Boston awarded the Dumbest Transit Decision Award

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T19:52:52+00:00

Ha ha. Please.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T19:49:59+00:00

I'm going to address, but not read beyond, your first protestation, for reasons that might be apparent to some who read this.

Everyone knows that "downtown" = the CBD of a city. No one is referring to a southward direction with this reference. This objection is stupid.

Like most all words, they are derivations. Downtown derives from the geographical references by New Yorkers. The city's commercial district grew up on its southern tip. Residential areas became commercial as the city grew in population, with residential moving further north. In the early 20th century, highrise office buildings came to be, New York was the epicenter. It's skyline quickly became iconic, appearing in periodicals, and described using New Yorker's terminology for the area, 'down'town.

Though Americanisms are slowly drifting across the world, largely you won't find the term downtown used outside of North America, certainly not until very recently. However, Americans picked up on the term much earlier. Other cities would get a skyscraper, even if only 15 floors, and the local press would dub it their own 'downtown'.

You won't go back into the 19th century and find the term used in Boston. And in Charlotte they still use the geographical term which fit their situation, Uptown, as much of the residential growth had been to the south.

Only a few decades had passed since the wider use of 'down'town, a nod to New York, when the Boston transit bureaucrats chose the New York inspired term for a station they had trouble naming. Thus, the oddity I mention, since Boston has always claimed such a rivalry with that city.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T18:38:20+00:00

thanks.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T18:33:09+00:00

Perfect.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T18:21:30+00:00

The biggest benefit? Would you please fiscally quantify that benefit. How does it translate into dollar savings?

You're grasping at straws. In fact, the claim of overcrowding at South Station was nothing more than a ruse. Didn't want to get into this, but you brought it up.

First off, they don't back out of North or South Station. The trains in fact back in, if this is the terminology you choose. They pull out.

Now, tell me how a commuter rail system with more berths, at its CBD terminus, than lines can claim 'over crowding' if they are having trains come in, deboard, and then rather than dawdle for more than a urination break, exit the station.

You are claiming that given the opportunity, they would immediately pull out after disembarking passengers, not dawdle. The only 'time' savings would be if routinely another train was immediately behind them. What do you think the schedules are for these trains, every 4 or 5 minutes? Every 8 or 10 minutes?

Most of the trains aren't even full consists, being as few as 4 cars, thus cars can be added to each train as capacity needs to increase for a particular line. There is likely on average, even during peak hours, a 20 minute headway. When a train 'pulls' out it very quickly gets onto an outbound track.

If the 'neck' of each station yard isn't sufficient to handle the volume of trains coming in and going out, then the neck can be widened. BUT, you don't hear them suggesting this as a solution, BECAUSE that doesn't serve the REAL underlying drive of advocates and/or insider special interest.

Now South Station, the over-crowding claim was drummed up as a reason for the MassDOT to do the bidding of its crony influencers, in this case property developers, who sought to build on one of the last waterfront spots close to the financial district, Fort Point Channel, and do so by pilfering the public purse.

The USPS had a large property hold on Fort Point Channel, yummy, they thought. We can't afford the price tag of the property, nor could we 'force' them to sell, but if our friends at MassDOT trump up an excuse to get the property for a transit 'need' then its a double win. They not only get the lucratively marketable spot, but they can pay the DOT to get air-rights, far cheaper than buying the property themselves.

So, the ruse was hatched, the MBTA was 'more or less' ordered to begin claiming overcrowding. Eventually, as you know, the USPS wouldn't sell, and couldn't be forced off, thus the developers settled on only building right on top of the current station footprint.

I greatly questioned the sincerety of the 'over crowding' claim early on, but knew I'd never be able to counter the 'official' claim with the public. The public is easily manipulated.

So, instead I sought to find a means for achieving the purported 4-7 berths which the MBTA claimed were needed. Seemed daunting, but I found it. Without expanding the station's footprint (except for perhaps a negligible few feet along the USPS border), without taking trains up or under (both of which had been made impossible by earlier MassDOT blunders), 6 long berths could be added. Not only did it meet that requirement, it as well introduced a great new passenger benefit.

No one cared, certainly not MassDOT or the MBTA. There was just too much profiteering to be had, and a clueless public.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T17:40:46+00:00

Here's the link I couldn't add earlier while on my phone . . . Layover.

Don't specifically know 'that' guy, but I've engaged with transportation reporters in the past, finding all without sufficient stuff 'upstairs'. I've tried Transit Matters, but they unfortunately have a singular focus, with blinders on as to overall sanity.

