Crazy Transit Pitches

Scalziand said:
No times for Worcester?
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Opps...

Worcester to Providence - 60mins
Worcester to Boston - 15mins via Express
Worcester to Springfield - 15mins via Express
Worcester to New London - 75 mins
Worcester to Albany - 35mins
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Here's a map I made detailing expansions to the system mainly along or under existing RoW. This sort of build out is probably the least expensive way to widely expand service on the T without lots of tunneling beneath urban roads rife with underground utilities.
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This is an interesting summary of a lot of the common points between previous proposals, but I'm not sure that things like the riverfront subway really count as "easy," even if they're done as cut-and-cover tunnels (by the way, there's no inherent reason why a cut-and-cover tunnel on that route requires removing Storrow Drive).

I may actually try to make a map of things the T actually could do easily (like DMU lines, street-running light rail or existing ROW, etc) so we could get an idea of what a system in twenty years could look like if the T ever got any money. It's worth noting that even in cities devoted to transit projects, like Portland, Denver, and even the Bay Area these days (BART to San Jose may be the only HRT project going when it gets going), progress is 1 line at a time. Asking any transit agency to construct 6 or 7 new lines of any mode is unrealistic within fifty years here, even in places like China it takes twenty. The current 4 lines took about that long. Maps with more than 1 entirely new line really are crazy pitches.
 
Equilibria said:
This is an interesting summary of a lot of the common points between previous proposals, but I'm not sure that things like the riverfront subway really count as "easy," even if they're done as cut-and-cover tunnels (by the way, there's no inherent reason why a cut-and-cover tunnel on that route requires removing Storrow Drive).
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Well right, it's definitely not simple. By "easy" I meant compared with something like tunneling down Beacon St in lieu of riverbank, Stuart St and Essex St in lieu of under the NEC, doing the urban ring tunnels in Brookline etc. The sort of hard, expensive tunneling beneath centuries old city streets that haven't been cleared or mapped for decades at least.
 
Expanded an Older Map...includng Eastern Mass , a New HSR line , Springfield Network....

Eastern Connecticut , Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts Transit Map

New NEC Via Worcester
New York Penn
New Rochelle
White Plains Airport
Danbury
Waterbury
Hartford Union
Manchester
Stafford Springs
MetroWest
Newtown
Back Bay
South Station

Knowledge Corridor Express
Brattleboro
Springfield Riverfront
Windsor Locks
Hartford Union
New Haven State Street
New Haven Union

Knowledge Corridor Local
Brattleboro
Greenfield
South Deerfield
Northampton
Holyoke
Willimansett
Ferry Lane
Springfield Riverfront
Long Meadow
Thompsonville
Windsor Locks
Windsor
North End
Hartford Union
Parkville
Newington
Berlin
Meriden
Wallingford
North Haven
Fair Haven
New Haven State Street
New Haven Union

Western Line
Westfield
West Springfield
Springfield Union
East Springfield
Indian Orchard
Palmer
Warren
West Brookfield
Rochdale
Hadwen Park
University Park - South Worcester
Worcester Union
(Limited peak service to Boston)

Central Corridor
Brattleboro
Northfield
Amherst
Palmer
Stafford Springs
Storrs
Williamantic
Norwich
Mohegan
New London

New London Link
Worcester Union
Auburn
Oxford
Webster
Putnam
Danielson
Jewett City
Norwich
Mohegan
New London


Shore Line East Extension (limited Service)
New London
Groton
Noank
Mystic
Stonington
Westerly
 
For the commuter rail section, did you omit the Kingston spur deliberately, or just for the sake of brevity?
 
It's really the Kingston line, with a barely used Plymouth spur which ends 1.5 miles too soon.
 
Nexis4jersey said:
Shore Line East Extension (limited Service)
New London
Groton
Noank
Mystic
Stonington
Westerly
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Noank and Stonington stations are both entirely superflous in light of any Groton station (for the former) and Mystic/Westerly Stations (for the latter.)

