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Arlington no longer officially opposes extending the Red Line
By adamg on Thu, 04/27/2023 - 10:13am
A bit late, but Paul Schlichtman reports that Arlington Town Meeting voted 169-41-1 last night to:
Request a home rule petition to repeal Ch. 439 of the Acts of 1976, prohibiting the construction of a mass transit facility within 75 yards of Arlington Catholic HS.
You may recall that when the state began talking about extending the Red Line north of Harvard Square, it originally wanted to go all the way to Lexington, only it couldn't, because the good burghers of Arlington fought that, and certainly not because they didn't want to make it easier for Black people to come into town.
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Comments
That's great, now they need
That's great, now they need to do the same for the Orange Line extension along the Needham Line
...or
they could make all commuter rail stops within the city limits Zone 1A, permanently.
And increase frequency. The
And increase frequency. The reduced frequency for Covid is seeming more and more like it might be a permanent thing. One train per hour during peak times and one train every two hours during off-peak times is not acceptable.
Orange Line to Needham?
So you can take the train to your million dollar teardown which has been replaced by a $2.5M 4 bedroom house?
Do you really think some exec at GSK working in East Cambridge is going to hope it isn't too crowded by Jackson Square or they are going to take the Tesla and avoid it all?
Have any of you actually seen what Needham has become economically? Have you? It was like Reading / Dedham / Bedford up until about 20 years ago. Not so much now.
You're replying to the wrong
You're replying to the wrong comment, dumbass. But I also agree that the Needham Line should be replaced with an orange line extension (not that it'll ever happen). It's redundant to have the two run side by side for as far as they do. I couldn't care less what the people in Needham you're describing think. Most of them are driving because they think public transportation is below them anyway.
Yeah there's definitely no
Yeah there's definitely no working class people in Roslindale!!! It's not like Rozzie square to Forest hills is one of the busiest bus corridors in the system or anything!! People working as janitors at the VA Hospital are driving their teslas everywhere!!!
The OLX isn't going to go express from FH to Needham, it's going to serve all the train stations in between with rapid transit and allow for transformative realignment of the bus network in the southern neighborhoods that will drastically impact peoples' ability to get around.
Green Line to Needham, actually
The usual proposal for replacing the Needham Line with rapid transit calls for Orange Line to either the current West Roxbury CR station or to the VA Hospital/Millenium Park area, coupled with a Green Line branch off of the D-Line just before Eliot, which then serves the Needham stations. The Green Line is better suited for Needham due to the many grade crossings. It also might address the Tesla driver concerns about the Orange Line.
Needham Line Frequency
It's one train an hour all day long. Two hour headways on the weekend, but during the week, there is no change between peak and off-peak. All day clock facing is the way to go, since there is no longer as much 9-5 commuter usage, but an increase in all day usage. I'd certainly like to see a transition to 2 trains per hour, but even more, I'd like to see it replaced with an Orange Line extension.
And to Reading...
that's the side of the Orange Line that had a NIMBY problem.
BUILD IT
I want nothing more than the Minuteman to have massive trains rolling down it like it did until 1975.
Maniacal Laugh. Maniacal Laugh.
On the serious side, let's restore street car service between Cambridge and Lexington Center. It is not like Mass Ave isn't wide enough between Harvard and Arlington Heights.
Easy?
Can this be an "easy" build - just cut and cover where the MM trail goes?
Sure - But A Lot Of Houses Go Away
A lot.
My friend's grandparents house backed up to the MM. This was just before trail construction. I can't believe they got one train up it, let alone plan for two.
The most similar neighborhood to that part of Arlington and a subway line would be between Mather Street and Peabody Square in Dot. That is cut and cover but a bigger ROW.
Doesn't the red line go into
Doesn't the red line go into arlington technically? Like past alewife is a mile-ish of track? Obviously no stops, but just keep diggin!
I don't get it
The 75-yard radius from Arlington Catholic barely makes it across Mass Ave. The entire Minuteman Bike Path right-of-way is at least 100 yards away. How did that law ever prevent anything to do with the Red Line extension?
The original plan for the
The original plan for the Northwest Extension (as the plan was called) had a new subway station in Arlington Center, close enough to the HS that this was an effective element (but not the only one) in blocking the Red Line from going beyond Alewife.
As someone else commented, there are spur ends that extend under Arlington, used for layovers & storage.
75 yards was a compromise, but the compromise didn't hold
“Back in 1976, opponents targeted the initial proposal to build a parking garage, replacing the Russell Common parking lot. It wasn’t the only objection, but it was a significant point of contention.
The MBTA planners were responsive to the opponents. By the time this law was enacted, the MBTA already removed the garage from the plans it submitted to the US Department of Transportation.
The law was a compromise, the original version would have set the limit at 150 yards, which would have extended onto Broadway Plaza and into the Kickstand Café parking lot. The compromise cut that distance in half.
I note that the dissenting opinion in the Select Board report recalls that Governor Dukakis signed this into law – because it was viewed as the compromise that would allow for the construction of the Red Line as a neighborhood stop, albeit without a parking garage.
Unfortunately, the compromise did not hold, and the opponents intensified their opposition until the Red Line was stopped at Alewife.
one option was skipping Arlington Center
My memory could be foggy but I was a 8-10 year-old transit buff living in North Cambridge who followed the debate and plans closely. The right of way under what was a freight line between Davis Square and Alewife was across the street from me.
