To the Editor,

Although the notion of a light rail sub-branch through Newton Upper Falls, between Newton Highlands and Needham Heights, to support new development there has some very localized appeal and logic (and I am certainly an enthusiast for public transportation expansion), the Aug. 30 Newton Beacon opinion piece titled “For transit, Newton’s past may be the key to our future,” did not acknowledge some serious system level obstacles to such a proposal being realized.

Is the proposal to make people change trains at Newton Highlands, either from the Needham sub-branch or from the Riverside sub-branch, which is currently the D Line’s only terminus?

This might be similar to the Mattapan line pictured in the article, which connects at Ashmont station without through service. If making passengers change trains is not part of the proposal, the trains would have to run all the way through to the other end of the D Line, which now goes to Union Square in Somerville, and this is easier said than done. The central bottleneck in the system is not on the Newton portions of the service, but instead in the subway portion in Boston, where trains from the B, C, D, and E lines are often only about a minute apart.

Adding service out near the end of the D Line, branching off in Newton Highlands would mean twice as many D trains, which does not seem feasible in the subway section, or cutting the service in half west of Newton Highlands so that, on average, every other train goes to Needham or Riverside.

I would be surprised if there is widespread support for cutting service to Riverside station in half. Creating sub-branches of existing transit service is a much more challenging prospect than adding all-new lines without overlap or extending an existing line beyond its current terminus.

Sincerely,

Bill Humphrey
Former Newton City Councilor for Ward 5