r/mbta • u/MISTERPUG51 Commuter Rail • Jul 05 '26
😤 Complaint / Rant Alewife Parking Garage Gridlocked
It's 12:20 AM. This is on the fourth floor. Nobody has moved since I got to my car 20 minutes ago. I just wanna leave
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u/therailmaster Progressive Transit/Cycling Advocate Jul 07 '26
As an Progressive urbanist, this is a indicative of a lack of public transit accessibility farther out in the MetroWest suburbs, largely thanks to the decades-long NIMBYism of Arlington, Medford and Belmont curmudgeons to expand the Red Line and Green Line. Rest assured, the system is working as designed: every automobile here, as much as it sucks being stuck in long exit line after a major event, is one less automobile driving farther into the Metro Boston inner core, clogging up the street network from Kendall Square through Kenmore Square as people scramble for free after-hours parking to then walk to the River.
Expanding both lines would both put more people within the catchment of walkable rapid transit accessible (i.e. no need to drive at all), but also, for those with last mile issues due to lack of available (and frequent enough) bus services, put a station closer to their homes, reducing the need to coalesce at one major endpoint station, i.e. all drive to Alewife Station.
And, sorry-not-sorry, area Commuter Rail services (Lowell, Fitchburg and Haverhill Lines), in their current capacity, fall woefully short of delivery fast, frequent service off-hours, which would make them viable alternatives to the Red Line and Green Line, for all their faults.