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What commuter-rail service through East Cambridge would look like

MBTA train going along Grand Junction rail line in Cambridge

Neal Doyle captured a new commuter-rail train chugging along the Grand Junction rail line in Cambridge towards the Charles today.

The T and Amtrak occasionally use the line, which crosses the Charles under the BU Bridge, to transfer trains from the north side of Boston to the south - it's the only north/south link inside 495. State officials hope to one day use the line to connect the Worcester Line to North Station, although Cambridge city officials remain opposed.

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This is awesome. Espcially with the new West Station down the road, getting the Grand Junction up & running full time will help transform our public transit system.

What's Cambridge's objection to this? What if the line was buried? That way the trains didn't run at street level over Mass Ave, etc? Is it a question of money? Or development? Or what?

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Cambridge should annex Maynard........

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Sure, you could definitely bury it. You can do anything you want if money's no issue. Unfortunately, money's always an issue.

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I heard they wouldn't bury it due to the proximity to many of MIT's important labs where vibrations could prove disastrous.

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Can't bury it. Trains can't handle grades as steep as cars can, and require higher clearances so you'd have to go deeper. It would take about 2500 feet to go deep enough at a reasonable grade for commuter rail and the daily freight service that uses the grand junction. By severing the pedestrian crossings, you could fit such a grade on the western end before Mass Ave (though I'd be concerned about the Charles leaking in to it), but there's no way you could fit one east of Medford and Cambridge Streets, and between Cambridge and Binney doesn't make the cut either, although if you server Binney you could squeeze it in.

In short, it's not even a matter or money - you can't really grade separate the GJ without severing cross streets or raising/lowering the roads instead.

The Grand Junction never has been a route for passenger trains, and likely never will. It was not built for that and doesn't make sense for it.

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Short trains, taking fruit over to the produce market in Chelsea. There are two ways to deal with this if you build in a tunnel with steeper grades. 1) buy a couple of dual-mode locomotives to deal with these moves (and MBTA yard moves). You might even put them on a separate third rail system (I'm assuming any electrification here would link in with the 25kV system already in place on the Providence Line (but not used by Amtrak). This would require a slightly higher profile tunnel, but it would be doable. A short freight train with an electric motor should be able to navigate steeper grades. The second way to do this would be to run freight around through Lowell Junction and down the Haverhill Line. Not super ideal, but it would probably work.

We shouldn't hamstring the passenger network for a couple of freight trains.

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I never proposed "hamstringing the passenger network for a couple of freight trains". I said correctly that TRAINS can't handle steep grades. Period. Doesn't matter. My 2500 ft estimate is based on commuter trains only (Look at the grade the Lowell line climbs next to BET for an example, it's about that length).

It doesn't make any sense to suggest that the T, Amtrak, CSX, and PAR all buy new dual-mode locomotives and install VERY expensive third rail or catenary just for this one small line, when it wouldn't even help - no matter whether diesel or electric, you could NOT fit a long enough grade on the eastern end of the line. The T won't even buy electric locomotives for the Providence line, which is already electrified, because it would significantly increase maintenance costs to have to maintain BOTH a diesel and an electric fleet, rather than a single diesel fleet. Plus it limits the T's consist flexibility to have locomotives that can only be used on a single line, rather than the current diesels that they can and do send anywhere.

Not gonna happen.

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There are jobs, lots of jobs in Cambridge. People have to go to these jobs, yet with Cambridge's opposition to new multi-family housing save for on the periphery of the city, rents / prices rise. Therefore people can't afford to live in Cambridge and have to live in Acton, Shirtucky, or Westboro, etc. and have to drive, therefore causing more pollution, less room for bikes, so and so on. Yes, you can take the train from Grafton to South Station and then take another 25 minutes getting from South Station to Kendall and then shuttle on or walk, but sometimes you don't want a 2 hour commute, when a train from Grafton to North Station via the Grand Junction Line with a stop by Broadway would save an hour of your day.

I've noticed that lately that some life science companies, beyond the ones that are already there, are jumping or planning to jump to Waltham, Lexington, and Burlington, mostly for cheaper rent, but also for the convenience of their workers who can only take the Alewife / Fresh Pond Rotaries so many times before you say screw it, I want to be with my kids instead of being stuck on Memorial Drive listening to ERS jocks mispronounce Chrissie Hynde's name.

