Boston’s
Green Line with 66 stations, 22 track miles, 205 cars and four branches
carrying nearly 250,000 passengers each weekday is the busiest and among the
oldest light rail systems in the nation.
Much of the network has been in place since the 1800’s originally
opening as early as 1856 with horse drawn trolleys. Portions of the downtown
tunnel network are the oldest subway in this hemisphere. The Green Line can be proud of its long and
distinguished history but most of its surface stations reflect a bygone era and
do not fully meet expectations for a modern transit service.
On April 21, 2017 at the National Planning Conference of the American Planning Conference, Jacobs
The presentation will review the principal challenges and solutions
developed to upgrade the stations with the least cost and impact to adjacent
transport services. Key considerations
included:
·
Comprehensive
Design Criteria: Accessibility regulations, building codes and railway design
standards needed to be integrated and reconciled;
·
Evaluation
of Existing Conditions: Where the service runs in a median
reservation, the reservation was generally too narrow to provide passenger
platforms of sufficient width. Some stations are on curves too tight to allow
for level boarding. Nearly all stations required additional paths for emergency
egress. Four street running stops had no
formal station at all.
·
Development
of Design Options: The study team developed four general station designs that
were adapted as appropriate to the 26 locations, and
·
Station
Consolidations: Where right of way geometry would not allow for level boarding
proposals to consolidate adjacent stations at a point between the two
substandard stations were advanced and evaluated.
