{"id":6383,"date":"2026-05-04T16:17:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vanshnookenraggen.com\/_index\/?p=6383"},"modified":"2026-05-04T17:29:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T22:29:23","slug":"t-dont-want-to-go-to-chelsea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanshnookenraggen.com\/_index\/2026\/05\/t-dont-want-to-go-to-chelsea\/","title":{"rendered":"(T Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Where is Chelsea\u2019s subway station?\u201d A blog post<\/a> last year by the transit advocacy group TransitMatters<\/a> asked this question. Chelsea, a small city of just over 40,000 residents, is not a place that most in the region think much about, let alone have been to. In fact, I\u2019m willing to bet that the most interaction the average Bostonian has had with Chelsea is a brief glimpse of the city\u2019s rooftops as one drives over the Tobin Bridge. Yet, this small city, which has only an infrequent commuter rail station and half-assed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), is as dense as areas of Cambridge, which are well served by the Red Line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zooming out, when one looks at the T map radiating out from central Boston, one can\u2019t help but notice a rather sizable gap between the Orange and Blue Lines to the northeast of the city. While the city of Everett once hosted the Orange Line terminal before it was rerouted along its current alignment in 1975, and Revere has the Blue Line along its shores, Chelsea has never hosted a subway station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The geography that shaped Chelsea<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like much of the northern end of North America, Boston was shaped by massive glaciers<\/a> that covered the continent during the last Ice Age. It was the constant ebb and flow of the ice that over millennia formed a long moraine stretching from New Jersey to the tip of Massachusetts. The result is a string of islands and capes stretching from Long Island in New York to Martha\u2019s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod in Massachusetts.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Boston itself sits in a large basin, imaginatively called the Boston Basin, created when glaciers, over a mile thick in some places, made the area home. The constant movements of the ice built up areas of rock and debris in consistent, elongated hills known as drumlins. The city of Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula, itself a geological formation built out of a series of drumlins. The drumlins have defined Boston as much as the clam chowder or the Red Sox: Beacon Hill, Copps Hill, Mission Hill, Fort Hill, Eagle Hill, Orient Heights, and Bunker Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Topographic map of Revere, Everett, Chelsea and Winthrop, MA. 1890<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Further out, the Boston Basin\u2019s clear edge can be seen in a string of large hills and escarpments through Saugus, Malden, Medford, Arlington, Belmont, Waltham, Needham, and Milton. The most famous of these have been converted into parks: the Blue Hills, Middlesex Fells, and Lynn Woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chelsea, along with Everett and Revere to the north, is home to a cluster of drumlins that are sandwiched between the Mystic River and Chelsea Creek, and in the north, the Rumney Marsh. The difficult topography and large wetlands that surrounded the area limited residential growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As railroads sprang up around Boston and reached out towards surrounding towns and cities, they needed to contend with these geographic impediments. The cheapest solution was always to bypass large hills. When the Eastern Railroad<\/a> built its line through Chelsea, it needed to avoid the large hills to the north, opting to instead cut through the Rumney Marsh on its way to Lynn. Similarly, the railroad built its line to Saugus through Everett and Malden in a more circuitous route that avoided the same hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERy vs Bay State Railway<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Map of the BERy system in 1907. Note the dashed line at the top right, showing Bay State lines to the northeast.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Boston Elevated Railway Co<\/a>. (BERy), which built and operated the first subway in the United States, ran a near<\/em> monopoly on streetcars in Boston and surrounding suburbs. But BERy wasn\u2019t alone. A few other operators ran streetcars between Boston and distant towns. One of these companies was the Boston and Northern Street Railway, later the Bay State Street Railway<\/a>, and finally known as the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERy had consolidated routes in Boston and its growing suburbs. Bay State ran streetcars and interurbans between Boston and smaller cities such as Lowell, Lynn, Lawrence, Brockton, and Fall River. Importantly, Bay State ran most of the streetcars that ran to and through Chelsea. Bay State had trackage rights on some routes into Boston, such as through Charleston to Haymarket Sq. Elsewhere, riders would have to transfer from BERy to Bay State streetcars and pay a second fare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERy\u2019s monopoly allowed it to build and operate the first subway in Boston, and they designed the system around their existing streetcar network. The very first subway, from Park St to Boylston St, was built simply to take these streetcars off the congested city streets. When heavy rail lines were built (what became the Red and Orange Lines), stations often featured elaborate in-station transfers that would bring streetcars to the same level as the subway for an easy cross-platform transfer.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Boston Transit Commission map showing an early version of the East Boston Tunnel along Hanover St that would have fed directly into the Green Line. Around 1901.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

BERy built two tunnels for streetcars: the first subway (today, the Green Line) and the East Boston Tunnel (today, the Blue Line). The first subway included a number of locations for loops, where streetcars from neighboring towns would turnback rather than through-running deeper into Boston. This can most plainly be seen at Park St, Government Center (formerly Scollay Sq), and the original North Station stop included a ground-level loop underneath the elevated viaduct. [Due to the many name changes over the years, I\u2019m going to simply use the modern names for stations and lines for clarity.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Blue Line was initially designed to connect directly to the Green Line near present-day Government Center with through service between Boston and East Boston. Initial plans called for the tunnel to link up with the loop tracks under Hanover and Washington Streets, with the tunnel running down Hanover St, turning down Fleet St before passing under the harbor to East Boston. When the route was shifted along State St, an at-grade track connection was planned at the southern end of Government Center station. The original Blue Line terminal, Court St, was built at the same level as the Green Line, just to the east of the present station. Court St station was destroyed when the Blue Line was extended west to Bowdoin Sq, which required lowering the tracks under the Green Line.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Maverick Sq station. 1925.Source Boston in Transit<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In East Boston, the Maverick Sq terminal was built with an incline for streetcars to continue into East Boston and two underground loops for tunnel-only service and streetcar turnback service. The East Boston Tunnel saw tremendous ridership coming from East Boston and many of the new beach communities popping up along the shore up to Lynn. Streetcars were how Malden, Everett, and Revere turned into bedroom communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERy streetcars connected these new suburban communities to its network at the palatial Sullivan Sq terminal and later at the \u201ctemporary\u201d Everett terminal of the Orange Line. But Chelsea, which was primarily served by Bay State instead, was cut off from the larger network and cut off from Boston by two water crossings. Distance and hard terrain made these areas difficult places to develop and limited the prospects for an expensive rail rapid transit service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tunnel plans<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Chelsea swing bridge across the Mystic River. 1935. City of Boston Archives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As BERy consolidated its hold on transit around greater Boston, Bay State was struggling. It was locked out of the more lucrative routes in Boston, and its routes between smaller cities faced competition from steam railroads, as well as a small but growing number of automobiles. Bay State had only one direct link to the subway at Haymarket Sq, but this was only possible via a trackage agreement with BERy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bay State ran their streetcars over the Chelsea Bridge, a swing bridge that spanned the Mystic River between Charlestown and Chelsea. The bridge had to be opened to allow ships to pass, which delayed street traffic. The alternative route to Maverick Sq crossed a similar bridge with the same issues and required riders to pay a second fare to transfer. While BERy ran a popular streetcar line between Maverick Sq and Chelsea, Bay State lines served enough riders coming from further out that planners saw the potential for an additional subway to Chelsea.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Map showing two alternative routes for a new tunnel to Chelsea. 1913. Source Boston in Transit<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Boston Transit Commission, the state entity responsible for coordinating planning and construction with BERy, developed a plan to build a tunnel from Haymarket Sq to Chelsea, bypassing the Chelsea Bridge. Two routes were considered: <\/p>\n\n\n\n