I recall at one point there was a plan/option to simply skip Arlington Center and terminate at Arlington Heights, pretty much where the 77 ends. In the 70's MBTA "future expansion" plans had the OL going past Oak Grove all the way to 128; ditto for the Red Line, i.e. Arlington Heights wasn't the final terminus. The Red Line to Braintree was already in the works.
This all reflected the T's attempt to get drivers onto the system via "park and ride" facilities. Older readers may recall that the trains on the Quincy Center branch featured wide fake-leather seats and very little standing room, while the Ashmont branch exclusively had the older trains.
Anyway, my memory is that Arlington objected long enough for the costs to balloon to the point that the T cut the expansion back to Alewife anyway... similar to how the GLX plan was cut back.
Was the plan to build a giant
Was the plan to build a giant T parking garage on the parking lots over there? It's not on the Minuteman right of way, but they could divert the line over to the station.
Symbolic?
I think it was just a symbolic way to tell the state houe they didn't want it. If the state had cojones, they would have built it anyway for the benefit of all, but those in charge just ended up caving.
Build it anyway
Would not have been a good look for the state in the wake of the revolts over the Southwest Expressway and Inner Belt -- even if this was transit instead of interstate highways.
Um yeh
Who wouldn't want a crumbling station like Alewife in the center of town?
no, anon troll...
Alewife station only got shut down because some dingleberry intentionally rammed his car and caused the concrete to fall int he parking garage above the main entrance.
Lol
Guess you missed the multiple ceiling collapses, flooding, crumbling stairways etc all of which have been there for years before the incident you’re referencing. I’d be in favor of an extension, but the MBTA doesn’t seem to get that if you build stations you need to maintain them.
The decision to allow transit
The decision to allow transit expansion is probably equally motivated by concerns for property values as the decision to block transit expansion in the 1970s was. So, depressingly, this is probably not a sign of progress against White Flight, just a response to changes in the real estate market. Imagine if decisions about urban planning weren't controlled by property owners whose main motivation is to increase the value of their assets...
How did the Minuteman come to be?
The idea that a commuter rail line would just be closed blows my mind. How did that come to be? (Looking online yielded very little useful history.)
Not Enough Riders
Not Enough Investment. What is now the Old Colony line closed the day the SE Expressway opened up.
The Bedford line (what is now the Minuteman) closed after a snowstorm in 1975. That's it. Thanks for coming.
You also have to remember a few things about back then. Jobs in many areas were suburban oriented. If you lived in Lexington, there was a better chance you worked in Waltham, Lexington or Burlington. Thus the evil car was your choice.
If you worked in downtown and lived in the burbs, the Watertown, Newton and Waltham buses on the Pike got a lot of use. Not so much today .
There was no East Cambridge Tech Boom. East Cambridge's biggest employer until the 60's was a soap plant. You walked to work or got off in this industrial area known as Kendall Square.
Alewife was a dirty little industrial area.
If you worked in Boston and lived in the suburbs, you drove. Parking was plentiful and cheap. If you lived in the City, you took the Red Line. I used to see construction workers taking the T all the time. Now they all live in Plymouth or Franklin and take their trucks.
The whole point of the Pru, Copley Place, and the Hancock was easy access off of the Pike.
The line closed in January
The line closed in January 1977, the schedule for many decades was just one weekday train that left Bedford at 7:08 AM and a return trip from North Station at 5:40 PM. That was the schedule since at least the 1950s, even in 1940, the schedule was just five trains in and five trains out. The schedule in 1912 was 28 trains a day, but when the Cambridge Subway (Red Line) opened to Harvard in 1912, most of the commuter traffic switched to taking the streetcar (now the 77 bus) to Harvard instead of the less frequent train. The Boston & Maine gradually reduced the number of trains as ridership left. The line actually made more money with freight, there was a lumber yard at Arlington Heights that still got freight deliveries even after passenger service ended in 1977, until the line was abandoned even for freight in 1980 to allow construction of Alewife station to begin.
Ironic
Ironic because now those 77's are packed (or were before covid) going into Arlington Center. They may have thought they didn't need it, but they certainly do now.
Nice to know things haven't changed in Arlington in terms of politicians and stand points.
Sucks because they cckblock other towns above and around them from having rapid transit service. (yeah yeah I use this term lightly at the moment)
To be honest, still surprised it went this way and not the way the transportation commission wanted it to go in 1945, which was to go and follow Mt Auburn Street, into East Watertown, then curve up by Fresh Pond (to the current Alewife location), then onto Arlington. It would have made a whole lot of difference. (and probably spurred development out that way instead)
Transit Apartheid has consequences.
Arlington didn't want blacks coming by the T into their segregated town so the T took a left and built Alewife station on a hazardous waste dump. I remember when the phonies in Hingham opposed the Greenbush line for environmental reasons which meant that the blacks were coming to town.
T
Arlington has changed, somewhat
Back when markkkkk was a posted to this site, some might remember his hated for all things not car specific in Arlington. I remember going to public hearings when they proposed putting actual painted lines on Mass Ave in East Arlington plus bump-outs and bike lanes. The hatred of that plan, mostly from the retired crowd, was historic. One guy went as far as to fund his own "traffic study" by some private consultant that showed Mass Ave would be gridlock 23/7 if the plan was approved.
So it's nice to see the town come around. Too bad it took 40 years.
FWIW, towns do change. Arlington used to be an affordable place to buy for people with middle class jobs. Now those people are lucky if they can afford to rent. But the "It's always 1982 in Arlington" mentality has greatly diminished.
It should also be extended
It should also be extended all the way down 37 to Brockton. It would do wonders for Brockton and my hometown of Holbrook.