F-Line to Dudley
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 9,513
- Reaction score
- 10,257
RE: Reading-Anderson. . .
The state is already floating the idea of adding a terminal infill at 93 & MA 129 (per the Oct. FCMB presentation) to give 93 coverage on this (not the Lowell) schedule. 129's a very weak location for such an infill because there's very little density and a whole lot of wetlands limiting parking capacity at that exit. Now, the fact that they are floating this instead of the much higher-leverage Quannapowitt/128 infill is highly suspect, because anything Reading Highlands can do Quannapowitt can do better. As a minimum, you must do Quannapowitt...and then it becomes a matter of whether the Reading Line should be given parity on I-93 coverage.
That frames the debate. The state is proposing I-93 representation on that line...but the execution is very flawed on priorities and raw location. So for argument's sake we're going to assume they're privvy to some demand numbers RE: 93 that aB is not and try to improve the execution.
Personally, I think Quannapowitt more than satisfies the need because Wakefield's been asking for that one for years and Reading has never shown interest up in the hinterlands by 129. But, again, working assumption is that they know something we don't about the demand so the goal with this pitch is to just wrap up said demand the highest-leverage way possible...way better than the wetlands-constrained density cavity up by 129.
Since doing something else is going to induce a little mission creep, surveying of available properties has to take into account cost reducers. Wilmington Industrial Track already exists, and the power line grading that goes from end-of-track across 93 to West St. and the substation access road already exist. It's also very straight with a maximum of only 2 grade crossings. Those are substantial cost reducers over 'virgin' ROW. The upcoming reconnection of New Boston St. over the Lowell Line with a new overpass serves up a relocation parcel for Fraen Machining...fortuitous for the wye build. That leaves just the Aberjona River watershed as "hard" EIS'ing. Anderson has room to add a 3rd-track platform on the parking lot side to slot the turning Reading trains separate from thru Lowell traffic, and the 200 ft. wide power line ROW south of the station can slot a layover yard.
As a minimum package, you could probably build the single-track connector + double-track provisioned I-93/Inwood Dr. rail bridge for $35-40M. Which is a figure you can easily amortize through pumping up the 128 biz shuttles running radially out of Quannapowitt and Anderson, and developing an enhanced site plan emphasizing the "RTC" in Anderson. That's the cut-rate price with Anderson subbing for 'any' I-93 station. There is also an opportunity to do a survey in the Inwood Dr. area, which is in a thicker part of the industrial park than 129. If you combined Exit 38 and 37C into a longish collector/distributor running jersey-barriered beside the highway you can combine the Commerce Way and (malformed-geometry) 129 exits with an extra midpoint ramp at West St. catching the denser part of Industrial Way/Inwood Dr. That would drive up the price a bit by inducing the MassHighway angle, and if doing that you would want to site an infill station at West/Inwood. But it would fit better than the state's 129 location at placing the stop where the jobs are. You would just need to do the collector/distributor project to make sure the stop is where the jobs is where the exit is where the parking all go.
'Circuits' aren't that challenging when one of the lines in question is as under-capacity as Lowell and there is some utility in freeing up the 495 & NH schedules from too much intra-128 duty. Nothing routed this way would be any harder to dispatch than today's combo Haverhill/Reading schedule, because mashing the inner half with the outer half induces all kinds of dwell delays and Pan Am is not a good neighbor at keeping out of the way Andover-north. So the thru Haverhill schedules (in any Reading RER) universe are a lot more nimble, while interlining Lowell and Reading isn't half as difficult as the Andover-Lawrence stretch. That shouldn't be any problem.
The catch is what's the cost-benefit? And I just don't know, because the state is seeing something in that Route 129 proposal that I'm not seeing demand-wise. But I'm not sure if that's because there's real demand by the industrial park and they just overshot the location by picking that very poor 129 location, or if their whole reasoning top-to-bottom is suspect. RER service in any form wouldn't hinge on this build, because the upgrade package for getting Reading up-to-snuff with 15 minute turns has long been well-known and isn't a back-breaker. You mainly run into problems after a decade or two's growth makes the 15-min. headways--especially at the split with the Eastern Route in Somerville--much more brittle on reliability and hit a very hard set of choices with NSRL because no on-footprint upgrades will be enough to make the line pair-match with a southside schedule without crappy reliability. At that point...but not before...you've got megaproject choices to make: start mass-zapping grade crossings and tearing the crap out of Medford-Malden for more tracks, or do the Orange Line conversion because costs for the same crossing eliminations will be much cheaper at HRT grades. The Anderson connector doesn't have any bearing on those decisions, so is at least a basic-enough prospect to evaluate by its lonesome. It doesn't have a lot of system-wide coattails, so if there's any overpay involved it's neat/tidy and self-contained.
