oh good...I guess
It's weird, I take the Red Line inbound every day during rush hour and I never see nor hear about them.
As I recall, there were only four or six of those cars
put into service to begin with, so there's a high probability that a person could ride the Red Line on a regular basis (even during rush hour) and never encounter one.
They need to finish the
They need to finish the planning stages so when the next recession comes we will have a project that is shovel ready.
Whats scary is that i am only half sarcastic about this.
What they'll do is spend
What they'll do is spend millions studying it again and again and again, but never actually go as far as to produce workable plans. The Red / Blue connector has gone through tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, but there has never been a series of blueprints drawn up as far as I know. That would be an entirely new stage of engineering work that hasn't been attempted.
This is typical of the T which sends its engineering teams into endless loops that produce nothing useable. So when something like the stimulus package appears, it's a mad scramble to whip something up on extremely short notice. Then deal with the fierce opposition any transit plan in the area inevitably faces. By the time the deadline to finalize the paperwork and get digging arrives, the arguing has barely begun, the plan dies and the money goes elsewhere. (see also: Route 28X)
You know how the CT buses
You know how the CT buses were "phase 1" of the urban ring?
Why not just improve that? Add a CT4 to mirror the 66 (but express), get some bus lanes (Albany street routes 2 CT buses and could use a bus lane) and make the stops bigger so buses can pull in and out easier. Also, extend the hours so theyre not just commuter buses.