by Alain Jehlen in Green Line, Transportation
Posted on May 21, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Last Modified on August 16, 2009 at 3:53 pm
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If the Red Line at Davis Square is any indication, Green Line trolleys will transform our city in the near future.
And the details matter: Where will the stops be? A single line or a Union Square spur? Where will the maintenance yard be?
If, like me, you’re having trouble getting it all straight in your mind, visit STEP, the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership, which has clear maps and explanations of the alternatives and their implications.
What do you think?
Is Green good or bad for Somerville? What can we do to keep the good and mitigate the bad?
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I have no idea how difficult it will be to make the extension all one line (instead of a spur), but in my mind, it seems rather critical.
Union Square will be the main commercial/cultural draw along the extension – by a longshot. Won’t people be far less likely to come in from Somerville and Medford if they have to ride the train in, wait for a transfer, and ride back out to Union?
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My understanding is that the a single line is basically out of the question. I believe that would require a prohibitively expensive “deep bore tunnel”, and I think it would cause the line to miss one of its intended stops.
So, yeah, T riders may have to get off at Lechmere and wait for a transfer for the train destination they want: Union Square or Mystic Valley. Similar to the B, C, and D lines at the other end of the Green Line. Perhaps not ideal, but it will be great for the city nonetheless.
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There’s a virtual mountain – Prospect Hill – between the lines that makes it difficult beyond cost factors to combine them. On the other hand, there is a – vague – prospect of continuing the Union Square line to Porter and linking with the Red Line, thereby connecting Davis, and an even stronger prospect of the Urban Ring connecting both lines somewhere around Inner Belt, although it could be farther East connecting Assembly Square with Charlestown parallel with the Orange Line. You might look at the Urban Ring maps (https://www.commentmgr.com/projects/1169/docs/Urban_Ring_LPA_May1208.pdf).
Forget the prospect of connecting the two branches closer than Lechmere, there’s too much geography to transcend and the cost-benefit stuff has been studied for the past 20 years.
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Has anyone ever studied the changes brought to Davis Square by the Red Line in such a way that the lessons learned could be applied to the Green Line and Union, Gilman, Magoun and Ball squares?
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