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

Re: North-South Rail Link

So is there a plan to deal with the South Station bottleneck without the NSRL or SSX?

Crazy Transit Pitch - How about building a mini platform in that little alcove near where Gillette is and shifting Old Colony to terminate there?
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

I had an idea to build support for this: A billboard with two pictures of those digital signs that tell you the travel time to a given set of locations. You know '8 miles to Braintree - 14 minutes.'

On one side, you have the 'without NSRL' and on the other you have 'with NSRL.' Obviously, the second side would show a much better travel time than the first. If this was a *really* fancy sign, it would be digital itself, and update just like the actual distance signs would.

Basically, this would be a transit version of the 'If you lived here, you'd be home by now' sign.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

i'm beginning to think of the NSRL, SSX & SST the way i think of seeing Bigfoot or an alien spacecraft...


*you never know..... i once saw a green fireball.

maybe i'll see a TBM tunneling somewhere under Boston, or SST rising in my lifetime.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

NSRL advocates haven't done the project any favors IMHO as its a combination of having no direction while simultaneously downplaying the costs. So, what I'd be looking at for the sake of clarity is:

1) What is the goal
2) What is the real cost
3) How are we paying for it

#1 has been all over the place. Advocating it as a one seat ride for North Shore people to get to South Station has all kinds of merits, but the # of people actually doing this is relatively small so voters probably won't buy into the sticker shock for this reason. If it will make the system more timely and frequent, go with that instead, as well as if it saves money elsewhere (SSX for example).

#2 Sorry, but I don't buy for one second that this project can be done for less than 10's of billions of dollars. Even with improved technology. Comparable projects in Europe and Asia are irrelevant. I'd look more to Seattle and LA and use that as a benchmark. If those places are doing something similar for a reasonable amount, great - use that as a selling point. It strains logic however that the GLX will cost $2-3Bn but this project can get done for only double that.

#3 Another unanswered question. How much are Feds ponying up? Where does extra $$$ come from? Tolls? Taxes? Borrowing? Can't nail this down until #2 is done but this needs to be answered as well. Tax on Weed, Gambling and Hookers should we legalize that ought to take care of it. ;)
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Rover said:
#2 Sorry, but I don't buy for one second that this project can be done for less than 10's of billions of dollars. Even with improved technology. Comparable projects in Europe and Asia are irrelevant. I'd look more to Seattle and LA and use that as a benchmark. If those places are doing something similar for a reasonable amount, great - use that as a selling point. It strains logic however that the GLX will cost $2-3Bn but this project can get done for only double that.
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Not sure about Seattle, but the Regional Connector in L.A. is 1.9 miles at $1.245 billion. It's two LRT tunnels, so presumably the bore is a narrower radius. For this reason, we shouldn't assume the $650 million per mile cost would hold. I suspect the L.A. project is also nowhere near as deep, and some of it is, in fact, at or above grade. So yes, NSRL should cost more than that given the differences in scale and complexity. But five times more sounds about right when we consider those differences.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Nicely done Rover (i love you man).

You exposed Baker with point #1.

You exposed Baker's secret terror fears & motives for pushing a pessimistic NSRL dossier with point #2.

You exposed why Massachusetts Bay could become the next urban craphole with point #3.

i'll quit while i'm ahead.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Rover said:
It strains logic however that the GLX will cost $2-3Bn but this project can get done for only double that.
Click to expand...

The cost of construction for GLX is $1.1 billion.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

^ This is sheer speculation on my part, but, given assumptions we know they made elsewhere, it seems possible or maybe even probable that their all-day-peak-level-service scenarios assume that all/most trains will be run with the current full-length consists (i.e. 6-8 cars) with a full complement of conductors to support all-door boarding. Probably also assuming no proof-of-payment system, so needs conductors for fare collection as well.

(As opposed to shorter consists with fewer crew members and PoP.)

Again, sheer speculation on my part. We’ll have to wait til July and the final report (though would not be surprised if this was not explained in detail).

The general theme with their models seem to be, let’s assume that there are no parallel adoptions of best practice, even if it would be reasonable to assume so (e.g. Charlie integration and PoP).

EDIT: The number in question from my original post was off by an order of magnitude— should be millions, not billions. My apologies.
 
