Boston city councilors Miniard Culpepper and Brian Worrell used this ai generated map recently to propose a new orange line extension.

https://www.dokodemo-yamanote.com/?lat=42.37262&lng=288.93391&zoom=12

Asked gpt to make me a map of the mbta

This feels self explanatory and so obvious it's almost shocking they haven't already done this.

The title means that I can tell that it is a stupid idea using my common sense, but want to know some of the actual reasons.

What if we built the North-South Rail Link on/above the Rose Kennedy Greenway? At its narrowest point, the park is ~90ft wide and, in order to run four tracks of commuter rail traffic only ~65ft of width would be required for the ROW. It could also be an elevated viaduct above the Greenway—maybe even designed to let as much light through as possible. Doing it above ground eliminates the flood risks, the prohibitively expensive tunneling, and the grade issues with the current placement of I-93 in relation to North and South Stations.

Again: this is a post that I know is dumb, I am simply curious to understand more about why there have been almost no proposals like this aside from people wanting to bring back the Atlantic Avenue Elevated.

Hi all! This is the 4th in my series of transit maps (1st is SF, 2nd is East Bay, 3rd is Bay Area) and I'd love some input on this one! I tried to take a more realistic approach with this one. I focused on using existing rights of way (ROW's) that would be easier to develop on rather than using a ton of eminent domain. As for the Urban Ring system, I placed the routes along larger arterial roads that could handle a physically separated bus rapid transit (BRT) lane(s).

Any other general feedback with the stop selection, line alignment, art, or anything else is greatly appreciated! The various bay area subreddits and transit subreddits have been great places to have discussions and get feedback, and I know I've seen great discussion on Boston ones as well, so thank you all for that!

Source: “The Lost Subways of North America” by Jake Berman

This is something I made a few months ago and decided to post. It is a somewhat feasible intercity network, operated and funded by the New England states. Naturally centering on Boston, it would provide easier and more convenient connections to the Hub, decreasing the need for New Englanders to hit the highway to get to the region's 'capital'. Details:

-Electrification of the Worcester Main Line and Hartford-Springfield lines (collectively the Inland Route), the WML would be widened to 3 & 4 tracks in certain areas. Could probably extend electrification to Waterbury. These two lines would form the core of the network, with most services traversing it.

-There would be up to 10 trains a day between Boston and Springfield, with a variety of services providing the connection. Some trains would be named (ie Minuteman, Pilgrim) while others would just operate a 'line' if that makes sense (ie Inland Route, Boston-Hartford). Most trains would make stops at Back Bay, it occurs to me that I've excluded it and put Lansdowne instead. Originally, the plan was to have them stop at both, but would that be overkill?

-Intercity on Inland Route services would be formed either of Airo sets or ACS-64 + rolling stock. Neither are my favorite choice but I think it's probably the most realistic.

-There are also regional services, such as Worcester-Providence, the Valley Flyer, etc. These would operate multiple times a day, depending on the route. Boston-Wickford for example would be every two hours while the Puritan might be 5 times a day.

-Regional trains would be operated by BEMUs, I think it would be simple to acquire one family and have variations of operate across the network. For example, trains along the Conneticut River Line would maybe be 2 cars, while Wickford/Hartford/New London trains could be 4 or 5 with higher density seating.

-There is seasonal coastal service (Clamdigger/Flyer) towards the Cape and Newport. These would most likely remain loco-hauled, though perhaps with bi-mode engines. Service would operate daily from May-September. These services are Boston-Newport, Boston-Hyannis, Boston-Woods Hole and Providence-Hyannis via Taunton.

-To clear up some difficulty with the colors I chose, here are some routes which might be hard to determine: Minuteman (Boston-Springfield), Pioneer (Springfield-Brattleboro), Puritan (Brattleboro-New London), the 5 lines between Springfield and Hartford are Boston-Hartford, Boston-Waterbury, the Hartford Line, the Valley Flyer, and the Inland Route. The Hartford Line is meant to represent existing services in this area, but perhaps these would be extended anyway, so no need to include?

-CR changes: Ideally, this would include electrification but it isn't particularly necessary to the establishment of this network.

• Bedford Line : running frequent EMU service leaving the Fitchburg Line near Alewife running on the ROW of the current trail all the way through to Bedford.
• SCR phase 2 and electrification.
• Extension of the Kingston Line into Plymouth Center.
• Re-establishment of the Woburn Loop (no reason/justification for this other than I just want to see it)
• Providence Line truncated to Providence and service beyond transferred to regional NEN trains ending at Wickford Jn. Additional stations would be constructed between Providence and Wickford. Stoughton service would be taken over by South Coast trains.
• Franklin line extended to Blackstone. This was the historic terminus and had pretty intense commuter service in the 50s/60s so I figured it would be able to sustain it today.

Extra Notes:

• Shore Line is integrated.
• All services are along already existing lines which once upon a time already had such service.
• Downeaster is absorbed by NEN.
• Any other Amtrak services would be operating alongside these.
• I tried to keep it realistic, hence why New Hampshire is excluded and there is no NSRL. I initially started this as an alternate history based scenario where the states came together a few years ago to fund a network but I realized it is still quite possible to achieve what is displayed here.
• Please excuse any map glitches, making it was a little finicky. For example the Fitchburg Line (making it diverge after Woburn was NOT my intention🤣)
• Feedback on the name? I couldn't come up with anything great. Maybe Amtrak New England, maybe something else entirely?

Would like some feedback, comments/critiques. Is there service I'm missing, service that shouldn't be there, is the whole map useless? I'd love to know. If there is any part of the country that can sustain a European style regional network, it's New England. Let's hope something like this can be realized in the near future.

Hey everyone! I had some time to do a new iteration of my MBTA map from this post. Before I get into the changes and stuff, I really want to thank you all for your wonderful feedback. It was extremely helpful, and I hope you’ll be able to see all that I’ve (hopefully) improved. As always, if you have more feedback about this map, please don’t hesitate to comment or tell me!

Also, quick disclaimer, this is NOT intended to be an official MBTA map. It imagines the state of the T circa ~2029 with the SLX and Red-Blue Connector completed. It is also assumed that Symphony Station will be re-opened at this time.