That having been said - why limited service? There's no reason for this service to be 'limited.' It's a terminally underserved market as it is, given the abysmal number of trains that stop at either Westerly or Mystic - let alone both.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
Noank and Stonington stations are both entirely superflous in light of any Groton station (for the former) and Mystic/Westerly Stations (for the latter.)

That having been said - why limited service? There's no reason for this service to be 'limited.' It's a terminally underserved market as it is, given the abysmal number of trains that stop at either Westerly or Mystic - let alone both.
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Limited is bi-direction service every 2hrs with peak 30min services....its not that bad....
 
Nexis4jersey said:
Limited is bi-direction service every 2hrs with peak 30min services....its not that bad....
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That's bad. That's real bad.

Should be hourly service, each way, all day. Run a few extra trains around peak times and call that peak service if you must, but it's not necessary.

I'd honestly be a bit bullish and go for a train every 45 minutes from start of service to end of service, nothing extra during peak times, but that's just me. 60 only or even 60/30 is a perfectly fine start.

Every two hours is insane.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
That's bad. That's real bad.

Should be hourly service, each way, all day. Run a few extra trains around peak times and call that peak service if you must, but it's not necessary.

I'd honestly be a bit bullish and go for a train every 45 minutes from start of service to end of service, nothing extra during peak times, but that's just me. 60 only or even 60/30 is a perfectly fine start.

Every two hours is insane.
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Find a way to get rid of the Stonington grade crossings and you can probably have that. The reason the town has blocked every attempt to date to study grade separation is that it's a NIMBY wedge to limit train traffic. SLE could easily run a full schedule to New London and probably will after the Conn River Bridge is replaced, but balancing a full commuter schedule with every Amtrak to Westerly scrapes against the upper limit of allowable moves through the grade crossings. Stonington took that pound of flesh as collateral for allowing the wires to go up, the speeds to go up, and a couple of their other grade crossings to go in the late-90's.

Frankly, I think the state has got a better shot of putting the pressure on those spoiled brats if they'd only zap the one in Waterford (which is an easy one that the town wants gone because it was the site of a fatal accident several years ago) and the one in Groton, limiting the remaining crossings to just the Stonington half-dozen and the 3 at New London station that are low traffic impact, low safety risk, and near physically impossible to eliminate. But CT itself lost interest in the eliminations 15 years ago.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Find a way to get rid of the Stonington grade crossings and you can probably have that. The reason the town has blocked every attempt to date to study grade separation is that it's a NIMBY wedge to limit train traffic. SLE could easily run a full schedule to New London and probably will after the Conn River Bridge is replaced, but balancing a full commuter schedule with every Amtrak to Westerly scrapes against the upper limit of allowable moves through the grade crossings. Stonington took that pound of flesh as collateral for allowing the wires to go up, the speeds to go up, and a couple of their other grade crossings to go in the late-90's.

Frankly, I think the state has got a better shot of putting the pressure on those spoiled brats if they'd only zap the one in Waterford (which is an easy one that the town wants gone because it was the site of a fatal accident several years ago) and the one in Groton, limiting the remaining crossings to just the Stonington half-dozen and the 3 at New London station that are low traffic impact, low safety risk, and near physically impossible to eliminate. But CT itself lost interest in the eliminations 15 years ago.
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All those crossings are going to have to go eventually, anyway, aren't they?

I'm still not sure why the 3 at New London are nearly impossible to eliminate, either. You've already got some awful speed penalties coming your way from that S-Curve, adding a 1% or even a 0.5% grade to jack the tracks up about 10 feet isn't going to hurt you any worse. The curve is already complicating (read: raising the price on) matters on making those platforms high-level, and they're going to have to be high-leveled because M8s can't do low-platform boarding. No matter what, something needs to happen to the grade crossing at the station itself: at present, there's literally no way to cross the tracks once the gates come down. You're on the wrong platform for your train? You just missed it, sorry!

Here, this is what I came up with. Added bonus? +16' 9" to clearance at Shaw's Cove, which might get the Marine Trade NIMBY's to actually shut up when combined with the higher clearances on the reconstructed CONN/NAN bridges.