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Re: North-South Rail Link

Riverside: we are asking you to revise a number that says something (anything) costs nearly a TRILLION dollars per year. That's so big an error that it is probably both an -illions problem and a conflation of capital vs operating costs.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Indeed, it was— the all-day-peak-service operating expenses number has been corrected down to ~$900 million, with the posts in question edited to reflect that. Luckily, that number was included in the materials posted online, so I was able to check. My apologies.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

HenryAlan said:
Not sure about Seattle, but the Regional Connector in L.A. is 1.9 miles at $1.245 billion. It's two LRT tunnels, so presumably the bore is a narrower radius. For this reason, we shouldn't assume the $650 million per mile cost would hold. I suspect the L.A. project is also nowhere near as deep, and some of it is, in fact, at or above grade. So yes, NSRL should cost more than that given the differences in scale and complexity. But five times more sounds about right when we consider those differences.
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I am really starting to think just a North Station to West Station CR Tunnel under Cambridge is plan B. Would be about 3 miles of tunnel, but not as deep as needed for NSRL so under $3B might be more realistic given the comparison with other projects like the LA project.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

tangent said:
I am really starting to think just a North Station to West Station CR Tunnel under Cambridge is plan B. Would be about 3 miles of tunnel, but not as deep as needed for NSRL so under $3B might be more realistic given the comparison with other projects like the LA project.
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Was thinking along those lines as well. North station to around the BU Bridge along the Grand Junction tracks. Can even use the bridge to hop over the river. Connect to the tracks there to get to Back Bay and South Station. West Station and Back Bay stops take the place of Central Station.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

tangent said:
I am really starting to think just a North Station to West Station CR Tunnel under Cambridge is plan B. Would be about 3 miles of tunnel, but not as deep as needed for NSRL so under $3B might be more realistic given the comparison with other projects like the LA project.
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I guess I don't see this option as having nearly the benefit of the direct NSRL under the O'Neill Tunnel.

You still end up taking scare surface berths at both North and South Station. And the time from North to South Station would be horrible, so people would still jump on the subway rather than through running. So you would not offload the crowding in the central subway stations.

Really key benefit of NSRL is getting north side passengers to the South Station (and perhaps Back Bay) area, and south and west side passengers to the North Station area efficiently, without use of the central subway stations. Make that a slog, and people will jump from the CR to subway.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

I would think that a link that does not include the Northeast Corridor would have a much more limited utility. Not a replacement for North-South Rail Link
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

JeffDowntown said:
Really key benefit of NSRL is getting north side passengers to the South Station (and perhaps Back Bay) area, and south and west side passengers to the North Station area efficiently, without use of the central subway stations. Make that a slog, and people will jump from the CR to subway.
Click to expand...

What about doing a Red Line branch tunnel? Stop at Aquarium and then North Station. Would be way cheaper I imagine.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

JeffDowntown said:
Really key benefit of NSRL is getting north side passengers to the South Station (and perhaps Back Bay) area, and south and west side passengers to the North Station area efficiently, without use of the central subway stations. Make that a slog, and people will jump from the CR to subway.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's a good selling point IMHO. Too few people actually affected by this vs the price tag that most people are going to see. I agree its a key benefit, but we're going to need more than that to appeal to a wider audience.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

JeffDowntown said:
I guess I don't see this option as having nearly the benefit of the direct NSRL under the O'Neill Tunnel.

You still end up taking scare surface berths at both North and South Station. And the time from North to South Station would be horrible, so people would still jump on the subway rather than through running. So you would not offload the crowding in the central subway stations.

Really key benefit of NSRL is getting north side passengers to the South Station (and perhaps Back Bay) area, and south and west side passengers to the North Station area efficiently, without use of the central subway stations. Make that a slog, and people will jump from the CR to subway.
Click to expand...

Yep. And if we want a direct connection between West Station and North Station, it actually already exists on the surface, so why would we tunnel for that? A full build out West to North would involve some underpasses for car traffic, a second track and some signalling upgrades. No tunnel is required for establishing that service pattern.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

jklo said:
What about doing a Red Line branch tunnel? Stop at Aquarium and then North Station. Would be way cheaper I imagine.
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Would it? I’d be surprised if its much cheaper, since you’re still boring a tunnel under the city, and, on top of that, you might interfere with a future NSRL.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

DominusNovus said:
Would it? I’d be surprised if its much cheaper, since you’re still boring a tunnel under the city, and, on top of that, you might interfere with a future NSRL.
Click to expand...

Plus you're forgoing the real advantage of NSRL which would be an effective capacity increase for both north and south stations plus making it much easier for the northern sector of the commuter rail to get to more of Boston without Boston.

You also have the fact that it's more efficent to go through then it is to stop and turn around.
 
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