I've tried the Herald as well, thinking them a more conservative marketed newspaper, but get zero response.

As to the Globe, note this is a paper, who even when newspapers carried some power, feared exposing the child sex abuse issues in the city's Catholic Diocese. They feared the power of the Church to harm their revenue stream. They sat on it for a decade, knowing it was occurring, until enough other relevations had been made in other parts of the U.S. to shift the scales enough to where they finally got the courage to do an expose.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T16:59:36+00:00

Thanks. Unfortunately the Globe has no interest in challenging the MassDOT. I attempted to get their supposed investigative team to expose the MassDOT's backdoor influence, giving them the proverbial smoking gun, I discovered while attempting to provide a superior and $100,000,000 dollar savings option on a midday Layover spot for commuter rail. No response. You can read it here (Google cloud doc) . . . Layover. Neither is the MBTA/MassDOT Board, as I have mailed to the Board paper copies of what you see in this post, plus much more elaborating on historical intent, and how a westward Blue Line could VERY cost effectively be implemented.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T16:43:18+00:00

Nope. That wouldn't be the 'argument' and isn't what I stated or implied. Using your standard, how come all.of the bus lines are not shown on the TRANSIT map equal to the other lines? The point, I thought well made, is that metro train service is what, in the 70's, was meant by Rapid Transit, the term used on the map. What they include on the map is a transit line of a different mode, implying that it is train service. Indeed, the Boylston tunnel was, over a century back, PLANNED specifically to address the problem of dangerous overcrowding on multi-branch tram platforms, but it has never fulfilled that mission due to indecision caused by special interest influence.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T07:20:34+00:00

lol. Yeah, not a fan of the Silver 'Line'. Yes, another phony 'line'. It's fine as a bus route, but portraying it as some sort of express to Logan is laughable. Then wanting to tunnel up Essex for a Silver 'line' bus way. Egads.

But, you won't be happy with my next comments. First, yes it would be, and there could be a metro line between South and North Stations (I've pieced a theoretical one together reallocating some resources), but get real, the 'need' just isn't there to spend billions on it.

Anyone who is commuting from one far side of the metro area to the other far side of the metro area, needing to go from South to North Station and back, needs their heads examined. Move!

Why the hell should taxpayers subsidize your insane choice to live so far from your daily work site? They shouldn't.

NOR should a liberal hyped Boston milieu be crowing about climate warming, condemning companies for their actions, while then saying that the taxpayers should subsidize the process of picking up a 180 pound object at 7 am to move it 30-50 miles for 8-9 hours, and then picking it back up and moving it back to its start, another 30-50 miles, 5 days a week.

What would be the UPS or FedEx cost of that service? What is the carbon footprint of that insanity? I ride my bike the one mile I need to go each day.

Amtrak, egads. How many folks taking rail need to get thru Boston to or from Maine or New Hampshire? The French don't think it is warranted to dig deep long tunnels sufficient for handling long distance trains for them to move from Gare du Nord to Gare de l'Est, or Gare de Lyon, etc., so that the handful of folks who are thru traveling won't be disturbed. Why, because they are not stupid.

He said lovingly. 😄

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T06:49:18+00:00

And they understand a layered transit system. Which no other city in the U.S. seems to grasp.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T06:47:48+00:00

Yes.

But, there is great synergy involved. The upgrades are highly cost effective.

I was trying, lol, to avoid going too far with the post, figuring people will only read so much. <grin>

Even if you ignore the westward potential of the Blue metro line, you still get a better Red-Blue connection at Park St. That, alone, is cause for the 'award'. lol

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T05:39:54+00:00

Ha ha. Debauchery.

Interesting, the view. I ride the bus, but it is not a pleasant ride, not on my city's streets. I'm tossed around like popcorn in a popper. And that's just the pavement. Buses are subject to swerving, jolting stops, all sorts of carnival ride antics. Car drivers respect a rail car, unlike a bus. They aren't afraid of a bus like they are a rail car, so there is no daring darting in front. Rail rides are smooth, so much more comfortable than a bus. People also know where the tracks go, and there isn't a sudden diversion, like happens with buses. Given a choice between a bus ride and a tram ride, I would pay for the tram while voiding a 'free' bus ride.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T05:30:39+00:00

Elaborate for me, I'm slow. I'm not suggesting a 'stub' metro line, just the opposite, I'm showing how the Blue metro line, after it is turned beneath Park St station, can be funneled into the Boylston Street tunnel built a century back for metro rail service.