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And these attitudes annoy me to no end. Yes, guys, you beat back the inner belt in the '60s, and that was good. It's also not a reason to oppose any kind of change. (Tim Toomey, I'm looking at you, and not because you draw a salary as both a city councilor and a state rep.)

But there's a problem with just pushing trains across the Grand Junction: capacity. Having direct service from the west and/or an easy transfer at West Station would be immensely popular since it would save at least an hour. That's probably the time savings with a transfer—if it's direct service a trip from Newtonville to South Station to Kendall that now takes 45 minutes (the same as getting off at Yawkey and walking!) would take 10. That's 70 minutes a day. All of the sudden, the train is beating the pants off of driving. And you have 3000 new employees at Novartis and Pfizer, MIT planning a $1b plan for Kendall, and Volpe sitting there with 15 acres of highly developable land (and sundry other smaller—but not small!—developments). If coupled with rebuilt stations in the Newtons and more frequent service from there and beyond, you'd have demand for a train coming through every 10 minutes.

That's not really possible, for two reasons. First, there's only one track in the easement. (MIT owns much of the Grand Junction land and the T only inherited an easement for one track—MIT bought the line from Penn Central in the late '60s.) So unless you have real fancy scheduling, you're probably not running more than 15 minute headways, if you're lucky. Second, as long as you have grade crossings at Mass Ave, Main Street and Broadway, running a high frequency service (on two tracks, with, say, 10 minute headways) is going to tie up those roads something awful—perhaps the only legitimate concern amongst the Cantabs. It's a no-win situation. These are not lazy, rural crossings, but streets with heavy traffic, dozens of buses and heavy bicyclist and pedestrian traffic—you'd need long lead times for crossing gates, which would just make traffic worse. It would be a tradeoff between better accessibility via the Grand Junction and worse traffic.

The answer that no one wants to mention (because money, I think) is grade separation. It basically solves all of the problems in the area, and creates new opportunities:

  • No issue with capacity since trains can run on frequent headways below ground
  • No issue with crossings; in fact, they'd be improved because there wouldn't be slow freight moves at rush hour.
  • Oh, and the Grand Junction path would have plenty of room for bikes.
  • Since the grade would have to descend below the Red Line (doable; major construction projects have dug this deep for basements/garages in the area) it would have space above for MIT's utilities in the corridor.
  • It could be built with doable passenger grades (but might need to be electrified) with an above-ground station at Cambridgeport before a descent below Mass Ave
  • The station would be built in the vicinity of Building 44 (the Cyclotron) and the outdated garage north of the tracks, east of Brain and Cog. A pedestrian passage would extend about 100 yards under Albany Street to a new Red Line station at Tech Square (more in a sec on that) with entrances to Vassar Street. This is central to Kendall Square (5 minute walk) as well as Tech Square, Novartis, University Park and MIT. This parcel would the gain tremendous value for development as it would be built on top of a major transit node.
  • The station at Kendall on the Red Line is very busy, and much of the development north of the Grand Junction is not well-served by Central or Kendall. In Downtown Boston it would have three stations in this stretch, but when it was originally built it didn't have the same development in the area (although many commuters to the candy factories). A station at Tech Square would reduce the walking time for tens of thousands of commuters, helping coax them from cars to transit. It would also better serve the lower income housing in the vicinity of Tech Square.

How do you pay for this? I think it's time that cities that see a major benefit from transit put up money. I'm looking at you, Cambridge. The city just sent around a flyer about how low property taxes are (which helps—a bit—to keep rents down) because of how much the city gets from commercial property. With many new properties coming online and land about to go from zero taxes (federal government at Volpe) to development, this will create tens of millions of dollars per year in new property tax revenue. But if congestion on the roads and Red Line gets much worse, these parcels will not be fully developed because of access. The city should leverage future tax revenues (and it's stellar bond rating, and low tax rates) to put up the local match to federal funding for such a project. $500 million (assuming a billion dollar price tag) would be $10 million per year over 50 years. At a 2% interest rate, that's totally doable. And it keeps Kendall Square as a very viable, accessible office location both locally (look at how overburdened the Silver Line is and how that affects development in the Seaport with a big ass parking garage built instead of, say, offices or housing) and nationally (where it competes against only a few other sites as the top biotech location in the country, if not the world). It's an investment. Unfortunately, our officeholders, and all too often voters, can't see beyond the end of their nose.