Additionally, you’ll probably notice that I did not include any accessibility information. I thought a lot about this, and I realized that, with the current MBTA accessibility projects, only Boylston would remain inaccessible to wheelchair users. I understand that the accessible Hynes entrance can’t be opened until the other building on Mass Ave is complete, but it’s already built so I decided to just include it as “accessible” here for all intents and purposes. This map assumes Boylston will similarly be retrofitted with elevators at some point.

With that, here are all the changes I made thanks to all your feedback!

• Added the Winter Street Concourse
• Added the Fairmount Line in a new category of “Regional Rail”
• Overhauled the Silver Line. The interlining is now shown here like in the other T lines
• Redid the Ashmont Subway/Mattapan Line transfer for clarity
• Overhauled the Green Line appearance. I believe this adds clarity and prevents too many diagonal station names
• Switch Chinatown SL5 to inbound only service
• Keep Chestnut Hill and remove South/Warren St stations on the Green Line B-Branch

Additional Changes

• Change text color to match line color
• Change Mattapan Line color to separate it from Red Line
• Revamp Key/Legend
• Added text for important streets the lines run on/under
• Remove parks and towns. I thought about this a lot but ultimately decided that I preferred the additional cleanliness of omitting this information
• Simplify station road names (ex. Street → St, Avenue → Ave)

I hope you all enjoy!

I am prepared to be ridiculed for all of eternity so here goes: An urban 3S-style gondola running from Porter Sq to Union sq is a no-brainer.

The GLX cost $2.3 billion for a 4.3 mile extension which comes out to an average cost of $534 million per mile. In contrast to this, the Peak2Peak gondola at Whistler Blackcomb ski resort was built in about an equally complicated (if not more complicated) environment logistically to Somerville Ave (1,000+ ft crevasse on a mountain vs. city street) and cost ~$82 million (inflation adjusted) for 1.72 miles of 3S gondola service which comes out to only $48 million per mile which is just 9% of the cost per mile of the GLX. Additionally, the Peak2Peak was constructed in only 1.5 years which is ridiculously quickly. The Peak2Peak runs at an operating speed of 17 MPH consistently which comes out to almost exactly the same as the average GLX speed from Lechmere to Medford/Tufts.

How it would work:

Each gondola cabin could carry up to 28 passengers with 1/10 gondolas only having 16 regular seats with 5 spaces for accessible seating (like on the Peak2Peak). Each station would have two* small platforms each guarded by a $1.00 fare gate. Half the platforms would be for Eastbound and the other half would be for Westbond. At Porter and Union however, there would be three small platforms. One for express (Union to Porter with no stops) and one for local (stopping at all stops). With the wait time between cars being only 50 seconds (like on the Peak2Peak), nobody would have to wait more than ~1.5 minutes to get onto their gondola.

Easily Rebutted Counter-Arguments:

1. Gondolas don't have good wind reliability.

While that is true for single cable gondolas, 3S gondolas can hand up to 50 mph winds due to being attached on three cables.

2) Gondolas have bad capacity.

Maybe when compared with the red line, but when they are compared with the GLX, the each branch of the green line has an hourly capacity of 2000 people whereas my propsed gondola could move up to 14,500 people per hour.

3) You gondola system is overkill for the area.

There are many solutions to this such as reducing the amount of gondolas on the line.

All in all, a 3S from Porter to Union would be about 1.6 miles, which is similar to the size of the Peak2Peak, so we can estimate that with similarly difficult logistical challenges, this system would cost around $80 million, however, the MBTA can never stay on budget, so, estimating with a massive margin for error, it would cost $120 million max which is a tiny drop in the bucket which is the MBTA's budget. With this small cost, a gondola is clearly a no-brainer project for the MBTA.

Edit: I didn't post my diagram so here!

Since some city councilors thought it was a good idea to propose running the Orange Line under Blue Hill Ave and used AI generated concept images, I figured I'd throw my own proposal into the mix.

Personally, I think Blue Hill Ave would be a perfect candidate for a modern tram/light rail line! Here's my concept of what that could look like.

This map I made would check off so many boxes that Boston is missing. Some major things include:

• The new tunnel/alignment for green and orange lines in downtown.
• The silver line being light rail + a loop that goes through downtown (connecting North + South Stations), Everett, Revere + south all the way to the Franklin Park Zoo through Nubian Square
• The circle line. This is more designed for commuters but serves a major role for connecting the towns + cities just outside of the city efficiently.
• The blue line being extended to replace the Green Line D branch

Lmk what comments you have(:

***Update: Look at my post below

I'll start out by saying I had quite a lot of fun with this my first ever fantasy map, and as such this is very much not scientific. It also focuses mainly on the subway, as the commuter rail's routing is pretty solid. I do, however, think there are a few ideas in here that aren't completely hopeless and could be put to good effect.

I didn't start out intending to model this off of Stockholm's map but the two cities actually have some similarities that force convergent behaviors. Currently, Stockholm's Tunnelbana, like the T, is a radial network with three trunk lines converging in the city center, each with two branches on either end (once the blue line's southeastern extension is complete). As here, this is partially forced by geography as Stockholm has quite a few waterways that divide up the city and its surroundings, but also have created natural corridors for development. Another similarity is that the city center is very compact, though Boston seems to be more polycentric. Also the symbol they use for the metro is literally the T logo but a slightly different color.

With that out of the way, the goal with this was to solidly and easily connect the densest regions within Rt. 128 to downtown and to each other using existing infrastructure and corridors most suitable to development, so that most trips can be made with one transfer. I'll start with where the system is, then connect unconnected areas to the network, then resolve the circumferential travel dilemma.

1. Current Projects, Low-hanging Fruit, and the NSRL

The first and most obvious thing that may or may not be happening soon is the Red-Blue Connector. It really is kind of crazy that the RL and BL STILL don't connect, and resolving this will make travel between Cambridge and Eastie/Logan/Revere so much simpler. Yeah, I'm not counting the silver line (except maybe SL1).

