Regional Rail (RUR) & North-South Rail Link (NSRL)

[Brattle Loop]

Within 20 years, there will be nothing to deliver freight to in Everett /Chelsea. Development is already started and won't end until 40-50k people live and work there
And for the one train that goes there, a gauntlet track with a middle of the night run would do the job

I'll freely concede that future developments could well end the need for freight service to Everett/Chelsea. (Though, out of curiosity, is the produce market being redeveloped?)
Time separation is a non-starter unless the trackage rights granted to B&M and subsequently inherited by CSX allow the T to restrict freight operations to a specific time (and my understanding was that that is not the case). Attempting to unilaterally force that is illegal, and CSX is not likely to limit themselves (at least, not cheaply).

BLX is not needed with a cross harbor runnel. There is absolutely no reason for North Shore residents to go anywhere on BL except Logan and the CBD. The job density is non-existent and population density is mostly to the West of the ER.

What's the ceiling on throughput for a RR-mode (even with tunnel) Eastern Route? I have a hard time seeing how it's going to be similar, capacity-wise, to HRT. Every so often, people have suggested BLX would be rendered unnecessary without explaining how an un-screwed-up North Shore bus system can properly feed into the transit pipeline, because base-ER-Regional Rail isn't sufficient in terms of frequencies to match HRT's capacity. Are you saying that the tunnel-ER will be able to do that? (Because, if not, and if it's not close, BLX absolutely is still necessary.)

 

[737900er]

80-110 THOUSAND people fly in or out of Logan every day. If 50% took transit, Airport would be the busiest station on the system, by far. If 20% did, it would be the fourth busiest.
BLX is not needed with a cross harbor runnel. There is absolutely no reason for North Shore residents to go anywhere on BL except Logan and the CBD. The job density is non-existent and population density is mostly to the West of the ER.
The highest job density in the CBD is either near SS or along the BL, which will take the same time or less to reach than the present ER route, even with a transfer at Airport.
Have you ridden SL1 during rush? You would not be routing it's utility.

I do think that a convenient link from the NSRL to Logan is a worthwhile consideration. It's not just the passengers, it's also the people who work there; Logan is a big employer, and a lot of the jobs there -- frankly -- don't pay very well. It's also incredibly inconvenient to get to by car when you work there. I just think that some kind of non-kludgey NSRL-Blue connection and Logan APM is a better use of resources, and generates more useful connections, than more tunneling. Going to the airport is one of the few times that people will tolerate a three-seat ride.

 

[Koopzilla24]

The O
Are you unclear on the concept of Regional Rail?

Are you unclear on the concept of rapid transit? What regional rail would realistically come to us that has headways under 15minutes peak? Would said regional rail stop at every Blue Line stop or do people from Lynn and beyond have to come all the way to the airport and then go back out along the route they came to access the beach or other employment opportunities there? Not everything revolves around getting to the financial district, people work elsewhere too. The entire blue line takes about 18min end to end with all the stops in between served. Extending the short 6mi line a further 4mi won’t even double the trip time whilst gaining the utility over regional rail of more stops and shorter headways.

And have 100-200 new hotels opened in Eastie since I moved out?

If you want to get further into the Logan Airport rabbit hole then how many people getting connecting flights each day have one that requires a hotel stay? Common flight connections typically have an hour or two between them, with the extremes being multiple hours, the extreme extremes require long enough stays to necessitate hotels, and of the people we’ve now narrowed it down to, does that exceed the capacity of the 3 hotels at Logan? Now remove those that would rather stay downtown than ant the airport and that’s the number that would be added to those who’s start and end destination is in or beyond Boston.

Again there is a need for a transit capacity increase to and from the airport. Enough to necessitate regional rail being built out to the airport? I don’t think so. There are better alternative for airport-focused transit like an LRT replacement of SL1-3. To tie that back to BLX, extending to Lynn relieves the silver line of people coming from or going to the Newburyport-Rockport catchment area by giving them the option to alight in Lynn and transfer to the Blue Line to the airport rather than driving themselves or going all the way to North Station, etc.