Speaking of movable bridges, it's a nice starting point for if the bridge over the Thames River ever gets elevated to the same height as I-95.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
All those crossings are going to have to go eventually, anyway, aren't they?

I'm still not sure why the 3 at New London are nearly impossible to eliminate, either. You've already got some awful speed penalties coming your way from that S-Curve, adding a 1% or even a 0.5% grade to jack the tracks up about 10 feet isn't going to hurt you any worse. The curve is already complicating (read: raising the price on) matters on making those platforms high-level, and they're going to have to be high-leveled because M8s can't do low-platform boarding. No matter what, something needs to happen to the grade crossing at the station itself: at present, there's literally no way to cross the tracks once the gates come down. You're on the wrong platform for your train? You just missed it, sorry!

Here, this is what I came up with. Added bonus? +16' 9" to clearance at Shaw's Cove, which might get the Marine Trade NIMBY's to actually shut up when combined with the higher clearances on the reconstructed CONN/NAN bridges.

Speaking of movable bridges, it's a nice starting point for if the bridge over the Thames River ever gets elevated to the same height as I-95.
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Won't work. That's a public pier...you have to be able to pull boats out of the water and onto a flatbed there. So no overhead bridges that prevent an overheight load. And, no, they can't tell the boats to go screw...the legal authority probably isn't there, and there are security reasons for keeping a clearance route open to the ferry terminal. This was why Groton rejected the original proposal to elevate the tracks over School St. It would've crippled Mystic Shipyard. In that area at least they could bridge over the tracks with a new access road (they're open to this idea). New London doesn't have the space.

Also, the operative words are "ain't gonna hurt you any worse". The curve is severely speed-restricted. It would be severely speed restricted...probably even moreso...on an elevated with the street grid offering no give to straighten even slightly. So there is no benefit whatsoever in plonking a half-billion to elevate the tracks for the exact same speed. It's meeting the technical definition of "look, it's grade separated" without any of the substantive benefits of grade separation. These aren't high-traffic crossings...they're primarily pedestrian. And not high safety risk crossings because the trains physically can't go faster.

Eliminations of all crossings BUT the New London trio are long overdue. Waterford and Groton want it, and all but possibly the one at the Elihiu Island causeway and at Mystic station are pretty straightforward in Stonington. But ultimately if elimination makes the trains go absolutely no faster and keeping them makes the trains go absolutely no slower...it ain't worth spending the money for technical perfection. There's no technical perfection to be had there. Unfortunately the NYNH&H didn't think to bypass downtown New London for a straighter route in the late 19th century like it did when it downgraded the old Groton main for an inland bypass...before the area got too built up.


The M8's can stop at the mini-high but it's going to be 2-car boarding until they reconfigure the station. No designs have been tossed around because the station itself is privately owned...more stakeholders to agree with than just Amtrak and CTDOT. It'll happen, but probably will involve abandoning the south-of-crossing platformlet for a northerly platform extension to full-length and some invasive reshaping of Water St. and/or the ferry terminal parking lot.


Thames Bridge was just fully renovated in 2008. And the current Shaw's Cove Bridge was built in 1984. Nobody's touching those again before 2060. They are done with east-of-New Haven movable bridges after the Conn River span gets replaced with its planned higher bascule.
 
There done with the Northeast Corridor in terms of replacing bridges from New Haven up to Boston. The Canton Viaduct will be 4 tracked but thats about it.... Everything between New Haven and New York will be replaced like the South Norwalk Swing , Pelham Bay Bridge , and Wesport Bridge , others will be renovated like the Stradford and Hell Gate bridge. Between NY and DC movable bridges will become fixed , like the Portal Bridge , 2 Movable bridges in Maryland , there will also be a replacing or renovating all all PRR Viaducts as part of the Northeastern Rail Upgrade....

There will also be tunnel replacements in Baltimore , Philly and NY , all 3 will be replaced....the Newer tunnels will carry High speed rail and Intercity Rail , the older tunnels will be closed for 2 years renovated and reopened for commuter/regional rail...

