Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail
There may be cases where helping the most economically disadvantaged populations may be a bigger priority than maximizing ridership.
Yes, helping the most economically disadvantaged is a worthy goal. Show me a study that actually shows that this is the best way to spend money, vs other expenditures that actually benefit either this geographical population or an equivalent number of disadvantaged people in the state, and I'll agree that this is a worthy project. Simply crying out that SE MA has a lot of poor and unemployed people, AND has no mass transit, does not mean that building mass transit to SE MA is the way to help that region best.
Again I think you're missing the point. I already said I wouldn't spend billions on this project (the Stoughton line). How the fuk hard is it to run a train down an existing in use track? Build bare bones stations and let the ridership grow from there.
Actually, as someone else already stated, that's where the biggest expense comes in. So no, that in of itself adds nothing to the argument to build this thing.
I'd also say your first paragraph smacks of elitism. Boston has available jobs be it in biotech, finance, medical, academia, hospitality/tourism even (no, not just desk clerks and room cleaners) that may not be 6 figure incomes, but offer far more opportunity than what SE Mass has currently.
Actually, no, you're wrong: you are the one who is talking about the region being economically disadvantaged, and Boston having a shortage of workers, and I responded by referring to frequent recent news articles that the biggest unfilled positions in the Boston area are in food services, which don't pay particularly well. Please be careful about levying accusations simply because someone disagrees with your standpoint.
You have maybe half a million people in that area (Taunton-FR-NB and neighboring communities) with zero mass transit.
I knew several people who commuted from Taunton to downtown to work at my former employer (a finance co) for example. It benefits the city if those jobs can be filled by people who can live off of the salary they provide. That is accomplished with a transit connection. Obviously its up to the denizens of this area to utilize this new connection. No argument there. But if you can make that happen at a fraction of the cost of the ridiculous swamp crossing option, why wouldn't you?
It's a tiresome argument that the mere presence of a population base and a nearby city is sufficient to make a massive transit project worthwhile; this is exactly how wasteful projects get justified and built. First, "bare bones" is not a great option because if you're going to get people to ride the train, you've gotta run it on a decent schedule. It also has to affordable enough to make people feel it's worth it. AND, this trip is not gonna be all that quick. That's a big problem... You can talk about your population base all you want, but the population is spread out all over and you're gonna need to have people drive to the train station (that's time, and parking $), then sit on the train (time and $), and then you hope that the job is near SS or else there's gonna be even more commuting and more $. So for many people, you're looking at a very long commute and expense that they might not think is worthwhile.
Again, the numbers I have seen always show an egregiously high cost/new rider for any version of this project. Has that ever happened in this state before? Yes, but that's not a reason to argue to keep doing it. Show me that this is the best possible use of XX billions of dollars to help Southeastern Mass and I'll support it. But I seriously doubt it is, and either way, the real drivers of the project are the local pols and pork barrel, not true transit equity.