 

[Tallguy]

I'll freely concede that future developments could well end the need for freight service to Everett/Chelsea. (Though, out of curiosity, is the produce market being redeveloped?)
Time separation is a non-starter unless the trackage rights granted to B&M and subsequently inherited by CSX allow the T to restrict freight operations to a specific time (and my understanding was that that is not the case). Attempting to unilaterally force that is illegal, and CSX is not likely to limit themselves (at least, not cheaply).



What's the ceiling on throughput for a RR-mode (even with tunnel) Eastern Route? I have a hard time seeing how it's going to be similar, capacity-wise, to HRT. Every so often, people have suggested BLX would be rendered unnecessary without explaining how an un-screwed-up North Shore bus system can properly feed into the transit pipeline, because base-ER-Regional Rail isn't sufficient in terms of frequencies to match HRT's capacity. Are you saying that the tunnel-ER will be able to do that? (Because, if not, and if it's not close, BLX absolutely is still necessary.)

I see no reason why the ER couldn't run at least as frequently as BL(5 min) and the trains would be 2 ¹/² x as long(and wider)

 

[Riverside]

I'm not a mod, but I'll say this: building a mainline tunnel from Lynn/Revere to South Station via Logan is a classic Crazy Transit Pitch (and would be a good fit for that thread), but it most assuredly is not an alternative to the North South Rail Link. Something to be considered perhaps in addition to, but not instead of.

 

[Tallguy]

I'm not a mod, but I'll say this: building a mainline tunnel from Lynn/Revere to South Station via Logan is a classic Crazy Transit Pitch (and would be a good fit for that thread), but it most assuredly is not an alternative to the North South Rail Link. Something to be considered perhaps in addition to, but not instead of.

Never suggested instead of, but in addition to a single tube NSRL

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'll freely concede that future developments could well end the need for freight service to Everett/Chelsea. (Though, out of curiosity, is the produce market being redeveloped?)
Time separation is a non-starter unless the trackage rights granted to B&M and subsequently inherited by CSX allow the T to restrict freight operations to a specific time (and my understanding was that that is not the case). Attempting to unilaterally force that is illegal, and CSX is not likely to limit themselves (at least, not cheaply).

MassDOT just awarded a $3M grant to rebuild the Everett Terminal trackage for increased business. Mainly for 286,000 lb. loading weight (which the Lowell Line was recently uprated for) to Schnitzer Steel and Climent Cement. It's not going anywhere, and those businesses are served during the daytime.

I'm not sure why we're trying to displace the Eastern to run rapid transit instead. It's a 4-track ROW. The Urban Ring was proposed to be build alongside it at no disruption. Where is displacement even entering the conversation???

 

[Tallguy]

Are you unclear on the concept of rapid transit? What regional rail would realistically come to us that has headways under 15minutes peak? Would said regional rail stop at every Blue Line stop or do people from Lynn and beyond have to come all the way to the airport and then go back out along the route they came to access the beach or other employment opportunities there? Not everything revolves around getting to the financial district, people work elsewhere too. The entire blue line takes about 18min end to end with all the stops in between served. Extending the short 6mi line a further 4mi won’t even double the trip time whilst gaining the utility over regional rail of more stops and shorter headways.



If you want to get further into the Logan Airport rabbit hole then how many people getting connecting flights each day have one that requires a hotel stay? Common flight connections typically have an hour or two between them, with the extremes being multiple hours, the extreme extremes require long enough stays to necessitate hotels, and of the people we’ve now narrowed it down to, does that exceed the capacity of the 3 hotels at Logan? Now remove those that would rather stay downtown than ant the airport and that’s the number that would be added to those who’s start and end destination is in or beyond Boston.

Again there is a need for a transit capacity increase to and from the airport. Enough to necessitate regional rail being built out to the airport? I don’t think so. There are better alternative for airport-focused transit like an LRT replacement of SL1-3. To tie that back to BLX, extending to Lynn relieves the silver line of people coming from or going to the Newburyport-Rockport catchment area by giving them the option to alight in Lynn and transfer to the Blue Line to the airport rather than driving themselves or going all the way to North Station, etc.

