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Realignment of Massachusetts Turnpike to include new commuter rail station
The proposed West Station will have 2 platforms and 4 tracks. There will also be a second station, Boston Landing, also in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston. Many years ago, there were local stations in this area, on the ex-Boston & Albany RR (NYC). One of these old stations is now the Allston Depot sports bar. Another new station which opened in recent years on this line is the Yawkey station, right next to the Fenway Park baseball stadium. And more trains have been added to the Boston-Framingham-Worcester line in just the last year or two.
Allston is a neighborhood largely unserved by rail since the Green Line’s A Branch closed in 1969 or thereabouts. Those tracks have long since been removed, it was a streetcar line. Now with two new commuter rail stations on the opposite side of the neighborhood from the B branch, that part of Boston is poised for growth. Currently Allston is home to many college students and dive bars (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but a 10 minute trip to South Station will most certainly change the neighborhood demographics. It is sort of Boston’s Brooklyn, so close yet currently so far away.
In response to Mr. Salters’, does West Station fall in the single track territory between CP3 and CP4 and is double-tracking between them part of this project? Actually, I don’t understand the “two platforms and four tracks” part. Are you saying it’s going to be configured as is Park Street on the Green Line? And where in relation to West Station will Boston Landing be?
Railway Age covered this development and made no mention of a second station or is Boston Landing not part of the MassPike re-location? The RA coverage did indicate MassDOT made an arrangement with Harvard for space in the Beacon Park Yard footprint for tracks to be used for the midday storage of trainsets.
Incidently, that West Station is back as part of the MassPike re-location is a complete reversal from what MassDOT quite unexpectedly announced at one of thecommunity outreach type meetings they were holding a few months ago. Covered by Martine Powers of the Boston Globe, the DOT guys showed up at this particular meeting and dropped the bomb that they had enough $$$ to do the highway work but not enough for West Station. So they would engineer the project to allow for a “future” station but with absolutely no timeline for its eventual construction. According to the Globe article, that wasn’t well received in the community.
A friend out here in the Berkshires who apparently reads the Boston papers more than I do, said Harvard had wanted West Station to serve the transit needs of their planned re-development (off-campus student housing?) of the Beacon Park Yard property. Do you know, Mr. Salters, if it was the university that raised hell about the DOT’s cancellation and that it was primarily their influence that got the station restored?
To Mark Shapp - The print edition of the Boston Herald of Oct. 1 had a story about the West Station. It was there that I read the station would have 2 platforms and 4 tracks. The price tag is about $25M, 1/3 from the State, 1/3 from Harvard Univ., and 1/3 from “other”, to be secured by Mass DOT which is “close” to securing it. The new Boston Landing station will be located next to the new office building erected by the New Balance sneaker company. That station and its surrounding complex is a different project.The new New Balance building is in Brighton next to the Turnpike. New Balance has had an office/store in Brighton for a long time. The Herald article says that the West Station should be finished in 2020; the turnpike relocation work starts in 2017.
Ok Mr. Salters, thanks. I sure hope the T plans to add trains on the route so frequencies are competitive with the admittedly much slower (and far more crowded and uncomfortable) Green Line service.
I wish that New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo would have built railroad tracks on the new Tappan Zee Bridge. But he said, no way shape or form would he permit this to happen.
Cuomo’s decision to avoid rail crossing on the Tappan Zee Bridge probably has more to do with his long-range goal to run for president down the road. The TZ Bridge reconstruction – with or without rails – will probably result in massive toll increases and I am sure Andrew hopes voter memories will dim by 2020 or 2024. Too bad, it was a great opportunity to expand rail commuter operations in the NYC area