🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <SPIKE.92Jul29114301@coke.std.com> spike@coke.std.com (Joe Ilacqua) writes:
>
>	It is true, for half a mile or so around Brighton Center, you
>couldn't pass an LRV.  So what?  You can't pass the buses now.  It's
>not like the trains are going to be parked, they are going to be
>moving along.

But buses can (and sometimes even do) pull to the curb at bus stops,
letting cars around them.  Trolleys could never do that, at least not in
Brighton Center, where traffic is already so bad some people are beginning
to drive on the wrong side of the street for up to two blocks to make a
turn (nothing quite wakes you up in the morning like a Saab coming at you
head on :-) ).

>	Problem: The bus could not go beyond the end of Brighton Ave,
>without installing new power lines, since the can't share them with
>the B line.  You'd have to build a turn around for the buses at the
>corner of Brighton & Comm and there is no room.

Good point! I hadn't thought of that.
>
>
>	What makes you think people won't?  From personal experience I
>know that large numbers of people take the "purple line" in from
>Providence, So. Attleboro, and Attleboro stations.  Why wouldN'T
>people on the South Shore and west of 128 (or 495) make use of the
>commuter rail?  Every been on the SouthEast Expressway or at the
>Weston Tolls at rush hour?
>
>	I belive if public transportation is there and reliable people
>will use it.

Sorry. I should have said it makes more sense to spend money as
cost-efficiently as possible.  I agree people will use quick, reliable
public transportation.  The question, however, is where to use limited
resources, and whether expensive suburban rail lines make more sense than
urban (or even suburban) light-rail lines.  

The T says it has NO money to rebuild the Watertown trolley line, in part
because it's already committed to the South Shore service.  You could
rebuild the entire Watertown line for a fifth the price of the South Shore
line and serve far more people.  Further, given the way the suburbs have
become "edge cities," shouldn't we be looking at ways to deal with
commuting patterns out there, rather than adding another line into Boston?
At some point, these edge cities are going to need their own mass-transit
systems.  Why not an LRV loop along Rte. 9 and down into downtown Natick
and Framingham, for example?
-- 
Adam Gaffin
Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass.
adamg@world.std.com
Voice: (508) 626-3968. Fred the Middlesex News Computer: (508) 872-8461.