tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183605236529560843.post2592665765750096505..comments2019-02-27T06:35:52.280-05:00Comments on The Walking Bostonian: Might does not make rightMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027332620204904993noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183605236529560843.post-17750780800574725392015-06-17T11:37:35.194-04:002015-06-17T11:37:35.194-04:00It seems to me that by making traffic throughput l...It seems to me that by making traffic throughput less difficult only encourages higher traffic volume. Making throughput more difficult increases the incentive to use public transportation. <br /><br />As a frequent traveler from Western Mass, where we have no public transportation option, the only way to get into or out of the Boston metro area is to be funneled through a limited number of roadway chokepoints. Brown Dirt Cowboyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01522918123072762485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183605236529560843.post-23668750650723967932015-06-16T10:51:46.024-04:002015-06-16T10:51:46.024-04:00Traffic on the Pike most definitely can't incr...Traffic on the Pike most definitely can't increase forever, even if this monstrosity gets built, because as Ari pointed out, the roads downstream are already at capacity and will never be expanded. If you look at it from this perspective, all these huge roads end up getting you is more space for cars to queue, and there are better uses for our valuable urban land, and better places to hold the queued cars, like people's driveways, or ideally car dealer lots.<br /><br />The other problem with this design, and this is really something where highway engineers should know better, is that all the pedestrians from the station will end up having to walk across the big wide ramps from the highway. This creates a conflict between pedestrians and turning cars that is annoying to both (and dangerous to the former) and if the station is ever wildly successful will end up being problematic. They really need to figure out some kind of better access to the station (including, and especially, from the south).crzwdjkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06394805356595604336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183605236529560843.post-16394900315689570712015-06-15T18:52:57.169-04:002015-06-15T18:52:57.169-04:00The potential of West Station and the connectivity...The potential of West Station and the connectivity it could bring is probably not factored in to any of these plans. Most of the traffic that these roads are "needed" for is rush-hour traffic accessing three areas: Harvard, Kendall and BU. Commuters from the west currently have no convenient transit mode to reach these areas; other than BU they have to go in to South Station and change to the Red Line. From Wellesley or Framingham it takes 20 minutes to get to Allston (a mile from Kendall or Harvard) and another 25-30 to connect downtown. To get to Kendall it's as fast to get off at Yawkey and walk across the river.<br /><br />West Station is strategically located for these western commuters. Shuttles to Harvard could meet trains and save such travelers 20 to 25 minutes each way, and Harvard could give transit priority through the Allston campus as it is built. Kendall is similar: if a half-decent rail link can be made and DMU-type vehicles (or something similar) can run from West Station to Kendall across the Grand Junction saving as much time; and biking (bikes on board? or Hubway) would work as well.<br /><br />The exit ramp off of the Pike is very constrained by the intersection at River Street and Soldier's Field Road, and further constrained by the downstream capacity of those roadways (in the morning, the ramp is more of the issue; in the evening, getting to the Turnpike is the issue). But that means that there aren't actually that many vehicles there, and it would not be insurmountable to shift some number of their drivers to other modes. Harvard's PTDM surveys (<a href="http://home.hppm.harvard.edu/files/hppm/files/2014_ptdm_progress_report.pdf" rel="nofollow">2014</a>, <a href="http://home.hppm.harvard.edu/files/hppm/files/2014_ptdm_progress_report.pdf" rel="nofollow">2013</a>, <em>NB small sample sizes</em> show that Newton has a relatively low non-SOV commute share. While most of the other top-10 communities have drive-alone rates below 25% and transit use above 50%, Newton is the opposite: most people drive and fewer use transit; and the connectivity and accessibility from other Pike-corridor towns is as bad.<br /><br />I'd guess that there are 2000 cars per hour coming from the west going through the River Street ramp per hour at peak rush hour, most (let's say 1800) of them to Soldiers Field Road or Memorial Drive westbound (Harvard), Memorial Drive eastbound (Kendall) or Soldiers Field Road eastbound (BU, or Kendall via the BU Bridge), with similar patterns in the afternoon (although the lack of access to SFR from BU means more traffic on the BU Bridge, rotary and Memorial Drive, or through Allston on Comm Ave and Cambridge Street. Using the (again, small sample size) Harvard's data, it seems that good transit options can cause 25% of people to change their commute mode. If West Station provides this, and the SOV-transit mode shifts from 25/75 to 50/50, it would mean a reduction in vehicles from 1800 to 1200—and 600 more passengers on Commuter Rail. <br /><br />There is certainly track space for this on the Worcester Line. Schedules are currently anemic: there are only 6 trains arriving in Boston between 7:00 and 9:00; each carries between 600 and 1200 passengers (see <a href="http://ctps.org/Drupal/commuter_rail_counts" rel="nofollow">CTPS counts</a>). So one additional train could carry the necessary capacity; if not, there would probably be room aboard existing service for these 600 riders. If track space is an issue at South Station, one train could run direct to North Station via the Grand Junction (yes, I know, over Tim Toomey's dead body) although I think a shuttle service is better.<br /><br />If this mode shift were possible, and given time savings of 35-55 minutes per day for these commuters (Pike commuters also save $5 a day in tolls from 128 to Cambridge, which is about half the cost of a monthly Commuter Rail pass) it should be, it would mean that you could get away with building 2/3 the infrastructure. But I very much doubt this kind of analysis has been taken in to account in this project.Arihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.com