(FWIW, please vote no on 1 for the exact same reason.)

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We want you in on the UHub party!

Clearly you know more about this than most, and I suspect that is because you are professionally close to these matters. I think that's great, and its one of the reasons that I come here.

I particularly enjoyed the last paragraph, but for my money, this was the winner:

But if congestion on the roads and Red Line gets much worse, these parcels will not be fully developed because of access.

That is what is lost in so many arguments about development - that people are no longer content to spend hours each day commuting. To me it seems a little generational - I'm relatively young GenX and I had a telling conversation a couple of weeks ago. I was talking to a baby boomer about new job possibilities. He mentioned (among other things) some things in Providence and Worcester (I live in Brookline). I said sounds great, but there's no way in hell I'm doing either of those commutes. His expression can best be characterized by, "whaddayamean?"

Anyway, thanks for writing, and come back often.

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I usually post with a name, for a couple of reasons wanted to write this without one. Minor things. Don't worry. I'll be back.

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That was an excellent analysis of the issue. Hope that poster keeps posting.

Also, like you isaacg, I'm a relatively young gen xer and can't imagine a long commute. In the last year, I've realized that my train commute (from hyde park to back bay) "beats the pants off of driving" from Milton to Copley and I'm a regular train rider now. My 8 minute train ride is the key to my family functioning. The time I used to spend in my car is now spent dropping my kids off at school so my wife doesn't have to do it everyday on her way to work.

Good transportation improvements are economic development engines and the key to unlocking well designed development projects. Telling people to leave their cars at home is meaningless without good transportation alternatives and we all need to invest in transportation to sustain, and grow, our region's economy.

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Nice thoughts but grade separation here is a pipe dream.

Gotta stick to about 1% grade because the line is necessary so those big ass (adam said it!) commuter rail (and occasional freight) trains can haul up and down safely. To go under the Red Line you're talking nearly a mile of incline on each side. A tunnel, which, by the way, you cannot interrupt while digging this new monster.

Ventilation for diesel will be a nightmare. And, no, we can't switch everything over to electric for one measly line.

God knows what kind of issues are under the surface too: remember that the Grand Junction railroad line was built along the original shoreline of Cambridgeport.

Can't go up because of MIT buildings, can't go down because of aforementioned problems.

Huge problem, relatively little benefit.

And frankly, the grade crossing "issue" is actually not that big a deal. It can be managed. The point of the Grand Junction line is to solve a problem relatively cheaply by reusing an existing corridor, not by engaging in a huge megaproject. Run a few 8-car push-pull diesel trains in the peak hours to handle commuter capacity. Fill in the rest of the schedule with DMUs that pass through quickly. Four trains an hour each way is 8 times an hour for the gates. Assume it takes 2 minutes to pass, which is probably pessimistic with the better tech these days. That's 16 minutes out of 60, or about 26.6% of the time. Now, consider that your typical traffic light on Mass Ave eats up more time than that to allow side streets a chance to go. Time the schedule and the traffic signals appropriately and people might not even notice.

Going through the expense and trouble of grade separation here for measly frequencies like every-15-minutes is clearly a case of spending waaaaay too much on infrastructure for the sake of pampering NIMBYs. And we wonder why costs are out of control.

By the way, the Chicago "L" has rapid transit grade crossings that are much more frequent than every-15-minutes and even across some fairly busy streets. Although Mass Ave is probably busier than those, the DMUs will never become as frequent as the "L" (because there are still many single track bottlenecks to deal with, as you did point out).

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It's 1.1 miles from the red line at Main Street to the river, and 0.9 miles from the junction with the Fitchburg line to Main St.

Assuming the red line occupies ~20' below the surface, and you need another 22' below that for double-stack freight clearance rains, a ~45' drop at 1% grade is still plenty doable. You'd probably have to raise the grade of Cambridge Street and Medford Street, but that's about it for surface disruption.

