Some questions about Boston transportation systems

Factual Questions
1

Having spend some time in beantown the last month on business there are some things that puzzled me but just didn’t have the time to figure out. Maybe someone could shed some light on these:

1 i-93 south of boston seems to have a movable barrior that allows for an extra lane in the peak direction. But in the middle of the movable barrior are streetlights. How does this work? Do the streetlights move with the barrior? Does one lane appear on the oncomming side of the streetlamps?

2 The Boston subway looks to be arranged like a tic-tac-toe board - having 2 lines run horizontal and 2 vertical (oversimplification but basically true). Becasue of this the blue line and the red line (2 vertical lines) have no direct transfer, causing you to take the orange or green to make a connection (there is a walkway connection that allows you to make any other connection except red-blue). Standing on the platform I can see the connecting platform what appears to be 100ft away. Man I would love to just have a walkway and not have to wait for the orange train. I must not have been the 1st one to think of this - so what’s the deal hear, no room to build a walkway?, increase ridership on the orange line?

3 Back to the subway, the red line as it goes away from boston towards ashmont appears to connect (free transfer?) with another system to get to mattapan. What is going on here. Is it that they just can’t connect the tracks of 2 systems and you must walk between them?, Is it a streetcar past ashmont? Different rail system (incompatable)? Do they normally have direct connections? How far must you walk from one train to the other system?

2

  1. The movable barrier is commonly known as the Zipper Lane. It’s used in several cities around the US.
    http://www.state.ma.us/mhd/hov/hovmain.htm

  2. There are projects underway now to increase the inter-connectiveness of the system. Check out the projects underway section of the MBTA site.
    http://www.mbta.com/projects_underway/index.asp
    But right now it’s a pain to get from my house (on the Red Line) to the airport (Blue Line). The new Silver line busses should make that much easier.

  3. http://www.mbta.com/traveling_t/schedules_subway_mattapanline.asp That link shows the Mattapan High Speed Trolley Line, which I assume isn’t part of the Red Line, but you can get to it from Ashmont.

3

During the next twenty years, anybody who suggests building a new tunnel in Boston will be beaten senseless.

4

The Mattapan/Ashmont trolley terminates within 50 feet of the Ashmont station. It has street crossings which are dangerous with 3rd rail tranist. The stations would have to be rebuilt to handle large subway trains. There’s enough patronage for a 1 car trolley but not for a 6-car full-size subway.

5

Robot Arm- I guess you haven’t heard about this, then. (Warning, PDF!)

Basically, the MBTA is planning on digging a 3-mile long tunnel between North and South Stations for a direct rail link between the two.

6

I’ve heard of the idea before, Mel, but I’m not sure how seriously it’s being proposed. Seeing North and South Stations, it does seem like they should have been linked together a hundred years ago. But I’ve seen diagrams of the underground levels around South Station; if they dig deep enough to go below all of that, Jules Verne would be jealous.

It’s an early proposal, and maybe a public thrashing would be a bit too harsh for the brahmins. If you can corner the local tar and feather markets, do it.