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The evolution of Blue Hill Avenue
By adamg on Sun, 12/07/2014 - 11:27am
When trolleys ran down Blue Hill Avenue and Seaver Street - with maps and photos.
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Comments
Bring back rapid transit!
Bring back rapid transit!
That ain't happening in my lifetime
Maybe yours. Just look at the 20+ year drama of extending the greenline in Somerville. And those tracks are already there.
People in this country want nice things. They just don't want to pay for it. So it's not happening anytime soon.
The past is never dead. It's not even past
When the T gets serious about improving intraurban rapid transit, this is a prime candidate for light-rail with a private ROW along the median. I'll spare everyone a rant on how political expediency inhibits capital investment for the T, but a Green Line branch from a reopened Tremont St portal, down Washington to Dudley, Dudley-via-Warren-to-BHA, and a terminus at Mattapan Sq or in Milton would be f*ing revolutionary. Now..it'll never happen, reopening the portal and wedging a private ROW along Washington and Warren are both costly and technically difficult, but BHA is probably the easiest segment to build. Commutes from Mattapan are also, on average, some of the longest in Boston (rivalled only by HP, Rozzie, and WR) so the community certainly deserves something - whether it's streetcars, LR, true BRT.
Fairmount line!
If the Fairmount line gets dmus in the next 5 years its route parallels bha very closely and is much better than trolleys on bha;) could be a game changer in the hoods along its route.
Will be a gamechanger
But only when South Station is expanded, as long as the MBTA still has to idle CR push-pulls there there won't be enough platform slots to run a high frequency DMU services. You're right tho, upper BHA is just within the catchment area of the FL, but points north in Roxbury won't benefit, hence the need for a Warren St ROW. Maybe only to Grove Hall or somewhere on Seaver St.
Reopening the tunnel/portal
Reopening the tunnel/portal from Boylston and converting the Silver Line to Dudley back to trail service is easy enough. Elevate the line on a modern concrete structure along Warren Street over the existing median to Blue Hill Ave and restore the center reservation of Blue Hill Ave for the connection all the way to Mattapan Square to connect to Ashmont Station.
Extend the E line from the VA along or elevated over Health Street to Columbus Ave and run it down to a restored reservation of Seaver Street with a connection to the Blue Hill Ave Line.
These extensions would provide Roxbury and Mattapan direct access to downtown, the Longwood Medical Area, and relieve a lot of traffic/overcrowded bus lines.
Columbia Road
As long as we're dreaming, once you have service on Blue Hill Avenue again, well, Columbia was obviously built with trolley service in mind.
It was built with trolley
It was built with trolley service in reality, not just in mind. That's the old 16 rt, ran from Forest HIlls to Andrew Sq along Columbia and Boston St.
Ayup!
Poor writing on my part. It's interesting, and a bit sad, to see all the streets with wide medians where trolleys once ran (hmm, like Washington Street south of West Roxbury Parkway).
The trolleys just ran from
The trolleys just ran from Franklin Park to Andrew, the Forest Hills-Franklin Park section of bus Route 16 was an extension of the route started in the 1970s.
What about Arborway trolley ?
What about Arborway trolley ? Can we get that back too?
Why?
I'm a regular green line rider, but I don't see why a streetcar run like the B or C and E lines is better than a bus. It's certainly not faster. It's a bit more comfortable, but that can be solved more cheaply by getting better buses. And the extended E line has the added disadvatage of rails embedded in the road, making things more difficult and dangerous for other road users (especially cyclists).
It's a question of capacity.
It's a question of capacity. In general the urban transit hierarchy is bus-brt/streetcar-light rail-heavy rail. Streetcars move more people, but as you say, aren't as nimble as buses when they are street running. I'm surprised the MBTA hasn't cut the E back to Brigham (I think there's a crossover there anyways) to be honest. Buses are fine for low-to-medium density routes, but for anything above that, light-rail is a better option if only because it moves more people, more quickly. It should also be noted that economic development tends to follow light rail lines, but doesn't do the same for bus lines. That isn't really at play with JP, but it certainly is for Roxbury and Mattapan.
EDIT: Also, for clarification, the B and the C are light-rail lines, they run in there own private ROW
I'm nostalgic , that's why.
I'm nostalgic , that's why. Plus the remnants of that service line (Heath street and beyond ) have been orphaned from the source. The Arborway is a mere shell of its former self,
It will not even be a shell....
... once the overpass and the old green line station at FH are torn down...
That whole area has lost its
That whole area has lost its ambiance since the Gas company moved out , probably not a bottle of Old T to be found anywhere.
I like friendly ghosts
Cool article. The part that I liked best is buried at the end, where the author describes double sinks (dietary laws) and door post nail holes (for mezzuzahs) as still being frequent in neighborhood apartments. The past isn't, sometimes.