With a cut that deep, ventilation would probably be required, especially if it was decked (which I imagine it would be, at least between Mass Ave and Broadway). But ventilating a tunnel is not exactly a new concept, nor is this any radical design. Spec it out and it's done.

Now this isn't to say it would be easy - or cheap. As mentioned, you have to keep the Grand Junction operational during construction (or only closed for very brief periods), or else every downeaster and southside commuter rail train has to take a 100something mile detour to get maintenance done. And there are ton's of abutters' foundations that would have to be underpinned, plus MITs labs containing sensitive equipment. Possible use of eminent domain to acquire parts of the right-of-way that were sold to private interests would likely be required as well.

But none of this is unheard of or uncommon, especially in highway construction. And considering this ~50' path has the potential to carry thousands more commuters than a highway of double that width, it seems like a reasonable allocation of funds. I do think a trial should be run without all the expense of digging to see if running a full commuter schedule through there would even be that bad. But even if it does turn out to be a trafficalypse, this corridor is too valuable to not start using for a lot more. If that means spending a chunk of change to upgrade it, so be it.

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What is your plan for getting all the surface roads over the cut.

Yes, you have to get surface roads over the cut on its way up and down.

Think about what you are talking about for a minute - the purpose of this would be to have a tunnel going down, under the red line and right back up again? Why?

It doesn't make any sense. The full underground section would be minimal.

On the other hand, this is desperately needed - service to this area is abominable. I wouldn't mind waiting at the crossing on Broadway ... it isn't that big a deal.

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First, this corridor will never have more than a few freight cars, and double-stacks can be handled over the north side if they ever come down the corridor (doubtful). It really is the produce train and not much else. Pan Am has decided they want to run a freight railroad and have decent service via the Western Route.

Second, let's start at Cambridgeport and work east:

* Station at Cambridgeport. Serves the under-developed western end of the MIT campus and the dense residential neighborhood, as well as several large offices. A good location for transit with a good connection over to Allston.

* Beginning of boat section where trackage descends, probably fully below ground by Pacific Street.

* Pacific Street, beginning of MIT utility tunnel, perhaps with a vehicular access ramp from above.

* Continuing grade below Mass Ave and to 45 feet below grade for the MIT station and Kendall connection. As mentioned earlier, there have been several construction projects here which have gone down 40 feet for parking and foundation construction. The Big Dig dug down 100 feet in similar conditions downtown, except with an active highway above. You'd need slurry walls to keep the loose ground from caving, but not tunnel boring.

* Red Line crossing. This would probably require some sort of soil freezing, but should be doable.

* Beginning of upward grade east of Broadway and Binney. Return to 20 foot-deep trench towards Cambridge Street.

* Potential for a station at East Cambridge / Cambridge Street

* If Medford Street was closed, the line could come back to grade to link in with the Fitchburg Line. Alternatively, it could continue under McGrath and the Fitchburg Line on a less severe curve and surface behind BET with an Inner Belt station, and then have a split with one line running in to North Station and another up to Sullivan (which has a surprising amount of space with old trackage on the east side of the station and an extra Orange Line track and platform), and a transfer could be built there for the Eastern and Western Route trains (Newburyport/Rockport and Haverhill Lines) and Orange Line. Or if you really were on something, tracks could rise over the Orange Line and Western Route north (railroad east) of Sullivan Square and link in to the Eastern Route and run to Chelsea or Lynn. This would create the following possible line:

Lynn-Riverworks-Revere-Wonderland [Blue Line]-Chelsea-Everett/Casino-Sullivan [Orange Line]-Inner Belt [Green Line]-East Cambridge-MIT [Red Line]-Cambridgeport-West Station [Green Line at Comm Ave]-Allston/New Balance-Newton Corner-Newtonville-West Newton-Auburndale-Weston/128 Park and Ride.

That would be something.

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John, this interesting, because all that I hear is how many are still trying to get "into town". Without compromising anything, can we ask you to elaborate?