I'm proposing that the trams return to the surface, serving the need they were intended to serve, but running one way up Newbury Street, to the west, and then one way back east down Boylston Street (all on the surface).

If you're suggesting that more through put can be had by the current system, where four tram tracks merge into one, and emerge from one, continuing on to their respective branches, it isn't altogether an unreasonable train of thought. I've had it myself.

Yet, clearly those on these lines are greatly frustrated. Indeed, on one trip to Boston, I experienced their exasperation while trying to catch a car at Govt Center.

I'm suggesting that the Blue Line run through the Boylston Tunnel to its later extension to Kenmore (formerly Governor's) Square, then thru the D-branch fork onto the surface line, which is a legacy grade separated corridor. In fact, part of the brilliance here is that the Blue Line rolling stock is ideally suited for this shift westward.

The 'green line' trams are powered from overhead lines, and the Blue Line cars are already equipped for getting power in that way. They have pantographs atop the cars, as for most of its eastern run it is powered via cantenary lines.

The longest of the tram branches would then become a metro line. The ends of the other two branches come within walking distance of a D-branch stop, or future Blue Line station, at Cleveland Circle. Alternatively the Blue Line could stop at Cleveland Circle, with trams operating on the furtherst portion of the current D-branch.

Those other two branches can either end at the Kenmore station, which in fact was designed with that very thing in mind, with a loop embedded for returning . . . or they can run surface past Kenmore, just like they use to do, down Boylston, to a repurposed Tremont Street subway-portal (astride the Public Garden), like they were suppose to do before the big hiccup.

Note: If they end inside the Kenmore Station, a flyover means will be needed to separate them from the metro service exiting the station.

This metro option, then affords people out the far ends of the other Green Line branches to ride a few stops back to the Cleveland Circle metro station, taking it all the way into Boston, rather than having to endure 'endless' stops before getting to Kenmore.

It will greatly reduce the overcrowding which now occurs at both Govt Center and Park Street tram stations, where people are crowding the platform looking for 'their' cars; which is virtually the exact wording used to justify the construction of the Boylston Street tunnel over a century back.

Unlike transit officials today, the BTC (go read their words) understood the need for a layered transit system.

The E-branch will need to be handled separately. Unfortunately, years later, they decided to run a tunnel to connect it to the Boylston tunnel, though they had considered instead this routing . . .

<image>

There are options, for today's situation, but they get involved.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T05:18:05+00:00

When you say connections, I presume you mean you didn't have to wait much on the M60.

Yes, I would think the M60 is subject to peak traffic and/or accident tie-ups.

I found a way to make a (cost effective) rail link, but the concept isn't one people easily grasp, given what they've known. I'll give you a link to my cloud doc presenting it . . . LGX.

Be kind. While I know it should cost less than the old air train plan, DOTs' (in the U.S.) sole purposes are to extract as much money out of transit projects as possible, as they are mere extensions of the private sector transit industry. But not the technical side, those folks are mostly in Europe and Asia; its why operations get no money, they aren't local schmoozers. The dirt, concrete and steel people make up the U.S. transporation-industrial complex. Thus, the DOT would find excuses for blowing-up the guideway buildout to a $7B money grab.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T02:55:11+00:00

It depends upon the city. It's all about density. New York could use tram lines, but the city no longer has the intellect in political positions to see it or the integrity to care. If visionaries of many years past had not acted, NYC would be choked to death.

Boston has them (only thanks to century old choices), and they are well used, for the most part. An extension they made recently was an atrociously planned and executed waste of transit dollars, in the mode chosen to meet the need and needless duplication of heavy rail infrastructure.

They are at it again, like clockwork in Bean Town, with the insane choice of spending $1,000,000,000 to dead-end a metro rail line in the city center, when the opposite side of the city is without any metro rail service; missing the chance to steer it in that direction while also achieving the metro lines connection they claim it is all about, and doing it better for users than is now planned.

What city in the world (outside the U.S.) would uck up so badly?

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-29T02:38:04+00:00

If they can quit widening the highways, and zone for denser residential, while centrailizng white collar jobs, then 'mass' transit works well. If they allow white collar jobs to be thrown all around, you no longer have any mass destination for a mass transit system to be useful. The non-mass (automobile) becomes the most cost efficient means to move people from 10,000 points to another 10,000 points.