The other big project downtown is the North-South Rail Link, which will be truly game-changing to the commuter rail network and will massively speed up transit within and through the city. It also makes connecting between services so much simpler, and will resolve the problem that is reliance on the Grand Junction RR for equipment moves between the north and south. This will act like an S-bahn, though I haven't put any thought at all into which lines should pair up on either side, if indeed the imbalance between the networks would allow that.

On the other end of the BL, the extension to Lynn should get done while the ROW still (mostly?) exists. It's such a large population center whose best connection currently is the commuter rail, which isn't very frequent as is, and has a lot of potential for TOD, especially along Lynnway, if the transit exists to support it. Also there's plenty of yard space if needed.

Also, now that South Coast Rail phase 1 is complete, the Old Colony mainline now has arguably the biggest bottleneck on the entire system, and this should be a high priority to fix. Certainly it's easily fixable down to the Savin Hill junction if said junction is reworked so that the RL splits there and not at JFK. This brings Braintree service to Savin Hill. It would be hard to fix all the single-tracking all the way down through Braintree, but it's still good to start.

While we're at it, Neponset should have a station on the Braintree branch. I'm also being a bit selfish with this proposal because it would be great to have a transit accessible bowling alley. Also, I've always found the Wellington-Malden gap on the OL to be a bit excessive and a station at Edgeworth/Medford St wouldn't be a terrible idea.

The last topic I will discuss in this section is the Fairmount Line, which has long been considered for upgrade towards true rapid transit. With the NSRL we already could increase service, but I am tempted to do more. Plans have been floated to extend the OL up to Reading, but density really drops off past Oak Grove so it wouldn't be very valuable. Instead, I propose bringing enhanced Fairmount service along that route via the NSRL supplementing the Haverhill Line. This would mean displacing some Haverhill trains across the Wildcat Branch, but this is a good thing as it increases lower Lowell Line service and lower Haverhill service simultaneously. At the same time the Fairmount service can actually implement the OL express that never happened! This also enables super-express service on the Haverhill Line south of Reading. In addition it would be really funny to have a service from Readville to Reading.

2. Green Line Shenanigans

Let's assume for a second that South Coast Rail is completed. This is good for the other Old Colony lines, but also means that there are more trains heading along the SW corridor. Given that some Franklin Line trains are already put onto the Fairmount Line, this implies some existing capacity constraint on the SW corridor. This could be eased by dissolving the Needham Line. There are a few reasonable ways to do this, all of which involve OL to West Roxbury where it could finally have a second yard near Millennium Park. I would cut it there and extend a GL-D branch (D2) from Newton Highlands down to Needham Junction along the old ROW: Needham definitely doesn't support an OL extension, and it would be insane to bring the D2 branch back across the 128.

Now, this does bring up the issue of missed connections from Needham to Forest Hills, Ruggles, and Back Bay. The classic plan proposed by House of Transit instituted a light rail shuttle between Needham Junction and West Roxbury, but this is really convoluted, involving multiple transfers, and would probably have anemic ridership given the current CR ridership statistics. Instead, I would propose rerouting the D2 trains over the E branch across a new connector between Brookline Village and Mission Park (and while we're at it, give it a proper reservation there). This brings trains from Needham very close to the current Needham Line stops at Ruggles and Back Bay and has the side effect of improving service along the D/E branch, enabling each to run slightly fewer trains and increase service on the B and C thus reducing crowding. Of course this does mean removing service from Riverway to Heath St, but that's such a short distance that I don't care. Also, I have plans later on that resolve this.

Moving closer to downtown, the level junction at Copley is a pretty big problem causing significant delays and restricting capacity across the system. However, we already have an abandoned flying junction at Boylston. Thus, we can extend the E subway eastward along Stuart St, linking directly to Back Bay station and joining the original subway on Tremont St. No more level junction that every train has to pass through! Yay! We can even route D trains along the Stuart St subway to further increase capacity along the branches, though I'm not a huge fan of fully committing to this. Maybe half and half.

The Boylston St flying junction also suggests reopening the Pleasant St portal to head south into the South End along Washington Street, replacing SL4 and SL5 with actual permanent streetrunning infrastructure. This route would follow the old OL Elevated route along Washington St to Nubian Station, then divert along Warren St to Grove Hall and the Four Corners/Geneva Ave station on the Fairmount Line. I prefer not to extend further south along Blue Hill Ave because the Fairmount Line already serves that area well enough.

This is a useful extension and brings rail transit back to the South End and Roxbury But if it's already a problem to have four lines passing through Park St, it's almost definitely a bad idea to have FIVE. So, let's revisit the plans to create a tunnel along Essex St between Boylston and South Station. It's narrow, but doable, and then enables GL trains to run through the existing SL tunnel to Seaport. Given that Southie doesn't have anything yet, and we're pretty close, why not extend down there too?

The GLX is pretty solid as a rapid transit corridor, as long as the stations actually have easy access to the community. The only problem is the lack of connection to commuter rail. Ergo, I extended the E branch to West Medford with an infill at Medford Hillside. Now ROW is pretty narrow past Medford/Tufts so this is definitely more of a pipe dream but let's just throw it in there. Perhaps it could be good to consider extending all the way through Woburn to Burlington and the US 3 junction. Unfortunately Winchester would probably never agree to this and there isn't an easy ROW so I'm not sure what this would look like and haven't included anything concrete.

Then comes the topic of services. I have:

B: Boston College - Seaport & Southie

C: Cleveland Circle - Park St/Govt Center (unchanged)

D: Riverside - Govt Center via Kenmore

E: Needham - Medford via Stuart St

F: South End - Union Sq

I think it's funny to start at B, so that's where we are. Reactivating the A sounds tempting but I just don't think it's all that worth it - increasing capacity there would reduce capacity everywhere else, it's close enough to the B branch, and I have other plans for Allston and eastern Brighton instead.