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I saw this last weekend, and while it is certainly factually true, I think that the scale of the development is different. I think its great that development is happening both "in town" and on 128, but I still think that the scale in town dwarfs what's happening on 128.

That said, the traffic on 128 is as bad or worse than ever (even in the "boom" years). As the poster above mentioned in connection with Kendall/Cambridge, unless we solve the access/transport problems we have, we are going to kill the golden goose (geese?)

Interestingly, I thought that Kirsner's piece last weekend was also interesting. At some point, we need to be taking some of the pressure off of metro Boston and make the so-called Gateway Cities much more attractive places for business (and living). One of the keys here is definitely transport - it absolutely positively boggles my mind that there is one (2?) train connection per day to Springfield. We are spending a non-trivial amount of money to better connect the Pioneer Valley and Pittsfield to NYC by rail - why aren't we doing more to better connect them with Boston? If the trip from Boston to Springfield was less than an hour, as it absolutely should be, we could be addressing a lot of problems w/r/t the cost of housing and the cost of doing business.

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With the exception of a few shining stars, the Cambridge City Council is subject to the same moronic pseudo-populism as Boston's is. You know, "Development is bad and drives up housing prices, but don't approve dense residential developments that would alleviate the supply because that's development and development is bad, remember. And yuppies."

The problem is the Kendall crowd shows little interest in local politics, so there's no need to please the people whom these sorts of things would most directly benefit. Of course the city as a whole would benefit in the long run, but you can't expect the average voter to be blessed with that sort of foresight.

With that being said, the current infrastructure would need a drastic overhaul before it could handle regular service.

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Luckily the city is smart enough to have a pretty much powerless council and a city manager. So much more gets done that way.

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But attitudes towards development are turning in Cambridge. There was a good article in the Day about up-zoning in West Cambridge and hashing out an actual affordable housing plan with goals. There are city councillors like David Maher who are ready to push for these projects, here's a taste from the article

Mayor David Maher closed the meeting saying that “every neighborhood has a responsibility” for affordable housing and that the city has not been “aggressive” enough in taking land by eminent domain for affordable housing projects. Maher made a quick list of possible affordable housing sites, “looking at the Tokyo [Restaurant] site, Mass. Ave and Magoun Street, the lot at the corner of Huron and Cushing Street” and Vail Court.

While Mazen and Kelley don’t know what CDD’s housing goals are, Maher is ready to build. The Cambridge Redevelopment Authority can take land by eminent domain without council approval and can finance and build using its own resources.

The CDD has been asleep at the wheel for a number of years - and they aren't fully awake yet. Mazen and Kelley make good points in the article earlier on that, oftentimes, below-market rate apartments constitute some of the shabbiest, boring, uninspiring architecture there is. A thoughtfully designed building (i.e. NOT the one the went into the former Fresh Pond Seafood lot) helps to cut out some of the neighborhood opposition. I agree with that notion, I think developers would find it easier (maybe slightly less profitable) to get projects approved if they put together a worthy building - not what seems to go for a 20-unit building in this town: vinyl, terracotta panel, oddly places windows, etc...

However, there is the same-old opposition in Cambridge. The 695 fiasco was certainly traumatic, but I don't think the 70's era NIMBYs are the source of all this headache. I'm from Huron, a LOT of empty nesters have recently moved into my parents' neighborhood - that is where a lot of the new opposition comes from. Lovely people, but they moved from the suburbs to be closer to amenities, but want to keep the city just like a suburb. Affordable housing or just basic development is not a concern for most in that situation. It's a shame because places like Huron are streetcar suburbs, not cul-de-sac burbs, they can handle more development. So I wouldn't go out blasting the whole city council, there are some who have realized the writing on the wall and are pushing back - we need to do what you say, get Kendall Sq folks involved in politics (which would be my biggest complaint of the high-tech industry in Cambridge - lack of engagement). As a favorite son of Cambridge, Tip O'Neill said "All politics is local"

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They know exactly what they are doing. Mayors and city-wide councilors don't get elected without strong support from the western neighborhoods - you don't develop to try to keep housing prices down because the people that are supporting you live in those houses. You get elected by keeping property prices elevated, not depressed. If you were part of a movement that expanded development to the point that it hurt their housing values, you'd be out on your keester in the next election.

