84 replies to this topic

[Lowerdeck]

For the sake of debate*, I'm from Massachusetts... and the traffic patterns and horrible signage patterns here even baffle me at times.  Last weekend, I was trying to get on the Mass Pike from Huntington Ave. and it took sheer luck to find an entrance near the Pru.  Went around in circles just trying to find the on-ramp.

I will say this.  Yes, there's problems with leaks.  Yes, the leadership was incredibly inefficient and made things way worse.  But as said, there are many benefits to having open space connecting the North End and downtown slash Quincy Market/Fanueil Hall area again.  A nice park in center city, more pedestrian friendly connecting the two neighborhoods.  Traffic flows have improved in the area and from the outlying areas to Logan (as long as you know where the hell you're doing, which is a battle on itself.)  

Getting improvements for mass transit is another battle for another day.  Yes they should have done that connection between North and South Stations.  It would have been wise, but it's not totally crucial.  It's the same in New York between GCT and Penn Station ... how much travel between the two do you really expect?  Nice yes, pivotal no.

Green E to Arborway won't happen, unless that line gets buried from Heath St. (or even Symphony) southward to Arborway.  The trains apparently caused too many problems along the streets there, and I can imagine it's only worse since the drivers around here have a sense of entitlement and go around like maniacs.

Let battles be fought one at a time, soon enough we will see good mass transit in Greater Boston.  If you start seeing little things coming done, like Blue to Lynn or Green to Medford, one will start rolling right after the other and the area will benefit in the long run.





* = I was born in Worcester and live in a suburb outside there, but on the CT side of the state line.  For the sake of argument, since my area's sphere of influence is (connected to) Mass. (more than Conn.), I say Mass.

[cloudship]

I am still quite sore on the lack of public transit infrastructure. While I get what you are saying about one battle at a time, I think in many ways this project was really supposed to be a combined transit/Road project that then got taken over by the road interests. So in some ways it never fulfilled i's original promise. The North/South connector is less about getting between the two stations as allowing people from the south of Boston to reach locations north of Boston, and vice versa. Which is why the whole expressway is important to begin with - many people commute THROUGH the city. Today that is just too impossible to do by mass transit. It was also supposed to provide better connections to the airport. While the roadway connections certainly have improved, the rail connections have not. This might have been a real true beginning for rail transit in the US, as Acela would have been able to connect right at the airport, and thus make connections with international travelers easily.

[Lowerdeck]

There's just lots of issues regarding public transit in Boston...
- no Blue/Red connection
- no North/South link (Green/Orange to Red... meh)
- only real connection to Logan is the Silver (shuttle to Blue to anything else... ouch)
- the entire concept of the Silver Line
- Green B having way too many stops in such short distance of one another
- Green E's "temporary suspension"
- the rust buckets on Blue
- Worcester's terrible commuter connection

I could keep going, that's just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head.

[JDC]

^ There is water transport that connects Logan to downtown and South Boston.

Looks like there's progress being made in the way of extending the Green Line through Somerville to Medford. I just hope they don't put 100 stops on the line like the B Branch. Of course, it's not likely since it's not a streetcar-type ROW, so it'll probably be more like the D branch.

[JDC]

And I voted no because I remember how long it used to take to get through the central artery, and I remember how dismal the streets between Faneuil Hall and the North End used to be.

It was pretty awesome to go through the South Station tunnel and come out next to all those skyscrapers before the Big Dig though.