Transit Fantasy Maps

[ShonTron]

Have fun taking the T after a Red Sox game at Fenway!

Yeah, Boston's rapid transit is a bit of a joke, considering how busy it should be. They like moving transit around more than actually building more of it; the Orange Line used to operate on an elevated over Washington Boulevard before being moved to a trench to the west. The original Silver Line BRT (more like a BRT lite) operates over the old Elevated route. There are abandoned sections of the Green Line - which is why there's no "A" Branch on the maps and why the "E" line ends at Heath, but abandoned tracks continue south to Forest Hills.

 

[Napoleon]

Not really. This is the Orange Line which has 20 stations, so it's not exactly a stubway. Thought I expected a bit more ridership for an old compact city like Boston. The daily ridership on it is 203,406. For comparison, the Bloor-Danforth Line gets 519,180.

As a former Boston resident, I can attest that the orange line is one of the less pleasant lines to ride in the world. It can be a bit dodgy/dangerous at night. I've seen more than one physical fight on the the platform.

 

[gweed123]

I've been to Boston quite a few times, and I've been on every line in the MBTA system (except the Silver Line, which is BRT and didn't go anywhere I needed to go). The Orange Line was the worst of the bunch in terms of aesthetics. The issue that Boston has is that the Red, Green, Blue, and Orange lines all use different rolling stock, so interoperability is a problem.

I knew the Green Line extension from Lechmere wasn't going too well, but I had no idea that it was THAT bad. Yikes. When you squander money like that on a relatively easy extension, no wonder nothing gets done. Lechmere has Finch beat by a mile for "longest time spent as a terminus after the line should have been extended but wasn't".

The biggest issue with the MBTA system in Boston itself is the lack of a central hub downtown. Government Center is the closest that they have, but that's been shut down for a couple years now for a complete rebuild. Right now, there's no direct connection between the Red and Blue lines, despite the fact that they're only a few blocks apart. There have been proposals to extend the Blue Line to Charles/MGH, but that's low on the overall priority list I understand. The other big issue is capacity on the Green Line. They've been upgrading rolling stock over the past few years, but especially going westbound out of downtown, it's a nightmare. Each branch also operates a different train length, so you get people bunched up in the middle, because that's the only guaranteed spot where the train will actually stop in front of you.

 

[salsa]

As a former Boston resident, I can attest that the orange line is one of the less pleasant lines to ride in the world. It can be a bit dodgy/dangerous at night. I've seen more than one physical fight on the the platform.

I noticed that too. I was also not impressed that some parts of the line run under an elevated highway and through industrial wastelands.

I've been to Boston quite a few times, and I've been on every line in the MBTA system (except the Silver Line, which is BRT and didn't go anywhere I needed to go). The Orange Line was the worst of the bunch in terms of aesthetics.

The Red line wasn't much better either. It had better rolling stock but the stations looked quite boring to me. It's like the Bloor-Danforth Line, except all of the underground stations have the same beige/white tiles. I think the Blue line was the best looking.

The biggest issue with the MBTA system in Boston itself is the lack of a central hub downtown. Government Center is the closest that they have, but that's been shut down for a couple years now for a complete rebuild. Right now, there's no direct connection between the Red and Blue lines, despite the fact that they're only a few blocks apart. There have been proposals to extend the Blue Line to Charles/MGH, but that's low on the overall priority list I understand. The other big issue is capacity on the Green Line. They've been upgrading rolling stock over the past few years, but especially going westbound out of downtown, it's a nightmare. Each branch also operates a different train length, so you get people bunched up in the middle, because that's the only guaranteed spot where the train will actually stop in front of you.

It's also worth mentioning that the commuter rail lines terminate in downtown at two different hubs instead of one, and you have to use two different subway lines to travel between those hubs. It's not like Toronto where you have one Union station, and you can ride from Burlington to Oshawa on the same train.

 

[ehlow]

Have fun taking the T after a Red Sox game at Fenway!

Yeah, Boston's rapid transit is a bit of a joke, considering how busy it should be. They like moving transit around more than actually building more of it; the Orange Line used to operate on an elevated over Washington Boulevard before being moved to a trench to the west. The original Silver Line BRT (more like a BRT lite) operates over the old Elevated route. There are abandoned sections of the Green Line - which is why there's no "A" Branch on the maps and why the "E" line ends at Heath, but abandoned tracks continue south to Forest Hills.

I can't imagine. The green line vehicles don't have much capacity (like our CLRV smaller streetcars).

 

[gweed123]

The Red line wasn't much better either. It had better rolling stock but the stations looked quite boring to me. It's like the Bloor-Danforth Line, except all of the underground stations have the same beige/white tiles. I think the Blue line was the best looking.

