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

[enmascarado.livejournal.com]

You seem to know a lot of the details, which I appreciate.

What consideration has been given to parking? I live behind the High School and can imagine where they'd put that stop. There's an abandonned (I think) warehouse that that could be torn down to make for parking, but not many spaces are that lucky. My biggest concern with the addition of a stop in Union Square has always been where the parking would go. Considering that people will likely be coming in from Malden and points North to hop the T for work and/or weekends in Boston, parking needs to be considered. Union Square doesn't have enough parking now. Ball and Magoun, similarly so.

-Dan

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

Parking is a good point, which I honestly hadn't considered. I was working with the assumption that most of the passengers would be local residents walking to the T, which is what I do.

But you're absolutely right. People living in the northern suburbs but working in downtown might want to drive to the nearest T stop, park for the day, and take the T into downtown. Lechmere has this problem now, which is why the parking rates at the Cambridgeside Galleria are cheap for the first hour or so and then skyrocket. I don't know the answer to this.

[cnoocy]

Well, the Alewife solution isn't bad in theory: Extend the line far enough to build a large parking facility at the terminus, then expect all suburban traffic to use that parking. I will admit that I don't know how well this works for Alewife.

[enmascarado.livejournal.com]

From when I lived in Waltham and still had a car I can tell you that it worked great if you got there before 10am. Not so well if you got there between 10am and 4pm. I used to give myself an extra half hour when going to job interviews to idle outside of the parking ramp waiting for someone to leave.

-Dan

[dmaze]

From the north, Wellington seems to be a popular "park and T" destination; I assume from the parking garages in the area that Malden Center is as well. I guess a hypothetical stop at Boston Ave. and Harvard St. in Medford would be in about the right place, or at Boston Ave. and Mystic Valley Pkwy., or even West Medford, but the roads going west from 93 aren't really that friendly (and seem to be a little overburdened to start with). My initial suspicion is that the road layout will lead people to stay on the orange line, or at Alewife, for driving to the subway.

(This leads me to wonder if people drive from outer suburbs to Anderson RTC in Woburn, which I believe has lots of parking and advertising from both 93 and 128, and then take Lowell commuter rail trains in. But even if there were Ball Square and McGrath Highway commuter rail stops, the commuter rail would probably be strictly more appealing than the Green Line over this stretch.)

[syntheticnature.livejournal.com]

Don't Malden-and-points-North people take the Orange Line (or maybe even the Blue Line) already?

[enmascarado.livejournal.com]

Malden may be a bad example, but I still think that there will be the need for more parking. Maybe not. I don't drive, I'm just thinking about what might happen.

There might just be an increased need for parking from other places in Somerville.

-Dan

[syntheticnature.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I think I would prefer to drive to Wellington or to Alewife instead of Union if I were coming from outside the city to take the T, because they are convenient to highways and because I feel like the other lines are faster than the Green Line. But that's just my personal guess.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I don't think people will actually drive to the nearest T stop geographically. If they want to T, they will drive to the nearest T stop in terms of *time*. No one's ever going to drive into Davis from the suburbs because it's a tangle of surface streets; they'll take Rt. 2 to Alewife. Similarly, I'm not sure people would want to go to Union Square, because traffic there is a tremendous pain in the ass, even with the McGrath. I suspect major parking will only be needed near important (ie numbered, route- or highway-type) roads.

[enmascarado.livejournal.com]

I don't think something on the order of Alewife is needed, but I think something will be. My cousin used to drive from Winter Hill to Davis and park to take the T and I know people who do the same from Medford currently. You won't be getting people from a couple of towns over, but you will from the next town and within town. The people who live along the Mystic Parkway would likely drive to the nearest Green Line stop if it gets built along the Lowell Line. Having more stops will diffuse the problem, but I can still see my landlord having a hard time finding parking by their house if they put a stop in Gilman Square.

-Dan