There will also be Grade Separated Interchanges either upgraded or expanded in DC , Baltimore , Delaware , Pennsylvania , New Jersey , New York , and Connecticut to allow the regional rail expansion to go as planned without conflicting with Amtraks plans...
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Also, the operative words are "ain't gonna hurt you any worse". The curve is severely speed-restricted. It would be severely speed restricted...probably even moreso...on an elevated with the street grid offering no give to straighten even slightly. So there is no benefit whatsoever in plonking a half-billion to elevate the tracks for the exact same speed. It's meeting the technical definition of "look, it's grade separated" without any of the substantive benefits of grade separation. These aren't high-traffic crossings...they're primarily pedestrian. And not high safety risk crossings because the trains physically can't go faster.

Eliminations of all crossings BUT the New London trio are long overdue. Waterford and Groton want it, and all but possibly the one at the Elihiu Island causeway and at Mystic station are pretty straightforward in Stonington. But ultimately if elimination makes the trains go absolutely no faster and keeping them makes the trains go absolutely no slower...it ain't worth spending the money for technical perfection. There's no technical perfection to be had there. Unfortunately the NYNH&H didn't think to bypass downtown New London for a straighter route in the late 19th century like it did when it downgraded the old Groton main for an inland bypass...before the area got too built up.


The M8's can stop at the mini-high but it's going to be 2-car boarding until they reconfigure the station. No designs have been tossed around because the station itself is privately owned...more stakeholders to agree with than just Amtrak and CTDOT. It'll happen, but probably will involve abandoning the south-of-crossing platformlet for a northerly platform extension to full-length and some invasive reshaping of Water St. and/or the ferry terminal parking lot.


Thames Bridge was just fully renovated in 2008. And the current Shaw's Cove Bridge was built in 1984. Nobody's touching those again before 2060. They are done with east-of-New Haven movable bridges after the Conn River span gets replaced with its planned higher bascule.
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Okay, fine, so go in the other direction and sink the tracks at the station. A 1% decline solves the same access problems and there's still enough room to make that grade work - not to mention, finding some way to grade separate the station itself is less "striving for technical perfection" and more "striving to give would-be passengers exiting the station as the train arrives ANY WAY AT ALL TO GET ON THE PLATFORM." Right now, you can't. I've been there and you can't do it, there's no way to cross the tracks once the train is stopped. That's not a real huge problem yet, but you're really going to tell me it's going to be all well and fine once the station is actually in use as a terminal? It's not. Especially not when you've got 2-car boarding on what's guaranteed to be a eight-car train that's going to end up hanging uselessly over the crossing itself nine times out ten.

The alternative, of course, is to add one of those staircase-and-elevator constructions like at Kingston or Old Saybrook, or a pedestrian tunnel like Westerly's, and then zap the crossing at the station itself. Hell, for good measure, zap the Bank Street Connector too - that entire stretch on the other side of the tracks is connected and traversable. There's no need to have three crossings doing the job of one. I mean, sure, that still leaves us with one crossing, but it might be kind of cool to throw it up for public shame and ridicule as the only grade crossing left on the Shoreline. Make a grand show out of it.

There's more reasons than "it'll make the trains go faster" to eliminate grade crossings. They've fallen out of favor for a reason.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
Okay, fine, so go in the other direction and sink the tracks at the station. A 1% decline solves the same access problems and there's still enough room to make that grade work - not to mention, finding some way to grade separate the station itself is less "striving for technical perfection" and more "striving to give would-be passengers exiting the station as the train arrives ANY WAY AT ALL TO GET ON THE PLATFORM." Right now, you can't. I've been there and you can't do it, there's no way to cross the tracks once the train is stopped. That's not a real huge problem yet, but you're really going to tell me it's going to be all well and fine once the station is actually in use as a terminal? It's not. Especially not when you've got 2-car boarding on what's guaranteed to be a eight-car train that's going to end up hanging uselessly over the crossing itself nine times out ten.