And BTW - nice shot Neal.

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I grew up in the Maher neighborhood (as in his relatives lived on my block), and he's been pushing for these projects. Now the affordability question is perhaps more contentious politically, but in regards to development of any sort - there's a noticeable undercurrent of support. Partly, I'd say it's confidence that nothing could dent property values in West and partly that all developable land lies at the fringes of the neighborhood. The exception to that, and a good barometer for the neighborhood's appetite are the two mini-Atmarks proposed for the Tokyo site and the Masse's storehouse on Walden (24 units I think). Both designs are dull, alucobond and/or vinyl paneled boxes of Seaport notoriety, but we'll see how the local concerns play out - particularly the Masse's site would indicate where the community is going to fall in regards to future development.

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Citizens Against Virtually Everything, Cambridge is loaded with them.

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Building Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything and then complain about the ensuring traffic, lack of affordability, etc......

Minimum parking requirements + minimum lot requirements + FAR = the death of cities through the strangulation of density

Setbacks and height (for fire safety) should be the only legal restrictions beyond zoning dictated usage for the scale and density of buildings.

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but think of all the car traffic the train line would bring!
wait what?

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This used to be a four-track freight line. As late as the early 1970s, long trains of freight cars would rumble through, tying up Mass. Ave. for 20 minutes or so in the after-midnight hours, hauling produce from California to Chelsea. Of course at that time the state was proposing using it as one of the route alternatives for the Inner Belt highway, which also got its share of opposition.

What has happened since then is that the industrial properties along the tracks have been developed in other ways, and the line has been cut back to just one track in most places. Between Binney and Cambridge Sts., houses have been erected and they now have the railroad line in their back yards. MIT and the biotech companies say they have sensitive instruments that would be affected by too many trains rumbling by -- that was an argument against the Inner Belt, too -- and some edges of the right of way have been sold off, leaving a very narrow corridor in most places. At Main Street, MIT has actually built a research laboratory over the tracks!

More recently, the T's proposal to build a circumferential transit line through the corridor has also met with NIMBY opposition, from homeowners and MIT.

I agree that the route has excellent potential as a transit line. It's too bad that the powers-that-be allowed the corridor to be narrowed over the past few decades, and they allowed sensitive developments to be built so close to the tracks. They should have made a stronger effort to preserve the alignment for transit use. Of course, when the whole area was lying fallow, no one foresaw that it would ever become a boomtown again. The planners were asleep at the switch when they built up this area!

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A connection from the North is needed much more. South station is already directly connected to cambridge via the Redline. To connect from North station, you must go green to red or orange to red. The EZ ride is a joke, so don't mention that as an option.

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How about 2 stops to Lechmere then walk a little?

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Depending where in Kendall you're going, it will be a 20+ minute walk from Lechmere. Add onto that the time waiting for a Lechmere train, and the ride on the train, and you'll see why there are so many parking garages in Kendall.

If I were in charge, I'd experiment with express buses from various northern suburbs to Kendall. It's time for our transit network to reflect where the jobs are, not where they were in 1890.

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I work in Cambridge, and I live in Beverly. It is also possible to connect to the Red Line from North Station by taking the Fitchburg line to/from Porter square; I do this quite often, but the timing has to be "just right" to catch a train on the Fitchburg line heading to/from Porter.

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The Green Line goes from North Station to East Cambridge. I think that with the extension to Union Square, they should keep on going to Porter Square, or even further to the Fresh Pond/Alewife area.

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...that there are no station planned "in" cambridge...and this is just a pass-thru for Newtonians and Westonians to get to work? I gathered that the opposition was to leverage a stop or two..if this so, I'd hold out too.

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Related pub trivia: The Grand Junction Bridge is the only place in the world where a plane can pass over a car passing over a train passing over a boat.

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I've heard that many times, but don't think it's actually true. For instance, the Steel Bridge in Portland, OR carries cars (and transit) on a top deck, over a rail line on the lower deck, over the Willamette River.

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And a more local example is the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge in Portsmouth, NH, which carries US 1 Bypass on the top deck, and a PAR rail line on the lower deck.

Such bridges are not uncommon.

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