Green Line extension to Tufts, maybe...

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

Okay, this is more Tufts-related than Davis Square related, but I figured it was close enough! First, it looks as though the Green line will extend into Somerville...Hurray!

But there are two competing proposals for the route the extension will take. Either way, it would begin from Lechmere, and then either go one stop into Union Square (and stop there) or through east Somerville to Tufts, making three or four stops along the way. You can read the Somerville Journal article about it, though the proposals make more sense if you can see the maps in the printed version.

Let me encourage people to write a letter to the Somerville Journal (if you do it today, it'll be in this week's paper) at Somerville@cnc.com and support your proposal of choice. My feeling is that the longer extension into Tufts makes more sense than a single shunt into Union Square.

Comments

[alphacygni]

The commuter rail is an entirely different sort of transit than the light rail green line, or a bus. It would quite probably be nice to have the Fitchburg line stop at Union Square on its way between North Station and Porter, but I don't think it will solve the problem of Union Square being considered inaccessible via public transit.

Union Square has a tremendous amount of bus service, going in almost all imaginable directions to three different MBTA rail lines. But obviously, people consider this insufficient. I often wonder what, if anything, could be done for the bus service there to make people like it or use it.

If the green line continued past Union westward to Tufts, how would that not be "from Union to anywhere in Somerville"? It could be that you're thinking that connecting to the red line would be ideal, to truly connect to the various well-known places in the area, and that's probably true. But with the locations of the various red line stops, I think it's terribly, terribly unlikely that the green line would dip down and connect.

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

One fundamental problem is that Union Square, as you point out, is on the Fitchburg line, while the proposed green line run out to Tufts would run along the Lowell line rail bed. Maps here (http://www.mbta.com/traveling_t/schedules_commuterrail.asp)

If the green line continued past Union westward to Tufts, how would that not be "from Union to anywhere in Somerville"?

Oh, that would be wonderful! But difficult, if not impossible. As ceo points out, it would be ideal if the green line could run from Lechmere, into Union Square, and then continue to join the Lowell tracks and complete the run to Tufts. But inbetween the branches is Prospect Hill, forcing the train to either tunnel underneath (prohibitively expensive) or to backtrack (frustrating.) So at the moment, it's looking like running the green line into Union Square would be a one-stop dead end.

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

I often wonder what, if anything, could be done for the bus service there to make people like it or use it.

As someone who is starting to use the Union Square buses a lot, I know I'd feel more like they were "real" public transportation if the stops were indoors. Standing around in the rain or the cold is much less pleasant than in a heated indoor T station.

Also, of course, there's the issue that most people can't get by just on a bus pass, and a bus + T pass is rather expensive.

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

Yes, some sort of Davis-like central bus stop would be a big win and make waiting more pleasant. And as another poster pointed out, different busses currently stop at different places, even if you can take them to the same destination.

[dmaze]

I feel like the bus setup is okay for commuting, but once you step outside of that friendly Monday-Friday 7AM-7PM window it starts sucking. Going to visit friends at MIT? Neither the 85 nor the CT2 run outside of commuting hours. You can take a bus to a T stop but that's not where you're actually going; once you get to Sullivan, Central, Harvard, or Davis you still need to wait for a train to actually take you somewhere. (Between the 86 and 87 there's reasonable coverage of Somerville, at least.) And most of the busses, outside of commute hours, run every half-hour at best, more likely some irregular hard-to-remember schedule that's less frequent.

Union in particular also has the problem that busses going to the same place have separate stops (wait in different places for the 86 or 91 to Sullivan, for example). Plus the traffic is a known disaster.

At least, I have a reasonable feel (not having looked at the maps) for how light rail could get into Union Square from Lechmereish, but there don't seem to be a whole lot of expansion opportunities from there. Extending the line down Somerville Ave. to Porter Square could be worthwhile, but I don't think the road is wide enough to have a separate rail right-of-way. I'm pretty sure the Fitchburg commuter rail line doesn't have enough space to also support light rail.