The alternative, of course, is to add one of those staircase-and-elevator constructions like at Kingston or Old Saybrook, or a pedestrian tunnel like Westerly's, and then zap the crossing at the station itself. Hell, for good measure, zap the Bank Street Connector too - that entire stretch on the other side of the tracks is connected and traversable. There's no need to have three crossings doing the job of one. I mean, sure, that still leaves us with one crossing, but it might be kind of cool to throw it up for public shame and ridicule as the only grade crossing left on the Shoreline. Make a grand show out of it.

There's more reasons than "it'll make the trains go faster" to eliminate grade crossings. They've fallen out of favor for a reason.
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1) You can't sink the tracks 50 feet from a pier. They were already underwater for days during Hurricane Sandy. In a 20-25 ft. cut it would act like a giant catch-basin from the overtopped ferry terminal and as a new "canal" from Shaw's Cove. Instead of being out-of-service for a couple days during a flood, you'd have no intercity service east of Old Saybrook for a week or more every single time. And not just in 50-year flood events like Sandy...we're talking once or twice a year. You can't build flood walls from the pier because of the street grid bisecting it, and no pump system or trackside flood doors are going to prevent the ROW from turning into Shaw's Cove Canal. If it's absolutely necessary to do something to this stretch, DON'T MAKE IT TEN TIMES WORSE.

2) You can't achieve 1% grades in that location when the NECR mainline junctions and goes over a bridge less than 500 feet away from the platform. State Pier's a major freight terminal, and SLE's layover yard is supposed to be built on the cleared land over that bridge. Forget about relocating that junction...you've got the Gold Star Bridge, the State Pier Rd. overpass, Thames draw, the NECR bridge, 5 bridgelets on the NEC all within a 1000 ft. radius, and NECR has to have 22 ft. clearance (25 ft. if there's any overhead wires) to offload double-stack freight cars at the pier. Whatever you draw on a map to solve all these conflicts, it is >$1B, does not solve the curvature issues, and likely penalizes speeds worse than if you did nothing at all because of the grades required.


This is why Amtrak wants an Inland HSR route. The Shoreline is almost totally tapped out of improvements between New Haven and Westerly. They've got a couple passing sidings to add, the higher replacement Conn River Bridge to build in Old Saybrook, and can zap 6 or 7 of the 11 grade crossings pretty straightforwardly. But that's about it inside CT's borders. There isn't wiggle room for much else, and the above list will probably bee 100% accomplished by 2025. They are much, much more constrained here than they are DC-NHV where there's still shitloads of improvements to be realized on the existing ROW, or Westerly-Boston where tri-tracking capacity and commuter rail mitigation opens up a lot of slack space and the straightaways allow for 160+ MPH. But you're not fixing the Shoreline without bypassing it. Technical perfection ain't happening here. That point's already been long conceded.
 
Nexis4jersey said:
There done with the Northeast Corridor in terms of replacing bridges from New Haven up to Boston. The Canton Viaduct will be 4 tracked but thats about it.... Everything between New Haven and New York will be replaced like the South Norwalk Swing , Pelham Bay Bridge , and Wesport Bridge , others will be renovated like the Stradford and Hell Gate bridge. Between NY and DC movable bridges will become fixed , like the Portal Bridge , 2 Movable bridges in Maryland , there will also be a replacing or renovating all all PRR Viaducts as part of the Northeastern Rail Upgrade....

There will also be tunnel replacements in Baltimore , Philly and NY , all 3 will be replaced....the Newer tunnels will carry High speed rail and Intercity Rail , the older tunnels will be closed for 2 years renovated and reopened for commuter/regional rail...

There will also be Grade Separated Interchanges either upgraded or expanded in DC , Baltimore , Delaware , Pennsylvania , New Jersey , New York , and Connecticut to allow the regional rail expansion to go as planned without conflicting with Amtraks plans...
Click to expand...

Canton's not being quad-tracked. Historic bridge (1835 construction), and the stonework is too structurally difficult to modify. Tri-tracking will go to the junction and pick up immediately on the other side. The 2-track constraint has nil effect on even the densest schedules projected out to 2040, so it's a non-issue.
 
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