ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[Pheidippides]

Didn't the last proposal cross highway 8 twice? The new proposed route avoids that.

[danbrotherston]

I guess that means the bike route over the river is cancelled too.

[timc]

I didn't know there was a bike route as part of it. Do you mean where King Street crosses the river?

[KevinL]

The old arch bridge was to be retained as ped/bike only.

[timc]

Oh, that would be nice.

[danbrotherston]

There's an article posted today talking about the new ION alignment. But the reporting is....confusing...at best:

"Keifer said not running the line down Eagle Street is a big and welcome change. The proposed route, made public on Friday, has 60 fewer property impacts and 70 fewer full property buyouts."

How can there be only 60 fewer property impacts if there are 70 fewer full property buyouts...wouldn't a property buyout count as an impact?

Further, when did they state there were 70 full buyouts? I thought we didn't know the extent of the property impacts on the previous plan. This sounds like they're giving credibility to the previous, I believed not-credible, claims by the STOP LRT group that 100 homes would be demolished.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/858...on-trains/

[Elmira Guy]

Well ... it is The Record after all.

[panamaniac]

I just read that as 130 properties affected by the new proposed route.

[Canard]

I only now realized that Eagle is entirely bypassed. This new route is the best of a difficult situation (given the choice in transit technology). Obviously other (elevated) technologies would have avoided much of these problems, but I understand we’re married to Light Rail now, and don’t want a transfer at Fairway.

[KevinL]

Well, it does follow Eagle from King to the CP line, but there are no residences in that section.

[tomh009]

We could technically elevate the LRT tracks, too, but I don't think anyone would have the appetite for those costs.

[kps]

Well, it does follow Eagle from King to the CP line, but there are no residences in that section.

There's AM Wood, though… you can have my splinters when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

[ijmorlan]

I only now realized that Eagle is entirely bypassed. This new route is the best of a difficult situation (given the choice in transit technology).  Obviously other (elevated) technologies would have avoided much of these problems, but I understand we’re married to Light Rail now, and don’t want a transfer at Fairway.

Do you really think the Eagle St. residents would have been OK with an elevated anything down the middle of the street?

I suppose a fully-elevated system might be able to take a totally different route so if that’s the idea I might understand better.

[Canard]

I was thinking more of Siemens' SIPEM (H-Bahn) - I rode two of these systems in Germany last year (photo thread), and they're fantastic. You can't get a guideway much slimmer than this...

But yeah, people hate everything, so I never considered anything other than LRT to be the choice (as it was with Phase 1).

"AM Wood" made me LOL. I'll have to remember that one for future.

[ijmorlan]

I was thinking more of Siemens' SIPEM (H-Bahn) - I rode two of these systems in Germany last year (photo thread, and they're fantastic.  You can't get a guideway much slimmer than this...

But yeah, people hate everything, so I never considered anything other than LRT to be the choice (as it was with Phase 1).

"AM Wood" made me LOL.  I'll have to remember that one for future.  

Those are awesomely slim guideways. One thing I notice about that design is that the switch doesn’t take up much space either — very different from the massive switch installations you see on something like the Las Vegas monorail, with two whole segments of track that slide in and out of position. I wonder if those Siemens switches can be forced or if they need to be lined before being entered trailing-point?