The Pleasant Street incline or Pleasant Street portal was the southern access point for the
Tremont Street subway in
Boston, Massachusetts, which became part of the
Green Line after the incline was closed. The portal and the section of tunnel connecting it to
Boylston Boylston may refer to the following communities:
;Canada
* Boylston, Nova Scotia
;United States
* Boylston, Massachusetts
* Boylston, New York
* Boylston, Wisconsin
* Boylston Junction, Wisconsin
It may also refer to:
* Helen Dore Boylston, au ...
served streetcars from 1897 to 1901, Main Line Elevated trains from 1901 to 1908, and streetcars again from 1908 to 1962. The Pleasant Street incline is now abandoned, but plans have been floated at various times to reuse it.
History
Early use
The incline opened on October 1, 1897, one month after the first section of the
Tremont Street subway, allowing
streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...
lines from
Roxbury Roxbury may refer to:
Places
;Canada
* Roxbury, Nova Scotia
* Roxbury, Prince Edward Island
;United States
* Roxbury, Connecticut
* Roxbury, Kansas
* Roxbury, Maine
* Roxbury, Boston, a municipality that was later integrated into the city of Bo ...
,
Dorchester, and points south to operate via the subway. The new tunnel stretched from the outer tracks at
Boylston Boylston may refer to the following communities:
;Canada
* Boylston, Nova Scotia
;United States
* Boylston, Massachusetts
* Boylston, New York
* Boylston, Wisconsin
* Boylston Junction, Wisconsin
It may also refer to:
* Helen Dore Boylston, au ...
south under
Tremont Street, with a four-track portal in the triangle bounded by Tremont Street, Pleasant Street (later part of Broadway), and Shawmut Avenue. The tunnel carried two tracks, splitting into four tracks at a
flying junction
A flying junction or flyover is a railway junction at which one or more diverging or converging tracks in a multiple-track route cross other tracks on the route by bridge to avoid conflict with other train movements. A more technical term is " g ...
near the portal, with the northbound (western) track going over the southbound (eastern) track. The two western tracks continued down Tremont Street, while the eastern tracks turned east on Pleasant Street via Broadway to
City Point in
South Boston
South Boston is a densely populated neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located south and east of the Fort Point Channel and abutting Dorchester Bay. South Boston, colloquially known as Southie, has undergone several demographic transformat ...
.
On June 10, 1901, streetcar service through the portal stopped, as the
Washington Street Elevated
The Washington Street Elevated was an elevated segment of Boston's Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority subway system, comprising the southern stretch of the Orange Line. It ran from Chinatown through the South End and Roxbury, ending i ...
(later part of the
Orange Line) was connected to the two outermost tracks. El trains came out of the portal, stopped at a new
Pleasant Street station with a center island platform in an open cut, passed under Pleasant Street, and then rose onto an elevated structure. Many surface streetcar lines were truncated to , the south end of the new El, until late November 1909.
After the
Washington Street Tunnel opened on November 30, 1908, the elevated trains were rerouted through it, and the streetcars returned to the incline by their old routes, while the Pleasant Street station closed.
Decline
On March 2, 1953, the City Point line was replaced by the
9 bus route. The tracks to Tremont Street, formerly connected to the west tracks of the portal, were realigned to the east tracks, allowing a bus transfer station to be built where the west tracks had been. The Tremont Street line was
bustituted as the
43 route on November 20, 1961, and a streetcar shuttle started between the portal and Boylston, with transfers to the subway. This shuttle was short-lived, ending with closure of the portal on April 6, 1962.
The Pleasant Street portal is now covered by Elliot Norton Park at the intersection of Tremont Street, Shawmut Avenue, and Oak Street West.
Proposed reuse
Reuse of part of the tunnel for the
Silver Line Phase III was briefly considered, but the narrow bore was found too small for the Silver Line buses which (unlike trolleys) are not fixed to their guideway. Plans for the Phase III tunnel were shifted further west to new alignments, then canceled due to questions over the project's cost-effectiveness.
The 2003 Program for Mass Transportation included the possibility of converting the Washington Street section of the
Silver Line to to light rail (as had originally been promised) using the abandoned southern section of the subway to connect to the
central subway at Boylston. However, the Phase III tunnel and continued bus service was recommended instead.
In 2012, the Roxbury-Dorchester-Mattapan Transit Needs Study recommended the conversion to light rail and reuse of the tunnel as a long-term project, with the additional possibility of extending the line down Blue Hill Avenue to
Mattapan
Mattapan () is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. Historically a section of neighboring Dorchester, Mattapan became a part of Boston when Dorchester was annexed in 1870. Mattapan is the original Native American name for the Dorchester ar ...
along the # route.
References
*rtspcc
Questions about history of the Boston subways/els ne.transportation May 2–3, 2005
{{MBTA
Green Line (MBTA)