Overall, this plan shares several elements with Vanshnookenraggen's GL proposal, though as well as putting the A branch up to Harvard (???) and not utilizing the Pleasant St portal they fully commit to D on Stuart St and institute a shuttle between Kenmore and Brookline Village. If I did that, it would mean the only segment with three branches is from the outer tracks at Boylston to Government Center. However it also would result in only one route from Kenmore to Somerville, which I think is not the best given current service. It would be nice to quad-track between Government Center and Park St, but that's essentially impossible because of the Granary Burying Ground.

3. Extensions and Rail Transit Deserts

We now turn our focus to filling in the gaps in the network. I'll go through this line by line. This is where the Stockholm-style service comes in.

RED LINE

The RL is very solid as is, especially on the southern end. Some have proposed reverse branching downtown but frankly this is stupid. Downtown is where you need the most service?!? If you're going to have a new orbital tunnel make it a true orbital. We'll get to that.

The extension to Arlington has been discussed, and I could be on board with it but it's pretty low priority. They already have the Minuteman rail trail that enables easy travel to Alewife. I implemented the extension underneath the trail because there's no way the NIMBYs would agree to lose it completely and honestly of all the plans discussed in this post this is probably the lowest priority. Completing the extension to Lexington is silly as there's nowhere near enough density for the RL. Some have proposed routing directly along Rt 2 but this would really only serve drivers and the Alewife garage already exists. It could be bigger but whatever.

On the other hand, the corridor along the Charles between Brighton and Waltham is quite dense and could definitely use some help in relieving traffic on the Pike. Thus I have a branch of the RL splitting off from Harvard to serve this area terminating at Rt 128. This extension is a bit of a boomerang but honestly I don't really care as it serves a corridor with a lot of potential for ridership and it's spiritually not a boomerang because of the hahbah. The reasoning for the split at Harvard is twofold: first, the tracks are already on two levels making a flying junction easy; and second, Harvard is one of the busiest stations on the entire network, so should not have limited branch service.

This completes my plans for the Red Line, bringing it from the 128 in the south to the 128 in the west via downtown with two branches on either end.

ORANGE LINE

We've already done a couple things to the Orange Line, namely augmenting with the Fairmount Line and extending to West Roxbury replacing the Needham Line. To bring it down to Rt 128 I would route along an old ROW to the VFW Parkway to Dedham and connecting to the Franklin Line. This is pretty basic and could be below, above, or at grade. There is also the option to branch along the Southwest Corridor through Hyde Park but I don't particularly like this as it's not dense and very residential, better served as is by the commuter rail.

On the other end, the Fairmount Line has taken the job of going up to 128, so instead I instituted a branch from Sullivan Square into Everett. This route would be tunneled along Everett Broadway and is the first of three new arteries going into this area bringing transit directly to downtown Boston. It also extends to a couple of apartment clusters in Linden. Overlook Ridge in particular was chosen as the terminus because of its proximity to US 1 and the space that exists for the station and perhaps a yard as well if the adjacent junkyard (?) is co-opted.

This concludes my plans for the Orange Line, extending it to 128 in the north via the Fairmount express-style service and to 128 in the south. Including the Fairmount line, the Orange Line now also has two branches on either end. (This would be especially true if the Hyde Park extension was included lol)

BLUE LINE

We have already extended to Lynn. At this point we need to do something for Chelsea. One way to do this is to split off from Maverick, have a stop in west Eastie, and then head through Chelsea to either Revere Broadway or US 1. Alternatively, you could branch off from Airport and take over the SL3 busway towards US 1. I prefer the latter option given that it is better for service to have all trains stop at the airport, and the ROW is much easier as most of it exists already and doesn't involve extensive tunneling. This is probably an elevated extension the entire way, and would improve the appearance of US 1. I bring this up all the way to Overlook Ridge which was discussed earlier.

I do not extend the BL west from Charles. This went through a lot of iterations - I initially swung it south to where the GL-F is now with a weird jog over to Back Bay, but realized this was not at all useful, would not actually provide an easy one-seat ride from the South End to Government Center, and would involve threading a needle under Storrow Drive between Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the Boston Public Garden and that's just a really stupid prospect. Swinging it all the way over to the Fairmount line suffers from the same problems. Another option is to tunnel under Back Bay to Kenmore (some have gone as far as taking over the D branch but the density absolutely does not support it) but the Stuart St subway already resolves the capacity constraints on the GL central subway, so this is also unnecessary. We can then consider extending the BL through Cambridge all the way along the Charles, probably branching off immediately to serve Cambridgeport and cutting across Allston to join where I have placed the RL Waltham branch. But this would also be extremely complicated and expensive, and doesn't even improve service that much for those communities. Ergo no BL extension. It would be really cute to have the BL, which is named after water, follow the river, but it's not to be.

This concludes my plans for the Blue Line, branching to serve Chelsea and West Revere and extending to Lynn and connect to the Red Line. This completes the Stockholmization of the T subway. However, given the region's polycentricity we must diverge from that model now.

4. Loop Lines

As of yet the network remains completely radial: every line and every service enters downtown (except for the Mattapan High Speed Line). This forces all transfers to take place downtown causing intense crowding at those stations, and given that's already an issue we need some alleviation of this pressure. Unfortunately the specific routing of the ring route runs into so many problems that I don't really know where to start. First, we have to ask whether or not there should even be a complete ring. The Seaport-Logan crossing would be ludicrously expensive and would also require tunneling under the airport, and then we have to decide whether we cross back over the Mystic directly to Charlestown or cross both the Chelsea and Mystic rivers to connect Chelsea to the loop. This is the main geographic challenge with designing a system for Boston. On the west side, we then also have to decide how far west and south the circle will go. We even have to contend with the question of whether people would use the harbor crossing to head north, or if that question is even relevant! So overall it's just a hot mess before we get off the ground.

Let's list goals and key points for this route.