Agreed. They recently redid Aquarium Station, and the refurb was pretty nice. They also redid the Airport Station in conjunction with some of the Big Dig projects. My avatar is actually a shot of a sign outside of Andrew Station in South Boston.

It's also worth mentioning that the commuter rail lines terminate in downtown at two different hubs instead of one, and you have to use two different subway lines to travel between those hubs. It's not like Toronto where you have one Union station, and you can ride from Burlington to Oshawa on the same train.

That's true. A project connecting the two though would be hugely expensive, and I think that money would be better spent on other RT projects.

I can't imagine. The green line vehicles don't have much capacity (like our CLRV smaller streetcars).

I tried doing that a couple times, and yes it is a pretty big crapshoot. They boost frequencies a little bit, but it's still not good. At least in Toronto you have multiple RT options within a short walk of the stadium. After a couple times I found it was faster to walk to Copley Station and wait for an empty E train, since it's the only branch that doesn't go through Kenmore (the closest station to Fenway).

 

[ehlow]

It doesn't even seem comparable to me. At Union the 6 car subway trains carrying a huge amount vs. the green line streetcar trains which are narrower and way shorter.

Plus of course the GO trains/buses and streetcar lines.

 

[averagegeek]

I updated a map I made a few years ago. It's not the prettiest map ever made but its the best I can do.

 

[Johnny Au]

There are a few typos:

On the Eglinton LRT, you misspelled "Keele." On the Jane LRT, you misspelled "Falstaff."

 

[averagegeek]

Thanks for finding those, i have fixed the map.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Then there's that Younge Line

 

[averagegeek]

Wow, how did I miss that mistake? I have no idea, but its fixed now. Thanks for finding that.

 

[wolfewood]

So I got thinking after a post I made in the new streetcars thread. I've been meaning to actually flesh out this idea I've always had of a much expanded streetcar network and, needing something to procrastinate with, I came up with this: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?hl=en&hl=en&authuser=0&authuser=0&mid=zM7XQoNr2gLw.kYv5ZAzUJmuE

I'm definitely putting the "fantasy" in transit fantasy maps but I really do love the city's streetcar network and I really wish we had a larger one. Obviously a lot of the services I've included would be repetitive and uneconomical but I think it's still a pretty cool thought.

In terms of the map itself, I have added 20 potential routes, ranging in length from about 16km (Kingston Rd. and Morningside to approximately Queen St., probably still longer) to a little over 2.5 km (the Mt. Pleasant route without an extension south to Jarvis). Some are historic and abandoned streetcar lines, others are ones I feel make sense (due to their geographic placement or my idea of current travel patterns) and so take a lot of my ideas here with a grain of salt. If all of these were built, the city streetcar network would grow to about 211-221km (depending on whether you add certain extensions and count the bayfront LRTs). I estimated it would cost about $12-12.5 billion, assuming about $100 million/km.

For context (and further procrastination) I added a number of rapid transit projects (subways and LRTs, as per the TTC's definitions of the Sheppard and Finch LRTs as rapid transit). I just reused the Transit City plan for the LRTs as that's my preference and I had easier access to cost estimates. There is also the Yonge North extension, DRL, Sheppard West connection and Finch LRT east of Finch West Station. My ideas would add about 108.3 km of rapid transit, more than doubling the current system (based upon the wiki estimates of the current size plus under construction lines).

Finally, just to complete my ridiculous need to procrastinate, I added the GO lines and potential extensions. The huge ass Pickering/Locust Hill/Midtown line is probably wrong, the complete emptiness of that area of the GTA made it hard to get my bearings while making this (and I didn't care nearly enough to actually find a proper routing). I believe I also use an abandoned spur for the Seaton line (if I recall a discussion on this, that branch of track is abandoned Canadian Pacific lines) and screwed up the alignment for the Lakeshore East extension to Bowmanville. If everything was built as I've put on the map, it would about around 300 km of commuter rail, bringing the GO system to 843.3 km (though 145 of that is my almost certainly wrong Pickering line, so keep that in mind). As I've said, this was mostly about putting to paper (so to speak) my fantasy streetcar network, as well as procrastinating...

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I like the fact that the streetcar routes are not too long, ending at Eglinton to the north. That is the issue with Melbourne, a city that did keep its historic streetcar network and never stopped expanding it. Their streetcar routes reach well into their suburbs and are waaay too long and inefficient for those kind of commutes.

 

[ehlow]

Streetcar down Mt Pleasant Jarvis eh? Parts of the route are very highway-like: fast, winding and hilly. Still hoping for a bus route there (that doesn't cost extra and runs all day).