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

[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.