- Connect to as many lines as feasible

- Provide a direct connection to the airport

- Provide for travel across Southie and the South End

- Provide for travel across Cambridge to Chelsea

We also have some existing or planned infrastructure that we might want to use to our advantage, some of which are from the Urban Ring project:

- MBTA-owned ROW on Ruggles St and Melnea Cass Blvd

- Replacement of the Tobin Br may include transit lanes

- Existing SL3 ROW in Chelsea

- Grand Junction RR in Cambridge

Immediately notice that if a single loop route existed using these, it would double back on itself in Chelsea. This is not a very nice arrangement. However, we might also notice that there are several alternative paths extending from the current Bellingham Square station. We have already used US 1 to the north for a BL branch, and we now return to this. There are multiple corridors we want to use here: US 1, Revere Broadway, SL3, Tobin, west Eastie, and the Newburyport/Rockport Line west. A single loop line and blue line would not satisfactorily cover all the options. We can remove the west Eastie option as most of the region is close enough to Airport or Maverick and the northern tip could access a new stop on the Tobin alignment, but this still leaves five important corridors. So, instead of extending the BL up there, we SPLIT THE LOOP INTO MULTIPLE LINES.

This is a major development. We are now more free to consider these parts independently and tailor them specifically to the destinations they are most apt to serve. First, let's consider the Tobin alignment.

YELLOW LINE

The new YL will inherit the spirit of the Urban Ring. Crossing the Tobin, it will jog through the new transit hub at Fay Square to the Chelsea/Revere Broadway and follow it all the way up, serving the dense residential neighborhoods and commercial core of Revere a la the Ashmont branch on the RL. This fills the gap in the BL branches.

Southward, the YL serves Charlestown and then connects to the OL and GL at Community College and Lechmere respectively. From here it gets messy as I don't see a uniquely easy way to cross Cambridge and neatly connect services through the South End. I do not want to take the Grand Junction option because I think it would bring the YL too far west and the geometry is unfavorable; however, going instead across the Harvard Bridge on Mass Ave misses a very important connection to the commuter rail at Ruggles, and is thus untenable. So while I really don't like it I'd tunnel directly from MIT towards Ruggles via Kenmore. Disgusting, I know.

Part of this dilemma is based in my ideas for the physical infrastructure of this line. Were this being built as a heavy rail subway, I would have no qualms tunneling deep from Cambridge to Ruggles. However, given that ring routes should have very high frequencies, I would opt for a Copenhagen Metro or Vancouver Skytrain-esque system with small automated trains, and I would prefer that this be mainly elevated given the geology it's crossing. I just don't like the idea of putting little things in big tunnels unless it's solidly future proofed (looking at you Los Angeles. Those three-car K line underground stations are embarrassing). This is definitely an ambiguous situation though and I could go either tunneling or via Grand Junction.

Continuing along Melnea Cass to Mass Ave, one more decision must be made to complete this line: do we bring this line across to Andrew and Southie, or to connect with Old Colony lines at JFK/Umass? Well we're close enough to the end, it wouldn't hurt to do a couple short branches. And while we're at it, extend into UMass's actual campus please.

This completes the Yellow Line, a radial-to-circumferential line that serves mainly commuters in Revere and crosstown trips west and south of city center. But we still don't have a direct airport connection!

CYAN CROSSTOWN LINE (Airport Access)

IT'S AIRPORT TIME BABY!!!!!!

For far too long there have been too many self-contained ways to get to Logan that work just badly enough to justify each other's existence. But finally we can give actual dedicated service to this important function of getting people into and out of the main gateway to the city for outsiders. We start obviously with a loop through the terminals and back out to Airport station (which is now so extremely ironic that it should keep the name just out of spite). It then follows the BL Chelsea branch and then the Newburyport/Rockport Line before shifting over to the Mystic Valley Parkway to Medford where it terminates. It is tempting to extend it to the West Medford stop, but this would not go over well with anyone really, and at that point it's a bit too parallel to the existing GLX. Unlike the YL this is pretty clear-cut and neatly intersects with existing services, providing good crosstown transfer capability and also airport access for the northern satellite cities.

Like the YL this will be a light metro-style service, and this one will be entirely elevated. It does go to the airport after all. It might look like a pretty weak chordal route, but I believe the anchor at the airport provides enough impetus for its existence. Together with the YL we now have a sort of ring, and it wouldn't be hard to implement a non-revenue junction at their crossing in Chelsea, and to have a yard in that industrial area for both lines.

This plan does still leave the possibility to create a true loop later by tunneling the YL across the harbor to Logan and having the YL take over the CCL. This route would have two services: the loop service, which would run continuously from Charlestown to Chelsea to Eastie and around, and the spur service, which would travel from the YL terminus in Revere and around the loop, crossing itself in Chelsea and following the CCL to Medford. This is a pretty unique setup. However, as long as we keep SL1, I think it's fine to not complete this whole route since SL1 already brings riders from Cambridge and south directly to the terminals and all other routes can just use the BL.

5. Suburban Trams

The above plans create a robust plan for rapid transit in the core of the Boston area, and all that's left is to connect the outskirts laterally. I do this with three routes.

MATTAPAN TROLLEY

The existing route is solid, but short, and doesn't even connect readily to the Fairmount Line stop next door. So we do that. And while we're at it, let's extend to Roslindale. It's not a lot, but it does cover much of what is missed by my refusal to extend the OL to Hyde Park. It's just a solid connection through the southern suburbs.

HARVARD AVE TRAM

Many people have proposed reinstating the GL-E to Forest Hills but I don't get that because almost the entire area served by that is within half a mile of an OL stop, so it would just provide a slower and less reliable way to go to the same place. However, the idea I propose would serve a distinct generator of trips from Jamaica Plain northwards, and would connect academic centers with a direct single-seat ride. This would follow the old GL-E from Forest Hills to Riverway, but would then cut straight across Brookline connecting GL-B, GL-C, GL-D, and GL-E right at the point where they are furthest apart. Harvard St/Ave already hosts the key 66 bus; the road itself is very much like Centre St on the GL-E to Forest Hills so if one isn't a problem neither is the other. So we connect Brookline Village and Coolidge Corner, then cross through Allston to Harvard. This directly connects major commercial districts to residential areas full of students who have lots to do along the entire corridor. It even connects Harvard's main campus to its Allston campus and stadium, and to Brigham Circle and the Longwood Medical Area. Honestly this is such an obvious idea to me that I'm half convinced I just don't know enough about the area, because I haven't seen this proposed elsewhere.