There are no jobs. Have you ever looked at a job density map of the area?

 

[Tallguy]

MassDOT just awarded a $3M grant to rebuild the Everett Terminal trackage for increased business. Mainly for 286,000 lb. loading weight (which the Lowell Line was recently uprated for) to Schnitzer Steel and Climent Cement. It's not going anywhere, and those businesses are served during the daytime.

I'm not sure why we're trying to displace the Eastern to run rapid transit instead. It's a 4-track ROW. The Urban Ring was proposed to be build alongside it at no disruption. Where is displacement even entering the conversation???

$500,000, actually

 

[roy_mustang76]

MassDOT just awarded a $3M grant to rebuild the Everett Terminal trackage for increased business. Mainly for 286,000 lb. loading weight (which the Lowell Line was recently uprated for) to Schnitzer Steel and Climent Cement. It's not going anywhere, and those businesses are served during the daytime.

I'm not sure why we're trying to displace the Eastern to run rapid transit instead. It's a 4-track ROW. The Urban Ring was proposed to be build alongside it at no disruption. Where is displacement even entering the conversation???

Because what's really important is giving the North Shore and Newton a Logan Express-on-rails and damn the costs, even if it means we have to break Malden Center's bus terminal to make up for the lost frequencies through Chelsea. Obvi

Seriously, I can't believe we're having this argument all over again. At the very least can this be re-done in Crazy Transit Pitches, like Riverside suggested?

 

[Koopzilla24]

There are no jobs. Have you ever looked at a job density map of the area?

There is no job density map of Boston. What there is is data on total number of jobs by type for the whole city, and the largest employer group in Boston is Health Care and Social Assistance followed by Education. Neither of which are based in the CBD unless you include West End and Chinatown as part of that. The conclusion can be drawn from the employment data and location of particular services that there are more people coming to work in Boston that have a final destination outside of the CBD than in it. NSLR only through the center would be more than enough benefit to cover the totality of Boston’s job market.

 

[Riverside]

There is no job density map of Boston.

While I am loathe to further engage in this discussion, I'll chime in here to point out OnTheMap. It's not exactly a job density map, but it's pretty close.

1. Zoom the map to the area you're interested in
2. Click the "Selection" tab
3. Use the Draw Polygon (Freehand) option and outline the area you want a job density map for
4. Click Confirm Selection and then Perform Analysis on Selected Area
5. On the Analysis Settings screen, choose "Work" in the first column, "Area Profile" and "All Workers" in the second column, 2019 in the third, and "All Jobs" in the fourth (see screenshot below)
6. Click "Go" and play around with the results (and kiss your productivity goodbye)

 

[millerm277]

There is no job density map of Boston. What there is is data on total number of jobs by type for the whole city, and the largest employer group in Boston is Health Care and Social Assistance followed by Education. Neither of which are based in the CBD unless you include West End and Chinatown as part of that. The conclusion can be drawn from the employment data and location of particular services that there are more people coming to work in Boston that have a final destination outside of the CBD than in it. NSLR only through the center would be more than enough benefit to cover the totality of Boston’s job market.

No, it's been studied in somewhat more depth than that. From 2012, you can look here: http://ctps.org/data/calendar/htmls/2014/MPO_0821_Core_Efficiencies.html#_Toc340129032

 

[Koopzilla24]

Thanks for that, was looking through multiple pages of searches and changing search terms but for some reason I could not get a single result depicting density. Must be the way my search is tailored.

 

[Riverside]

Of note: the four-track alt is the only alignment they evaluated which includes a South Bay portal to provide NSRL access to Fairmount service. While I could probably be convinced of the usefulness of a two-track NSRL rather than four-track (obviously preferring four-track), imagining an NSRL without a Fairmount connection seems like a total non-starter to me, for a host of reasons.

I want to return to this and lay out some of the reasons why I think a NSRL w/o a Fairmount connection is a total non-starter.

First: aside from the Providence Line (and potentially SCR Phase 2), the Fairmount Line will almost certainly be the first route electrified end-to-end, able to run without using dual modes -- exactly the kind of service that will be ready to use the NSRL on Day 1 at no additional cost to the project.

