The Globe is reporting that developers in our Greater Boston Area who build projects near the T are more frequently being asked to fund T service and this practice has been going on for years. The article cites upgrades to North and Back Bay stations were funded by Boston Properties (who were permitted the right to build towers on top of them) and Boston Landing and Assembly Row as examples of funding the MBTA. Recently, agreements have been reached where developers will be paying for extra T service on the Orange Line.
“Developers routinely tout their projects’ closeness to the T in marketing materials, and rents are often higher in buildings with easy access to transit. In many cities and towns around the region, builders can get a break on costly requirements to build parking spaces if they can demonstrate that many residents and workers in their buildings will commute by train.
“Transit-oriented development not only adds people to transit but also generally benefits from the system as a whole,” said Marc Draisen, executive director at Metropolitan Area Planning Council. “It seems legitimate that they should kick in some money to help it.”
Although we did get $700K in mitigation funds from Washington Place – see Administration’s memo on recommended spending of these funds – should we be demanding more?
Hear hear – I think instead of shuttle buses, Northland should fund a new Needham Street Station on the existing D-Line track where it momentarily dips south of Route 9 (aka Cook Junction, behind National Lumber).
Granted, it would be only 2,000 feet from the Newton Highlands and Eliot stops, but the issue of superfluity would be more than made up for by its being the only transit station south of Route 9, which in terms of psychological barriers is more significant than the Mason-Dixon Line. Southerners have needs too!
Also, come to think of it the 2,000-foot spacing would actually be about the same as the existing inter-station distance between Reservoir and Beaconsfield.
From the new Needham Street Station, Northland could install some transit pods along the side of the Upper Falls Greenway. A cool, futuristic selling point for its development! Avoids the traffic jams completely!
How do we get some inbound commuter rail trains in the afternoon and evening to stop in Newton? There are some inbound trains but they pass over Newton. Tonight I’m meeting a friend for dinner in Back Bay but I either need to drive in or take the green line but I’m not that close to the green line so I would need to allot more time. How can we push the developers to help us get more reliable train service? The commuter rail could serve so many more purposes outside of commuting, if only the service was increased.
@MMQC: Step one is upgrading the three Newton stations so that there are platforms for both tracks (either on both sides, or as a center island). That’s the primary reason that there are currently no counter-commute stops in either the morning or the evening. There’s a meeting at the library on 7/25 to discuss the project to upgrade the three stations for accessibility, and any solution that doesn’t (preferably) address the platform issue or (bare minimum) provision for the fix in the future should be a non-starter, because it’s pretty much impossible to do anything interesting with the commuter rail schedules in Newton until it’s fixed.
https://mbta.com/events/2019-07-25/newton-stations-accessibility-improvements-project-public-meeting
@MMQC: We get better off-peak service at the Newton commuter rail stations by insisting that when they are rebuilt, they are built double-sided, i.e. with platform access to both tracks.
Right now the ground-level, non-ADA-accessible stations are single-platform on the south track (closest to the Pike), and the MBTA runs the entire inner Worcester line left-handed (like driving on the left-hand side of the street) in the evenings so that outbound trains have access to these platforms. But that means inbound trains like the one you want are on the other track and so can’t stop at our stations.
The MBTA is expected to announce next steps in their plans to rebuild all 3 stations at an upcoming meeting — https://mbta.com/events/2019-07-25/newton-stations-accessibility-improvements-project-public-meeting . What I have heard and expect is that they will rebuild all 3 stations to be accessible, by building new high-level platforms on the north side of each station, with ADA-compliant ramp access to those platforms.
Accessibility is an important and long-overdue improvement. But if I am right and all that’s being built is single-sided stations, this project will do nothing to improve possible schedules: trains will run left-handed in the mornings instead since the solitary platform will be facing the other track. They’re expected to make this choice because it’s cheaper: not only because building less platform costs less money, but also because this expected configuration provides accessibility via ramps, whereas ADA access to the track closer to the Pike would require elevators.
What we really need — and the City needs to advocate for, and residents need to demand from the MBTA — is stations with a platform for each track. These could be two single-sided platforms (like at Lansdowne/Yawkey), or one center platform (like at Boston Landing). Then and only then will there be the flexibility for non-predominant-direction trains to stop at our stations.
Extending the green line down Needham Street and across the Charles and 128 into Needham has tremendous upside. I’d love to see it happen.
But money (and that transformer station behind National Lumber) isn’t the only thing keeping that from happening. Like many private sector businesses, the MBTA is having trouble hiring great talent, which in turn has contributed to delayed projects from happening as quickly as we all wish.
There was discussion at one of the Northland meetings of asking the company to fund a Green Line extension study. That’s an important first step an idea worth serious consideration.
But knowing how backlogged the T is and observing how many decades these things can take (consider, for example, the Green Line extension in Somerville), Northland’s proposed last mile free shuttle to the Highlands is an excellent alternative to help get single occupancy vehicles (our largest contributors to green house gas) off the road.
@Greg, I don’t expect a Green Line extension to happen in my lifetime, but constructing a station on the existing span of active D-line track south of Route 9 doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch, and it would work wonders to improve accessibility to Needham Street.
In terms of station placement, I’d think that a preferred candidate would be the ugly yellow Winchester Street Building and its oversized parking lot, which is a parcel that I suspect a lot of transit-oriented developers would want to get their hands on, especially if included air rights across the tracks to dead-end Ramsdell Street behind the Route 9 Dunkin Donuts.
There’s plenty of opportunity for TOD on the other side of Route 9 also, especially the parcel with the CVS. Fix the Woodward/Eliot interchange (a bottleneck for most of Boston) at the same time.
For the commuter rail, there used to be a station house in Newtonville adjacent to Washington Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtonville_station#/media/File:Newtonville_station_postcard.jpg . Wouldn’t it be nice if the MBTA leased (donated) some land to a developer with an interest in the area to build a cantilevered building to provide elevator access and two new platforms?
Thank you to those of you who explained to me what needs to happen with the CR stations! I think that if we are hoping that people will move into the new Washington Street developments and either reduce car usage or get rid of their car, that would be a great impetus to turn the commuter rail into something useful for things like running errands (i.e. taking it to Landsdowne to go to Target), going out to dinner downtown, bowling in Brighton, etc.
One proposal for a development in Wellesley includes “… new ADA accessible commuter rail platforms and elevators up to street level.”
It’s a ground lease arrangement, so that’s different from Washington Place – but it’s kind of like Austin St, right?
https://theswellesleyreport.com/2019/06/wellesley-square-redevelopment-plan-raises-parking-traffic-concerns/
For those interested in the vision for a modernized (cleaner, accessible, reliable, affordable, frequent) regional rail, I have organized a presentation by Transit Matters on Thursday, August 8, 7PM at Druker Auditorium in the Newton Free Library. Facebook event here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/658801487928415/
@ Michael – we can put robots on mars and men on the moon, but not improve the D line within our lifetime? I am torn between agreeing with you and despair at our tragically low expectations for local/state government.
IMHO this is how Trump won.