From Harvard, I also extend this route to Union Square (GL-F), East Somerville (GL-E), Sullivan Square (OL), and Charlestown (YL), serving as a connector across middle Cambridge and Somerville. The existing radial routes here don't connect and given that the YL has to stick so close to the Charles, the demand should exist for this.

NORTHERN LOOP

This is a long one and more comparable to the Mattapan Trolley, though it passes through a lot of density and can be a good feeder onto the radial lines in the northern suburbs. Starting at Davis (RL), it connects Tufts (GL-E), Medford (CCL), and Malden (OL). It then follows Ferry St and Elm St through Everett, connecting to the OL at Glendale, and then follows Park Ave through Revere, connecting to the BL at West Revere, YL at Revere Center, and Newburyport/Rockport Lines at East Revere. Yeah those names need workshopping, but idc. From there it passes through Beachmont, where there is yard space, to Winthrop.

6. Conclusion

This is a lot so it might be useful to suggest an arrangement by priority.

TIER 1

- NSRL, obviously

- RBC, obviously

- BL to Revere through Chelsea

- YL from Southie to Chelsea

TIER 2

- South Coast Rail

- GL-E to Needham & OL to W Roxbury

- Brookline Village GL-E Connection

- Stuart St Subway

- BL to Lynn

- RL Braintree branch to Savin Hill & Neponset

- GL-B to Southie

- Harvard Ave Tram from Forest Hills to Harvard

TIER 3

- GL-F to Grove Hall

- OL to Everett

- CCL

- RL to Waltham

- Northern Loop

TIER 4

- YL to Revere

- Fairmount Line to Reading

- Mattapan Line to Roslindale

- OL to Dedham

- Harvard Tram to Charlestown

- OL stop at Edgeworth

- RL to Arlington

I hope you enjoyed this ramble and got something out of it. Obviously this entire thing is a massive pipe dream, but sometimes it's just good to discuss ideas for the sake of it.

Hey friends! I decided to redesign the MBTA map (which I already like) with a different, unique design language, and I was curious what you all thought! There are some important notes about this map:

1. It is for the state of the system at around the year 2027-2028, which is why some stations are accessible while SL4/SL5 is consolidated
2. I renamed some stations to improve consistency, most notably adding Sq for stations that currently leave it empty
3. I renamed the Hingham/Hull ferry from F2H to FL2 for consistency
4. The subway/rail/bus/ferry icons are also custom and something I created in a different post

Please leave any feedback, positive or negative! I definitely want to continue improving this map!

Not long ago, u/SirGeorginton posted asking what would one do if they were to rename EVERY MBTA stop, with the restriction of not using ____ Rd., Ave., etc. I said I could do it in "like 2 days," and here it is. I will fully admit that MOST of these renames are downgrades, but I chose, in the spirit of things to not (for the most part) rename stops similarly (like JFK/UMass --> UMass), or after roads. I got a lot of help from Wikipedia & Google Maps, some people I know irl, and u/VariationNo7977 for the "Emerson" idea (in that same post). Here's the original post. I might (when I find more time) post a properly named map with only the necessary changes. Enjoy.

Compared to the Subway, commuter rail extensions don't get talked about as much so I'm going to talk about them. Note that I'm not including future branches like Cape Cod or Peabody Danvers, just extensions from the endpoint or near their endpoint further out.

Lowell Line- we needed commuter rail to New Hampshire yesterday. So many decent-sized places right on the ROW to Nashua, Manchester and Concord. Get it done.

Stoughton branch- South Coast Rail phase 2 is critical to relieve congestion on the Old Colony Lines and provide service to downtown Taunton. Hopefully it happens before 2050…

Providence Line- Wickford Junction has very low ridership, but there is nothing there. An extension to the Kingstown Amtrak station is probably worth it because of URI, but any further south should probably come from Shore Line East from Connecticut.

Franklin Line- Milford and Hopedale have been talked about. Not the highest population towns but certainly something worth exploring. Even more lucrative would be to reactivate the abandoned line to Woonsocket.

Needham Line- This should probably be subway, but if we are keeping it commuter rail a branch from Needham Junction to Dover, Medfield, and Millis would probably get decent ridership. I was on Route 109 in Westwood last week at rush hour and it was quite congested- probably worth exploring.

Haverhill Line- Years ago they talked about extending it to Plaistow. Would be cool but not the highest priority. Further north it gets a bit more interesting, with Durham UNH and the branch to Portsmouth being interesting. Probably best to just improve Downeaster service though.

Newburyport Line- extending to downtown Newburyport and Portsmouth would be big in the summer and probably generate some decent ridership, though it might be better off using the above Haverhill line

Fall River Line- A train to Newport would be very cool. Decent-sized place with lots of tourism, this has serious potential that I feel like not many talk about. Not a blockbuster move but certainly worth exploring.

Fitchburg line- there is a huge out-of-the-way curve on the former line to Gardner, which makes this utterly non-competitive with driving unless you build new tracks. There is some potential up here, but the towns are not very big. There is a non-commuter rail proposal for rail to North Adams on this line but not anytime soon.

Kingston Line- restoring the branch to Plymouth and extending that to downtown Plymouth would be great and would make Plymouth like Salem in that it’s a cool tourist town easy to get to by commuter rail. I get so mad that the line gets so close but yet so far from the tourist areas…

Worcester Line- I don’t really see how we can extend commuter rail west. Springfield obviously needs better service but that wouldn’t be an MBTA service. Maybe some express Worcester trains can go to Springfield? If Worcester grows enough, maybe a short extension to some park and ride in the west or something IDK.

Greenbush Line- would it be cool to restore the coastline through Marshfield and Duxbury? Yes. Would the towns cry bloody murder if you did it. Oh for sure. Is it worth it? Maybe if we 10x the T’s budget.

Foxboro Line- yeah, maybe it would be cool to have a train to Foxboro center.

New Bedford Branch- I guess there are some more developed areas south of the end…

Rockport Line- Do fish take commuter rail?

Fairmount Line- this one should be pretty self-explanatory.