Second: in some alternate history, the Fairmount Line was converted to rapid transit nearly a century ago (which was in fact sketched out in one of those BERy studies that are fun to read). The Fairmount Line absolutely should be rapid transit. There are a number of reasons why we won't see conversion away from mainline rail nor total segregation of services in the ROW, but we should still aim to get as close to rapid transit as possible. That should include through-running deeper into downtown (and beyond) further than just a stub-end at South Station. (And yes, this could point to a transfer station at Aquarium.)

Third: in the long-run, more and more Franklin/Foxboro trains will be rerouted onto the Fairmount Line in order free up capacity on the NEC. An NSRL build with only a Back Bay portal will then be limited to three lines: Framingham/Worcester, Providence, and South Coast Rail. This seems penny-wise pound-foolish: we shouldn't be kneecapping a transformational project like this to miss out on a third of Southside ridership. (And the electrification piece comes into play here: in order to "unlock" the Fram/Wor Line, you need to electrify at least to Framingham, increasing the number of dependencies to complete before the NSRL is able to operate at full design efficiency.)

Finally, excluding a South Bay portal also forecloses any possibility of an Old Colony portal (whether on Day 1 or in some future expansion). Why we would go to the trouble of spending ~$10B only to exclude half of the Southside branches? (Particularly given, if my analysis above is correct, that adding another portal only adds an additional $426M to the project cost -- an increase of 4.78% on a $10B project.)

 

[Arlington]

File under Peer Pressure: Chicago's Metra commits to a transition to Regional Rail (all day, clock-face) in Metra's new 5 year plan [pdf]

 

[Stlin]

Metra is also probably the one for the MBTA to watch as far as Commuter Rail system electrification goes too, if the MBTA continues to advance down the road of battery trains. Metra already ordered 3-6 battery conversions of their older F40s, and closed their BEMU RFP in December. (I was hoping that it would be addressed yesterday, but apparently not)

 

[Stlin]

There's lots going on at the T, and well... the indecision appears to extend to CR electrification. The newest slides from the fiscal subcommittee have a FY24-28 CIP Preview, which includes $50 Million for multimode locomotives - presumably, the same ones that they sent out an RFI for back in December. Realistically however, $50m isn't actually enough to buy a substantial fleet of anything, or for the T to be dabbling in unicorns. If we assume that the quantity means they're going off the shelf "exists today," NEC, push-pull compatible, and with a reasonable delivery timetable, I'd be willing to bet that this could only be exercising some of NJT's remaining ALP45 options. But say $50M is enough to buy just about 5 of them, realistically 4 with parts and spares. Is that enough to do anything meaningful to Providence Line ops other than a photo-op?

There's worse possibilities than NJT options, admittedly - Notably, the Chicago Metra battery F40 conversion seems dead in the water as they failed to come to an agreement, and they're going to have to re-bid the thing.

 

[Brattle Loop]

Is that enough to do anything meaningful to Providence Line ops other than a photo-op?

No. You'd need at least seven of them to electrify all the RI->BOS morning-weekday runs alone.

More to the point, why on Earth would they bother? Unless they're going to get serious about electrification, dual modes make less than zero sense as anything but a (stupid) stunt. Does the Sharon substation even have the capacity at present to run them in electric mode? And it's not like you can get major schedule improvements with them (they're heavy as hell, and pulling the same equipment as now).

The only justifiable case for them is in a scenario where electrification is ongoing at sufficient scale to justify an electric fleet, preferably with the DMs sequentially bumped by EMUs. Other than that, why bother?

 

[jklo]

The only justifiable case for them is in a scenario where electrification is ongoing at sufficient scale to justify an electric fleet, preferably with the DMs sequentially bumped by EMUs. Other than that, why bother?

Just to test it out to see how it works. I have serious doubts they will ever electrify the entire existing CR area... so if the legislature is actually serious about preventing the T from using diesel trains at some point, perhaps they can convince the legislature that hybrid is good enough.