MyRespectableAlt t1_iydolxj wrote
Reply to comment by Master_Dogs in Finally connecting Red and Blue lines by MDeehan
It's an extension through landfill, so you're looking at shoring up/securing everything you excavate so the homes and businesses above don't collapse.
You're rerouting sewer, water, electrical, gas. God knows what else they've buried in the last two hundred years.
Let's not even mention the red tape and multiple jurisdictions and authorities involved.
This ain't no cut and cover in a cow pasture.
Edit: Not to mention cutting off the primary E-W corridor through downtown that also coincidentally services the primary hospital for the area.
Difficult-Ad3518 t1_iydr6sa wrote
>It's an extension through landfill
Not exactly. Cambridge Street was one of the original streets laid out in Boston in the 1630s. This tunnel will mostly be under the original Shawmut Penninsula. The shoreline was expanded a bit by Charles Circle itself and your point about utilities are valid, but this extension will not be primarily through landfill.
>This ain't no cut and cover in a cow pasture.
See this map from 1635. Ironically, you could be right in almost any situation making that statement, except here. There are many things that make this project complicated and your overall point is correct, but your reasoning is flawed. This is one of the few remaining streets from the 1630s on original 1630s land (albeit with some fill by Charles Circle, as I said).
MyRespectableAlt t1_iydsiu0 wrote
Thanks for the clarification.
Difficult-Ad3518 t1_iydty67 wrote
Sure thing! Cambridge Street has a long and fascinating history. It's been rebooted a few times in different eras.
Most recently, as part of the 1960s urban renewal project that razed Scollay Square and replaced it with City Hall Plaza, Cambridge Street was slightly moved and rebuilt from the ground up. The utilities underneath that you allude to are not from 200 years ago, but rather from the 1960s. There are complications that arise in any tunneling project, but as far as tunneling in "old Boston" goes, this is good as it gets. Basically, if we can't tunnel here, we can't tunnel anywhere on Shawmut Penninsula.
HurdieBirdie t1_iyeatil wrote
While the soil type is different, the fact this section of roadway is one of the original in Boston and almost 400 years old makes the other point even more true. The utilities and structures in the ground have got to be so convoluted from being routed around each other for that long. I'd imagine the utility plans to be just black with lines in that area of the city.
Buffyoh t1_iydqc8m wrote
The only sensible answer here! Many years ago there was a study by the Central Tranportation Planning Staff ("CTPS") to run the Blue line out to Riverside via the Central subway. (Until fairly recently, the two center tracks at Kenmore were raised in anticpation of high platfrom RTL cars) I recall that the plan was to tunnel under Bowdoin Street. Either way, Red/Blue will be highly disruptive and high cost.
Master_Dogs t1_iydr8dn wrote
It's a half mile extension. Countries in Europe have built entirely new subway lines in the time it'll take us to decide to actually commit to this basic connector.
ImpressiveEffect8212 t1_iyduc7e wrote
Part of the issues are that the funding and construction resources and accountability here is much higher for cars here whereas it’s for trains there. A second piece is mitigation like managing detours, noise, and utility reroutes as mentioned above. There’s also more uncertainty about what’s under the ground and where it exists, which requires more exploratory digging and planning.
Master_Dogs t1_iydxbn8 wrote
> Part of the issues are that the funding and construction resources and accountability here is much higher for cars here whereas it’s for trains there.
Not sure what you mean about this. We're already looking at spending $850M on a connector; surely that kind of money gets us a <5 year timeline. 8 years is just... insane. NYU has been studying the GLX project for example (study here), we spend significantly more than many other countries on transit as is.
> A second piece is mitigation like managing detours, noise, and utility reroutes as mentioned above. There’s also more uncertainty about what’s under the ground and where it exists, which requires more exploratory digging and planning.
Yeah so maybe I was hybolic about it being done in 2 years. I still don't see how this basic extension takes 8 years to complete. It's a pretty critical extension too, since the lack of a connector leads to more people using the Green, Orange and Silver Lines instead of just hopping on the Blue Line and skipping a third transfer altogether. That added traffic/inconvenience really drives people to drive over just leveraging our pretty awesome (for American standards) public transit system. Especially as more people look to live and work around Cambridge, Somerville, Eastie, Revere, etc.
link0612 t1_iye6e3k wrote
Yes, the extreme lag times and costs are a national regulatory problem with how transit projects are funded, overseen, and constructed. Which means they're going to impact us for any MBTA transit project. It can't be done faster or cheaper without seceding (messy) or passing fundamentally new federal transportation legislation (unlikely since we just passed a new one that made things worse)
NateMayhem t1_iydqwui wrote
Yeah sure but that guy said a year or two at most, so we should really take that into consideration.
3720-To-One t1_iydw55c wrote
They should just have the blue line come above ground and travel down Cambridge street L-train style.
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