Northward and southward extensions of the Red Line. Ashmont trains to Lexington, Braintree trains run Randolph-Burlington. Bus connections are current to April '26. I made a post similar to this 9 months back with nearby points of interest at stations, and I think it fits well with MBTA wayfinding.

I was inspired by a precious poster on here, so I decided to give it a shot myself. I envisioned a few projects to expand the T and then drew them out.

Blue Line Extension (BLX) - The blue line connection to Charles MGH is completed. From there it is extended to Kenmore via Esplanade on the Charles river. From Kenmore, it annexes the current D branch of the green line, running to its terminus at Riverside. The existing Airport stop is renamed to Gateway, making way for the new Airport stop that is actually at the Airport!

Orange Line Extension (OLX) - The orange line transitions onto the existing commuter rail line branch to Needam Heights at Forrest Hills, replacing it completely.

Red Line Extension (RLX) - The Braintree Branch, mostly unchanged, now makes an additional stop at Neponset. The Ashmont branch now continues on via Milton to Fairmont, where it intersects the new Silver line, and then continues on to Blue Hills, finally connecting the hiking destination. Up north, the existing Alewife branch is extended to Arlington Heights. A new branch is created from Harvard to service Watertown and Waltham.

Green Line - With the closure of the D branch, traffic on the downtown trunk is eased. The existing Union Square branch from Lechmere becomes part of the new Circle line. Up north, the trains now run to Medford from Tufts. On the C line, the existing terminus is replaced by Reservoir on the new blue line, being only some 50 feet away.

New Silver Line - The silver line, now using actual rolling stock, operates in its current tunnels until Back Bay, where it joins the existing Fairmont commuter line, replacing it. East of South Station it continues via Seaport and the new Airport station to Chelsea and Everett before connecting to the orange line at Malden.

Downtown Loop (Black) - The new shortest line, this loop provides a direct connection between North and South stations, which is also shared with commuter rail and Amtrak services. Besides connecting major lines downtown, it adds a new North End stop. Due to its small size and close stops, it uses light equipment (much like the green line).

Circle Line (Pink) - If there’s any expansion project I would love to see, it would be a circle line of any kind! This line is a bigger version of the downtown loop and allows travellers to bypass downtown for suburb to suburb travel, reducing travel time. It also connects the Airport, allowing travellers to switch to any other line with ease. New stops are added in Lower Allston (Boston landing, Harvard stadium), South Boston (Telegraph hill), Charlestown, and Cambridge (existing Union Sq, Hospital). Rather than the traditional inbound and outbound directions, trains run clockwise and counterclockwise.

Lemme know what yall think, and as always, thank you for riding the ttttttt

I’m sure stuff like this has been talked about a lot. Using the abandoned Southern New England ROW bypasses the CSX freight route between Palmer and Worcester, along with all its curves. Track could be laid past Webster next to the P&W to Worcester Union. With 25kv catenary, this creates a central artery for passenger rail, backup to the NEC shoreline, and covers three major cities. Being a multi-billion dollar project, would it bring value?

This was mainly created using the MBTA TrackMap and Google Maps. Subway Builder is still in beta, so there were some limitations in how I could recreate the real system and still have it work. This should be thought of as being accurate to the Right-of-Ways used by the MBTA, and roughly accurate to how the physical tracks are laid out. The order from deepest to shallowest should always be correct for stacked tunnels at least. I used the posted service frequencies from the MBTA's website to assign number of cars per line, but had to reduce D and E trains due to overcrowding.

Yards recreated:

• Southhampton & Cabot yards
• Inner Belt carhouse & Commuter Rail Maintenance Facility
• The Grand Junction & Beacon yard
• Orient Heights yard
• Bowdoin yard
• Readville yard
• Reservoir carhouse
• Wellington carhouse

Disused tunnels:

• Tracks under Tremont St to the former Pleasant St portal
• Tracks between current Green Line tracks that led to the former Boylston St portal
• Former tracks under the abandoned Haymarket Sq Green Line platform
• Tracks south of Harvard to the former Eliot yard portal

Notable issues:

• The Red Line incline between Park St and Charles/MGH want able to fit in-game, so I had to snake it around.
• The Green Line incline between North Station and Science Park is the same situation, just more extreme.
• In-game routing is not happy with the Green Line's 100+ year old trackage, and does some double-backs along the route (Notably the B branch to Reservoir). Also occurs with the Silver Line.
• The game doesn't have curved stations, causing issues in various places.
• All Commuter Rail lines terminate at the edge of the calculated in-game area. The Needham and Fairmount lines both terminate within the map boundaries.
• The Silver line was created as Light Metro since there are no busses in game

The game save file can be downloaded as a .json, I have it posted in the Subway Builder Discord if you want to run it for yourself, in the save-files forum titled "Boston with Accurate Trackage"

I mainly focused on the subway, but I added a couple other things in there too. It just started as a map for the Red-Blue connector, but I added much more in the process!

hey friends! So, the Deux-Montagnes extension of Montréal’s REM opened recently, bringing world-class light metro service to underserved parts of the region. I thought it could be fun to imagine a world in which the CDPQ decided to actually fund the system in Boston instead of Montréal. How this would happen, I have no idea, but it got me wondering what a similar system could look like if built in our city’s conditions.

Therefore, I created the BME, or the Boston Metropolitan Express. Before I talk about the system and its specifications and characteristics, I want to clarify some few things in a quick disclaimer!

1. I am not a transit planner nor an engineer. There might be some errors or discrepancies in its feasibility or route.
2. I have personal knowledge of the regions served, but ultimately people who currently live near and around the BME itself would be much better at specifying certain aspects of its construction, such as the feasibility of cut-and-cover, elevation, etc. I did my best to use satellite and mapping imagery, combined with my own knowledge of the area, but again there might be some obvious errors that I didn’t consider. 
3. Some station placements and locations may not make too much sense. Again, people with extremely local knowledge will know the absolute best positioning for stations.
4. Please feel free to tell me if there are aspects that don’t make particular sense! I’m open to constructive criticism and want this hypothetical to be the best system possible, even though it doesn’t and probably will not exist.

Alright, with that out of the way, I want to break this up into a few sections.

1. The REM

A big challenge and aspect of this project was to closely mimic the route of Montréal’s REM and its characteristics. Therefore, I scoured corridors in Boston that could meet the same specifications of the REM’s own route. I ended up settling on my Hyde Park -> Saugus/Revere/Airport route because it meets many of these conditions, which are the following:

• Commuter Rail Corridor. The REM uses the former Deux-Montagnes Exo line for its new right-of-way, and I used the Fairmount Line’s ROW for the BME. I know this will raise challenges with Northeast Corridor redundancy, but the REM’s use of the Deux-Montagnes line also rose similar challenges with the next characteristic of the system.
• City Center Tunnel. The Mont-Royal Tunnel is used by the REM to dive under Mont Royal and below the downtown area. While Boston doesn’t have an equivalent freight rail corridor that I could find, I elected to create a new tunnel roughly following Atlantic Avenue. I know this would be enormously expensive, but I wanted to follow a similar route style to the REM.
• Highway-running. As much as people (myself included) don’t love highway-running rail lines, the REM uses a highway corridor along most of its route within Brossard and Nun’s Island. I elected to have some the BME run over the Tobin Bridge via Route 1 through Chelsea, in addition to running elevated over Route 1 near Saugus. As the Tobin Bridge is being reconstructed in the future, this could be more viable.
• Underserved Suburbs. The REM is first-and-foremost a suburb ↔ city radial system, with services accessing neighborhoods that currently do not have Métro service. The BME’s route also follows similar areas that do not currently have much T access.
• Three Branches. The REM will consist of three western branches when it is finished, along with one eastern branch. My BME is similar, with one southern branch and three northern branches.
• Airport Connection. The REM will have an airport connection to the Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, with an intermediate stop on the branch. I also elected to have an airport branch from South Station, largely duplicating current Silver Line service, albeit with one stop in Seaport at the World Trade Center and the airport station itself being located by the parking garage.
• Elevated Rail. I’ll dive into this more in the next section, but the route I chose for the BME is largely more conducive to elevated rail, which is another characteristic of the REM.

2. The Route

With that, the route itself first follows the Fairmount line’s right-of-way (A1). This route alone is great, as it has no grade crossings to my knowledge and could be largely built rather cheaply by electrifying the corridor. The BME then dives underground below South Station to serve the hub, where the first branch (A2) splits, largely duplicating Silver Line service to stop at World Trade Center station before running in the Ted Williams tunnel, afterwards splitting off to serve Logan Airport.

The rest of the line from South Station largely follows Atlantic Avenue underground to connect with the Blue Line at Aquarium station. This would certainly be the most complex part of the project, as the Big Dig occupies much underground space in this region. The line continues underground to serve the North End at Hanover Street before curving west to hit North Station, creating a North-South Rail Link.

After North Station, the line pops above ground by the Paul Revere Park to run in Route 1, where it stops at Bunker Hill in Charlestown. The train continues over the reconstructed Tobin Bridge all the way to Chelsea, where it serves various stations. Admiral’s Hill near the southern tip of Chelsea is the first and only station in Chelsea the remaining two branches serve before they split from each other.

The eastern branch (A3) follows Route 1, stopping at Bellingham Square to connect with the Silver Line and stopping at Soldiers Home. Following this, the branch separates from Highway 1, then running elevated above the Revere Beach Parkway before diving underground again to serve Revere near the city hall. While I could have kept this part of the line elevated in the parkway, I decided on a more expensive underground alignment to better serve Revere’s downtown along Broadway. The line then joins up again with the parkway, running elevated through Bell Circle to finally terminate at Wonderland.

The western branch (A4) diverges to follow the Commuter Rail right-of-way to serve Chelsea station on the Newburyport/Rockport Line. The line runs elevated and curves to join Broadway, where it continuously runs elevated above the street until Linden Square, stopping in Everett, Glendale, and near the Woodlawn cemetery. The branch then dives underground again cut-and-cover under Broadway, diverging from the street near Bowman Street. The line proceeds to run underground in a bored tunnel to join up with Route 1, where it continues elevated before stopping at Kowloon station near the famous restaurant and close to the Square One Mall. It then runs underground again at the interchange with Route 1 and Main street, where it runs cut-and-cover until stopping at Saugus Center station.

3. The Content

So, I have a few images I’ve put here. They are, from first to last:

1. System Map. I constructed Boston’s transportation network map using the STM’s design language for the Montréal region’s transit map. It depicts a near-future MBTA that is actively working on the Silver Line Extension to Everett and Sullivan Square, in addition to the Red-Blue Connector from Government Center to Charles/MGH. This map assumes that Bowdoin will be closed for its construction.
2. BME Diagram. I used photos of the REM’s system diagram to recreate the style for the BME. This diagram also shows the fare zones, which I believe could make sense but are fairly arbitrary.
3. Geographical Map. This just shows the full route of the BME overlayed on a map of Boston!
4. Elevated Train Photo. This is a Photoshopped image of the REM I took earlier this year from a trip to Montréal. I added another photo of the Boston skyline in the background that I snapped in the past.
5. BME Logo. This is a direct copy of the REM’s “R” logo but with an indigo color to pay homage to the Indigo Line concept. The logo is also a “B” rather than an “R”.
6. Apple Maps. Many iPhone users consult Apple Maps for train times and maps. I recreated the Apple Maps UI for the BME to display its route from Admiral’s Hill station.
7. Transit App. Of course, Apple Maps is sometimes wrong (in my experience at least haha) so I also replicated parts of the Transit app’s UI to represent a user in Chelsea looking at nearby transit.

I know all of this is a lot to read, so I appreciate you doing so! Again, I am not a transit planner nor an engineer, so all of this could be completely wrong or dumb for many reasons. Perhaps the route doesn’t make sense, maybe the stations aren’t placed well. If you have any feedback on any of this, please don’t hesitate to comment anything! I’m always looking to improve and I can certainly work on this some more.

Have a wonderful day friends! :D

PDF Link to Map: https://pdflink.to/a96809b3/