The state is already floating the idea of adding a terminal infill at 93 & MA 129 (per the Oct. FCMB presentation) to give 93 coverage on this (not the Lowell) schedule. 129's a very weak location for such an infill because there's very little density and a whole lot of wetlands limiting parking capacity at that exit. Now, the fact that they are floating this instead of the much higher-leverage Quannapowitt/128 infill is highly suspect, because anything Reading Highlands can do Quannapowitt can do better. As a minimum, you must do Quannapowitt...and then it becomes a matter of whether the Reading Line should be given parity on I-93 coverage.
That frames the debate. The state is proposing I-93 representation on that line...but the execution is very flawed on priorities and raw location. So for argument's sake we're going to assume they're privvy to some demand numbers RE: 93 that aB is not and try to improve the execution.
Personally, I think Quannapowitt more than satisfies the need because Wakefield's been asking for that one for years and Reading has never shown interest up in the hinterlands by 129. But, again, working assumption is that they know something we don't about the demand so the goal with this pitch is to just wrap up said demand the highest-leverage way possible...way better than the wetlands-constrained density cavity up by 129.
Since doing something else is going to induce a little mission creep, surveying of available properties has to take into account cost reducers. Wilmington Industrial Track already exists, and the power line grading that goes from end-of-track across 93 to West St. and the substation access road already exist. It's also very straight with a maximum of only 2 grade crossings. Those are substantial cost reducers over 'virgin' ROW. The upcoming reconnection of New Boston St. over the Lowell Line with a new overpass serves up a relocation parcel for Fraen Machining...fortuitous for the wye build. That leaves just the Aberjona River watershed as "hard" EIS'ing. Anderson has room to add a 3rd-track platform on the parking lot side to slot the turning Reading trains separate from thru Lowell traffic, and the 200 ft. wide power line ROW south of the station can slot a layover yard.
As a minimum package, you could probably build the single-track connector + double-track provisioned I-93/Inwood Dr. rail bridge for $35-40M. Which is a figure you can easily amortize through pumping up the 128 biz shuttles running radially out of Quannapowitt and Anderson, and developing an enhanced site plan emphasizing the "RTC" in Anderson. That's the cut-rate price with Anderson subbing for 'any' I-93 station. There is also an opportunity to do a survey in the Inwood Dr. area, which is in a thicker part of the industrial park than 129. If you combined Exit 38 and 37C into a longish collector/distributor running jersey-barriered beside the highway you can combine the Commerce Way and (malformed-geometry) 129 exits with an extra midpoint ramp at West St. catching the denser part of Industrial Way/Inwood Dr. That would drive up the price a bit by inducing the MassHighway angle, and if doing that you would want to site an infill station at West/Inwood. But it would fit better than the state's 129 location at placing the stop where the jobs are. You would just need to do the collector/distributor project to make sure the stop is where the jobs is where the exit is where the parking all go.
'Circuits' aren't that challenging when one of the lines in question is as under-capacity as Lowell and there is some utility in freeing up the 495 & NH schedules from too much intra-128 duty. Nothing routed this way would be any harder to dispatch than today's combo Haverhill/Reading schedule, because mashing the inner half with the outer half induces all kinds of dwell delays and Pan Am is not a good neighbor at keeping out of the way Andover-north. So the thru Haverhill schedules (in any Reading RER) universe are a lot more nimble, while interlining Lowell and Reading isn't half as difficult as the Andover-Lawrence stretch. That shouldn't be any problem.
The catch is what's the cost-benefit? And I just don't know, because the state is seeing something in that Route 129 proposal that I'm not seeing demand-wise. But I'm not sure if that's because there's real demand by the industrial park and they just overshot the location by picking that very poor 129 location, or if their whole reasoning top-to-bottom is suspect. RER service in any form wouldn't hinge on this build, because the upgrade package for getting Reading up-to-snuff with 15 minute turns has long been well-known and isn't a back-breaker. You mainly run into problems after a decade or two's growth makes the 15-min. headways--especially at the split with the Eastern Route in Somerville--much more brittle on reliability and hit a very hard set of choices with NSRL because no on-footprint upgrades will be enough to make the line pair-match with a southside schedule without crappy reliability. At that point...but not before...you've got megaproject choices to make: start mass-zapping grade crossings and tearing the crap out of Medford-Malden for more tracks, or do the Orange Line conversion because costs for the same crossing eliminations will be much cheaper at HRT grades. The Anderson connector doesn't have any bearing on those decisions, so is at least a basic-enough prospect to evaluate by its lonesome. It doesn't have a lot of system-wide coattails, so if there's any overpay involved it's neat/tidy and self-contained.
