Silver Line

[Cotuit]

Officials endorse Silver Line tunnel. Some neighbors object to route. [Boston.com]

[Recchia]

^ It's such a critical link for the success of the Silver Line, whats with the opposition? You'd think residents would like an underground route a lot better than a surface one, especially given all the beotching about the inadequacies of the Washington St. Silver Line branch.

[Cotuit]

^ It's such a critical link for the success of the Silver Line, whats with the opposition? You'd think residents would like an underground route a lot better than a surface one, especially given all the beotching about the inadequacies of the Washington St. Silver Line branch.

A lot of the opposition has to do with post-Big Dig trauma. People are wary of seeing another part of the city dug up for multiple years, and they're said much of this could be cut and cover tunnelling. Part of it will also affect a corner fo the Common, which concerns people. And there has been a lot of consternation about the palcement of the portal. One option had it in a park, which people freaked about. New England Medical Center is also concerned about ambulance access during construction and one of the routings of the tunnel risked vibration at the hospital.

All that plus, it's a lot of money to spend for a bus. It does nothing to improve the ride from Roxbury, once you get to the portal via the surface, you might as well stay on the surface all the way into town. And people in Roxbury are not really clamboring for a one seat ride to the Airport.

[pdxstreetcar]

I dont like this either. So half the buses will continue via surface streets to downtown as they do now, and the other half will go in the tunnel to south station, yet the tunnel route from herald square to south station is just as long as the surface route from herald square to downtown crossing. and the the buses entering the tunnel have to turn off washington street onto a one way couplet for a block in the opposite direction as the tunnel goes.

i would keep the silver line waterfront as is and have it operate much like the harvard bus tunnel as a feeder into the red line. and avoid spending more money on the silver line washington until it can be converted to rail, preferably a grade seperated rail line (the orange line subway already goes down washington street from downtown to herald square so you'd only need need to build maybe 3 miles south from herald square and you'd have an orange line branch and this subway would be a lot cheaper and easier to build than most subways since this outer portion of Washington street is a wide street and a straight shot). you wont even need to go all the way to forest hills since the existing orange line already serves that area and could end the line at dudley square.