Comments on: Purple Line and the Vibration Issue

By: Uncle Rico

Uncle Rico — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:42:21 +0000

As a latecomer to this particular post, I’d like to comment on a couple of things.

1) I assume Dr. Schattenburg meant to reference the Red Line in his email, not the Green Line. (The Green Line never enters MIT’s home town of Cambridge.) The Red Line is buried 25 feet underground as it passes MIT, so it’s not completely apples-to-apples with the Purple Line’s proposed surface routes through the College Park campus.

2) What IS apples-to-apples, though, is the heavy rail (freight) that passes even closer to Dr. Schattenburg’s lab! I don’t know why he neglected to mention it. If you look at that map of the MIT campus, check out the line running between buildings N4 and 44. That’s a surface railroad track! Building 46 was built to span the railway, creating a high-ceiling tunnel for trains to pass through.

As the track heads out beyond building 46, it makes a shallow left turn and passes — look again at the upper right corner of that map — Draper Labs! And the map doesn’t show where the track goes next: directly through the heart of perhaps the biggest concentration of biotech and pharmaceutical research companies and labs on Earth.

Other properties located mere feet from that freight rail track: MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, the Magnet Lab, the Superconducting Test Facility, etc.

Somehow, all those folks and their delicate, high-precision research are doing just fine despite the heavy surface railroad tracks 20-30 feet away.

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By: Carter Hall

Carter Hall — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 02:48:50 +0000

The Stadium Drive alignment has the closest proximity to advanced
laboratory space by a wide margin. And once the physical science
complex is built (expected in 4-5 years), the physics department
will move from its current location at the M circle to the intersection
of Stadium and Regent’s. Then the university could plausibly rename
Stadium Drive as Nanotechnology Way.

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By: Christopher

Christopher — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:49:00 +0000

A research campus of the University of California San Francisco has just been built in the massive Mission Bay project. Bio-tech and research is a major source of the projects tenants — I believe Genentech has a headquarters there now — the whole development is served by the new T-Third Light Rail line and is also adjacent to the existing lines for Caltrain commuter rail to the peninsula. You may consider looking into that, but as @Dexter indicates — this seems like a red herring brought up to instill irrational fears in potential allies.

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By: Joe Dexter

Joe Dexter — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:00:54 +0000

This correspondence is consistent with what MTA has apparently already told campus officials but which the are apparently pretending not to hear so as to continue the UMD fear-mongering campaign among the faculty.

Why doesn’t the Diamondback investigate this issue? Note Dr. Schattenburg’s reference to utility buildings; UM built one on Stadium Drive – just across from the Engineering Building and adjacent to the addition to the Chemistry Building – both of which house sensitive research. Another utility building is being expanded – across from the new BioScience Building mentioned by Clay. Where special precautions taken in the planning and designing of these buildings – or is it just transit that the university is worried about?

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By: Clay

Clay — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:41:41 +0000

Some time ago I attended a pre-construction meeting for the now complete Biosciences research bldg. (143) http://www.umd.edu/ouch/projects/biosciences.shtml

In that meeting there was concern from those with labs in Bio-Psych about vibrations during construction. The planners were adamant that they could reduce the vibrations to acceptable levels. I would think if those folks can handle pylons being driven into the earth 20ft away they could handle light rail on campus drive.

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