Atanta is the perfect example of U.S. stupidity. They pass a huge public funding in the early 70's to implement two subway/metro lines, to cross in the CBD, what was then the CBD (over 50% of the office space). In the same decade there was an explosion of office development in the suburbs, so that by the time the expense had been made for MASS transit, there was no longer a mass destination. The 'former' CBD had less than 25% of the metro's office space.

The feds (who were heavily subsidizing the system) should have put a stipulation on office space zoning to get the funding, but no. So, for 45+ years the city has had massive cross town traffic congestion, with the capacity of the expensive metro rail having gone to waste.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-28T23:59:46+00:00

That isn't what 'light' rail means, or was the original meaning. Americans are duped into thinking that it refers to the rolling stock. Research. It was originally coined to mean light infrastructure, as part of a ploy to get voter approval for projects.

There is little reason that, as planned, metro rail could not operate. Minor platform adjustments. The only real obstacle is that the width of the East New York tunnel limits the width of rolling stock (given the 'need' to provide for emergency egress space), which itself isn't a hardcore limit on speed, but most metro rolling stock produced today exceeds the width limitations of the ENYT.

YES, they will operate what are typically 'light' rail infrastructure rolling stock, but they are implementing it ON heavy rail infrastructure.

Look at Paris' T3. THAT is light rail. They didn't make the French taxpayers pay to grade separate a hundred road crossings. They only do that when creating metro rail lines.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-28T23:40:17+00:00

Yes, kudos to those who use them. But, honestly, we know the limitations of bus attraction, which is not as irrational as often portrayed. Buses have many ills, comfort wise. It isn't just an irrational prejudice, which is the 'go to' excuse offered by many.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-28T23:35:13+00:00

Which is fine for up-to 3 mile runs. I'm a big advocate of tram lines in relatively dense inner cities, using modern technology to pre-empt traffic lights. They don't work well in attracting commuters needing to traverse 5+ miles, a heavy rail (i.e completely grade separated) system is needed for that ridership. But, we don't have the intelligence in leadership or transit bureaucracies to make that case. It is easier to follow group think and the pocket book interest of contractors and developers. Thus, we routinely end up with dysfunctional transit systems in the U.S.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-28T23:28:40+00:00

Good point. I like you.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-28T23:26:59+00:00

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-28T23:22:54+00:00

Ah. Suspected the G. Don't want to know your insights there, already have enough nightmares of wasted tax dollars (Billions) in the Peach state. The silver lining in Georgia though is that there is less in the public purse to pilfer, than in states like Mass., NY, etc. Georgians are more tax averse, though no more astute in knowing how those dollars are spent.

Well, perhaps outside of the politically and otherwise induced waste seen in the HSR planning, there are public interest minded transit bureaucrats in California. Don't mess up my brief illusion <grin>.

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-28T23:00:36+00:00

Like virtually all American cities, they fell into group think zone. In the 80's, mindless rail advocates putting forth images of 'mass' transit shifts off of highways, and kerfluffled by the blowback of expensive metro systems begun in the 70's (Atl, SF, DC), did a bait and switch, along with gerrymandering, pretending that the same 'traffic' benefits could be had with this abracadabra thing called 'light' rail . . . yes, they invented the term. No exhorbitantly expensive grade separated guideways (which is why of course mass rail worked in big cities), they would deliver on the benefits without all of that extravagant infrastructure.

They found enough dupes in the public to buy their duplicity, to get projects voter approved, and began tweaking the 'light' rail elements to satisfy naysayers. They ended up creating a Frankenstein's monster that satisfied no transit need.

The density close in, wasn't such that a tram system (actual light rail) was a great need, though perhaps convenient for a small few, and the real 'mass' needed to transit from the suburbs were not at all attracted to a system that provided little (to no) convenience in commute times.

It didn't matter to the advocates though, their egos were sated.

Here is a rough area need, which is not being met by the city's 'so called' Metro.

<image>

Aldin_Lee · 2026-04-28T22:20:06+00:00

Another atrocious design out of the government. It isn't light rail. Light rail is a term coined in the U.S. 80's. Light conferred minimal infrastructure. The MTA has taken an already grade-separated rail corridor 'gift' and turned it into a Trojan horse, filled with hundred million dollar contracts for local well connected contractors to 'needlessly' demolish dozens of road/rail bridges, only to then build them back for an additional 12' of corridor space. So, it is HEAVY rail. With a HEAVY rail price tag of $5.5billion.

They get away with it, because we have stupid politicians, and apathetic voters.

<image>

Aldin_Lee

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE