Crazy Transit Pitches

[TheRatmeister]

How did trains do it back in the day?

With more maintenance and/or looser safety standards.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'm pretty sure that the tracks past Buzzards Bay are jointed rail, not welded rail. If you want to go faster than 30 mph, you'd need to replace the jointed rail with continuous welded rail. It's not likely to happen until the CapeFlyer gets replaced with a full Commuter Rail schedule.

Jointed rail doesn't affect track class. You can run 90 MPH on jointed rail if it's maintained well enough, though it would obviously be a rougher ride than if you did the same on welded rail. Track classes have more to do with how many ties per X feet of track are allowed to be decayed, how tightly the rail must conform to gauge, how worn the rail is allowed to be, and so on. The joints don't really factor, because even Class 8/165 MPH tracks have *some* very occasional joints to them.

The Cape Main tracks east of the bridge are only maintained to Class 2/30 MPH, same as what the Falmouth Branch is for its very occasional Dinner Train runs. It's maximally good-condition Class 2 with fully up-to-spec grade crossings now, but still only Class 2 because of the tie replacement cycles. MassDOT was interested in slowly upgrading the on-Cape rail to Class 3/60 MPH like it has upgraded Middleboro-Buzzards Bay on the mainland since the Flyer's launch, but Cape politicians gave a hard no to that over some cognitive dissonance over the trains being unsafe to pedestrian trespassers at that speed. They thought since people routinely cross the tracks to get to the Canal path that there needed to be a forever speed limit. Really...they were offered it and said hell-no we want people to keep trespassing on the ROW. Tim Cahir, the late former CCRTA president and basically the Train Daddy of Cape Flyer's funding coalition, was really strident about it for some reason. Maybe with him gone they'll start to give it consideration.

Class 3 lets you do a speed limit of 59 MPH, the most you can do without a signal system. In the NYNH&H days the Cape was Class 4/79 MPH just like the Middleboro Line, but it didn't result in speeds higher than 50 because of the on-Cape curves. Again...Class 3-4 is more an idealized maintenance standard for commuter rail-class service and the wear-and-tear reps that entails than a be-all/end-all speed limit thing.

 

[riptide]

Again...Class 3-4 is more an idealized maintenance standard for commuter rail-class service and the wear-and-tear reps that entails than a be-all/end-all speed limit thing.

Why did the New Haven RR pay for 79 MPH track if the ROW geometry limited speeds to 50 MPH in practice? What other “bang for your buck” do you get for making that extra level of expenditure in maintenance, besides higher speeds?

 

[JeffDowntown]

Why did the New Haven RR pay for 79 MPH track if the ROW geometry limited speeds to 50 MPH in practice? What other “bang for your buck” do you get for making that extra level of expenditure in maintenance, besides higher speeds?

Continuously Welded Rail reduces the impacts and shocks of the track joints (increasingly irregular with time) on the wheels and other undercarriage components, significantly reducing rolling stock maintenance. It also provides for a smoother ride, even at the lower speed.

 

[Longfellow]

Maybe we can get some guys together next weekend and some thermite and go weld the rail. We can go to the beach after.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Why did the New Haven RR pay for 79 MPH track if the ROW geometry limited speeds to 50 MPH in practice? What other “bang for your buck” do you get for making that extra level of expenditure in maintenance, besides higher speeds?

As I said, track classes are a maintenance standard, not an aspirational speed limit. There was a lot of traffic on the Cape back in the first half of the 20th century...daily commuter rail, a fat schedule of seasonal extras, long-distance traffic from New York, lots of freight, and lots of military traffic. It was a profitable corridor for them. The number of daily movements was more befitting of Class 4 track than Class 3, so that's what they maintained the track at.

A lot of T lines don't reach above 59 MPH either because of stop spacing, but they choose to maintain the whole system at Class 4 all the same because their schedules--and the wear they put on the infrastructure--are substantial.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

It would be great if Cape Cod eventually gets Commuter Rail service past Hyannis. To avoid the brunt of the NIMBY backlash, the tracks could be laid alongside Route 6 out to the Orleans/Eastham Rotary, instead of alongside the Rail Trail.

That would depress the ridership quite a bit from a reactivation of the old ROW. You'd miss Brewster center and all the density along 6A on the north shore, be over a mile from Harwich center, and be over a half-mile from Orleans center. The Mid-Cape Expressway was laid out to mostly chew up conservation land and avoid the village centers. With these towns being intrinsically very small and there not being a lot of sidewalk or bike lane coverage on the Cape, you really need to hit the village centers that grew into village centers because of the ROW to net much of a station catchment. The ROW is legally landbanked to South Dennis, and de facto landbanked to Wellfleet. If there's truly a market for Commuter/Regional Rail-level service way out here (I much doubt it), it rises to the standard of "greater good" for displacing the bike path or meriting a more expensive rail-with-trail. If you're considering the highway because the trail is the more "valuable" use of the ROW, the plot has already been lost because that conclusion means rail's ridership potential is much too low to hack it anywhere.

There's probably more than enough demand for train service past Hyannis, as the Lower Cape's population swells during the summer:

• Yarmouth
  • Offseason pop: 25,023 (2020 census)
  • Summer pop: ~48,000 (source)
• Dennis
  • Offseason pop: 14,674 (2020 census)
  • Summer pop: ~52,000 (source)
• Harwich
  • Offseason pop: 13,440 (2020 census)
  • Summer pop: ~37,000 (source)
• Brewster
  • Offseason pop: 10,318 (2020 census)
  • Summer pop: ~30,000 (source)
• Chatham
  • Offseason pop: 6,594 (2020 census)
  • Summer pop: ~19,000 (source)
• Orleans
  • Offseason pop: 6,307 (2020 census)
  • Summer pop: ~19,000 (source)
• Eastham
  • Offseason pop: 5,752 (2020 census)
  • Summer pop: ~20,000 (source)

Not all trains would go all the way into Boston; some would short turn at Hyannis, Buzzards Bay, or maybe even Wareham. I know there's probably some specific reason why this won't work, so I'm interested to hear any feedback.

As above, a better metric rather than municipal population (almost meaningless given how physically large and spread out some of these towns are) is station catchment. Which does include things like walkability scores and major thoroughfares access. It's a much tinier slice when factored that way, below the threshold of feasibility in all likelihood. The Cape just isn't very walkable or bikeable outside of the rail trail because of the limited on-road infrastructure, and the density in those physically very large towns is scattered because the road network only pools from certain directions. The village centers, while vibrant and robust, are small in scope. The NYNH&H's previous service was so long on-the-clock in part because they had to stop at every single village center and micro-village center in order to scoop up enough ridership to make ends meet on their P-town and Chatham runs, and that simply didn't work anymore after the 1920's when most households started owning cars. You've got 6 stops east of Yarmouth Jct., most of them off-center from the villages because of the highway layout and thus needing to be park-and-ride oriented. The New Haven needed 9 over the same on-ROW distance to square its catchment math (and then another 7 to P-town). If you went on-ROW to chase the density, you'd still need more stops at more travel time to make it work.

Finally, consider where people need to go car-free...mostly on/off the Cape. The mid- and outer Cape do not generally have onerous road congestion even during the summer. Getting to Hyannis from Chatham or Orleans is not a huge ordeal, and can be done an order of magnitude faster by car than by rail which has to make a lot of stops to scoop up all those micro-catchments. Even the current local buses making many many stops only take a trivially longer amount of time than the old train used to. It's getting from Hyannis (or Falmouth) to the mainland that's an exercise in total frustration. So a stop-miserly sojurn to the east reliant on park-and-rides for ridership is not going to fetch much at all, and a short-turn is not going to fetch much at all. You would probably be able to swing bigger numbers having park-and-rides at Hyannis and west on the mainline at Sagamore and Bourne, then an upgraded CCRTA bus network and frequencies running out of Hyannis for the various village centers, then a robust/at-least-hourly Boston schedule running to Hyannis. Maybe 30-minute Regional Rail to Buzzards Bay forking at Cape Jct. to hourlies for Falmouth Depot and Hyannis. This is pretty much what the NYNH&H had in-place 85 years ago: real-deal commuter rail to Hyannis and Woods Hole, and their own in-house network of express buses and ferries everywhere else including on the islands. I think you treat the whole network with multimodal connections rather than get fixated on one mode with no more than a couple of minimally feasible patterns on it. The good news is that there's real-life advocacy to tap for the Commuter Rail to Hyannis + connecting buses everywhere else scheme, and it can be implemented shorter-term. All you really have to do is first get South Coast Rail Phase 2 un-stuck to free up Middleboro Line schedules to continue southeast, and the rest has already been studied in some form or another. No Crazy Pitches required.

 

[irdesi]

My wishlist, from most practical to a little more fanciful:

* Major park-and-ride facility at the I-90/I-95 junction on the Framingham/Worcester line. Why hasn't this happened yet? Let NIMBYs not be the blocker. Site it on the former Liberty Mutual office buildings located right alongside the ROW AND alongside the junction: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Gri3RgKKuxCwuF1A6.

* Cut and cover an underground travelator from DTX to South Station. This will greatly improve transit access from all areas served by the Orange Line and Green Line to all areas served by SL1-3, including the many jobs in the Seaport, by removing the need for a Red Line transfer (and the psychological uncertainty about commute time that comes with it).

* Convert the Grand Junction to Green Line, creating a Green Line loop through Boston and Cambridge. Creates a bevy of new transit opportunities for riders from across the city and connects BU, MIT, and future Harvard campuses.

* Bring the Watertown Branch back in parts as a Green Line extension, running on an elevated ROW if needed. Begin it around West Station, hooking it up to the existing Green Line and the new Grand Junction Green Line loop. Open up Watertown and Waltham to high-rise development.

* Build a rail connection between the Fitchburg and Worcester lines in the Newton/Weston area. There's only about one mile between them here. Major NIMBY land, I know, but I-95 is already here, and in the worst-case the line could simply be run alongside I-95 for most of its length. Create a rail loop from South Station to North Station, create cross-terminus routes e.g. from Worcester to North Station, and use it for equipment transfers that used to run over the Grand Junction.

* Run a BRT (or at least bus lanes) along the length of I-95 from at least Woburn to Westwood, if not from Peabody to Braintree. Intersect it with every commuter rail line and rapid transit line which crosses or reaches I-95. Provide station access to every major junction and major office park along I-95. Imagine the transformation this could bring, by making office parks on I-95 once again appealing to companies who in recent years have squished themselves downtown, in Kendall, and in the Seaport. My sense is that many of these companies did so to attract younger workers who want to live in the city, but at the cost of torturous commutes for older workers with families who live in the suburbs. By making offices on the 95 loop accessible to people who wish to live in the city, a nice averaging of location can be achieved, which would help relieve the pressure on the housing market inside of I-95.

My wishlist is rooted in the following beliefs:

1. Compared to many other American cities, commuting in Boston is long and tortuous.
2. Compared to many other American cities, residential real-estate in Boston is ridiculously expensive.
3. The difficulty of commuting forces commuters into a limited set of options for where to live which are practical to get to their workplace. For example, people who work in Seaport and Kendall bias heavily toward housing which is along the Red Line axis, driving up cost in these areas and underutilizing residential areas alongside other lines, such as Orange and Blue.
4. The migration of companies from the 495 and 95 belts into the downtown / Kendall / Seaport core has brought vitality to Boston, but resulted in terrible commutes for people who live in the suburbs and a lot of price pressure on housing inside of I-95.
5. Obvious transit opportunities are being left untapped because the system hasn't caught up to the last 50 years of changes in population centers and highway networks.
6. Seizing these obvious opportunities creates the potential to spread housing demand more evenly across the city and create capacity for building more housing without crushing the existing transportation network

 

[JeffDowntown]

My wishlist, from most practical to a little more fanciful:

* Major park-and-ride facility at the I-90/I-95 junction on the Framingham/Worcester line. Why hasn't this happened yet? Let NIMBYs not be the blocker. Site it on the former Liberty Mutual office buildings located right alongside the ROW AND alongside the junction: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Gri3RgKKuxCwuF1A6.

* Cut and cover an underground travelator from DTX to South Station. This will greatly improve transit access from all areas served by the Orange Line and Green Line to all areas served by SL1-3, including the many jobs in the Seaport, by removing the need for a Red Line transfer (and the psychological uncertainty about commute time that comes with it).

* Convert the Grand Junction to Green Line, creating a Green Line loop through Boston and Cambridge. Creates a bevy of new transit opportunities for riders from across the city and connects BU, MIT, and future Harvard campuses.

* Bring the Watertown Branch back in parts as a Green Line extension, running on an elevated ROW if needed. Begin it around West Station, hooking it up to the existing Green Line and the new Grand Junction Green Line loop. Open up Watertown and Waltham to high-rise development.

* Build a rail connection between the Fitchburg and Worcester lines in the Newton/Weston area. There's only about one mile between them here. Major NIMBY land, I know, but I-95 is already here, and in the worst-case the line could simply be run alongside I-95 for most of its length. Create a rail loop from South Station to North Station, create cross-terminus routes e.g. from Worcester to North Station, and use it for equipment transfers that used to run over the Grand Junction.

* Run a BRT (or at least bus lanes) along the length of I-95 from at least Woburn to Westwood, if not from Peabody to Braintree. Intersect it with every commuter rail line and rapid transit line which crosses or reaches I-95. Provide station access to every major junction and major office park along I-95. Imagine the transformation this could bring, by making office parks on I-95 once again appealing to companies who in recent years have squished themselves downtown, in Kendall, and in the Seaport. My sense is that many of these companies did so to attract younger workers who want to live in the city, but at the cost of torturous commutes for older workers with families who live in the suburbs. By making offices on the 95 loop accessible to people who wish to live in the city, a nice averaging of location can be achieved, which would help relieve the pressure on the housing market inside of I-95.

My wishlist is rooted in the following beliefs:

1. Compared to many other American cities, commuting in Boston is long and tortuous.
2. Compared to many other American cities, residential real-estate in Boston is ridiculously expensive.
3. The difficulty of commuting forces commuters into a limited set of options for where to live which are practical to get to their workplace. For example, people who work in Seaport and Kendall bias heavily toward housing which is along the Red Line axis, driving up cost in these areas and underutilizing residential areas alongside other lines, such as Orange and Blue.
4. The migration of companies from the 495 and 95 belts into the downtown / Kendall / Seaport core has brought vitality to Boston, but resulted in terrible commutes for people who live in the suburbs and a lot of price pressure on housing inside of I-95.
5. Obvious transit opportunities are being left untapped because the system hasn't caught up to the last 50 years of changes in population centers and highway networks.
6. Seizing these obvious opportunities creates the potential to spread housing demand more evenly across the city and create capacity for building more housing without crushing the existing transportation network

For the travelator between DTX and SS, I believe that the space already exists on top of the Red Line Tunnel -- it is used for storage or something like that? It may not go all the way now due to Big Dig impact.

Travelator the Winter Street concourse DTX to Park as well.

 

[RandomWalk]

The tunnel was truncated at Dewey Square when the original Artery was built in the 1950s.

 

[irdesi]

For the travelator between DTX and SS, I believe that the space already exists on top of the Red Line Tunnel -- it is used for storage or something like that? It may not go all the way now due to Big Dig impact.

Travelator the Winter Street concourse DTX to Park as well.

No kidding! Yes, I wonder if it could be resurrected. Would be super unfortunate if they blocked the path for the Big Dig.

If there is a clearance issue with the Big Dig tunnels, I wonder if the concourse could simply be laid on either/both sides of the tracks. But there may be building foundations in the way.

 

[Longfellow]

No kidding! Yes, I wonder if it could be resurrected. Would be super unfortunate if they blocked the path for the Big Dig.

If there is a clearance issue with the Big Dig tunnels, I wonder if the concourse could simply be laid on either/both sides of the tracks. But there may be building foundations in the way.

Reasonable Transit Pitches

Well, an overhead bridge needs a much higher clearance and would need to be built to double stack height. That's why I just opted for undergrade bridge instead. The ROW really is plenty wide, it used to be 4 mainline tracks, at least. Probably some spare room, too. Davis is not a problem, but...

archboston.com

At present, the concourse definitely ends about halfway between Otis and Devonshire. The emergency egress is roughly -- perhaps exactly -- at the end of the concourse, at 80 Summer St. As you come east, you eventually just face a massive wall with a stairway to the left (egress) and a very small crawlspace dead center at the floor. Immediately inside of the perhaps 3x3x3 crawl space it drops straight down to the Red Line tunnel (so basically it is just for ventilation).

+ photo of red line tunnel with nothing on top

 

[TheRatmeister]

* Major park-and-ride facility at the I-90/I-95 junction on the Framingham/Worcester line. Why hasn't this happened yet? Let NIMBYs not be the blocker. Site it on the former Liberty Mutual office buildings located right alongside the ROW AND alongside the junction: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Gri3RgKKuxCwuF1A6.

We have a data point against this, and it's parking utilization at Riverside. It's crap, and has (AFAIK) never come close to filling up, even pre-COVID. It was at around 38% utilization at peak periods. Maybe with fast and more frequent than today regional rail service it would be more compelling, but right now that seems unlikely.

* Cut and cover an underground travelator from DTX to South Station. This will greatly improve transit access from all areas served by the Orange Line and Green Line to all areas served by SL1-3, including the many jobs in the Seaport, by removing the need for a Red Line transfer (and the psychological uncertainty about commute time that comes with it).

With the travelator running you're looking at 4.5 minutes to DTX, probably more like 7-8 to Park St. Based on that I'd have to say that any travelator needs to justify itself on OL-Seaport demand alone. And the travelators must be working or the transfer really just doesn't work and people will be quite upset. There are also issues with incorporating them into the existing station design. I don't really see how you can get people from the OL to the new concourse without either going out and back through the gateline, removing the direct connection to the shopping center, or digging a new, parallel tunnel. The former seems like the best option but without a tap in/tap out system it doesn't work. And obviously there's the cost of digging the tunnel itself, you could also just put that money towards something else.

* Convert the Grand Junction to Green Line, creating a Green Line loop through Boston and Cambridge. Creates a bevy of new transit opportunities for riders from across the city and connects BU, MIT, and future Harvard campuses.

1. Getting the connection to work at the northern end of the GJ is surprisingly difficult. It's probably not impossible but it does necessitate rebuilding the Union Sq incline with steeper grades.
2. With what capacity? If it's linked into the B branch, using the Kenmore Loop as-is isn't an option. You have to run at least as far as Park St and the Central Subway is already operating at max capacity. You have to pull trains from somewhere if you want to add a new branch (or loop).
3. The Grand Junction is not as cheap as it appears. You need to solve the issues of the grade crossings somehow, and some fairly long elevated sections are going to be necessary there.

* Bring the Watertown Branch back in parts as a Green Line extension, running on an elevated ROW if needed. Begin it around West Station, hooking it up to the existing Green Line and the new Grand Junction Green Line loop. Open up Watertown and Waltham to high-rise development.

Same deal as before. With what central subway capacity? If you want to hook it into the Grand Junction, it should just be a new subway line at that point. Here's what that might look like.

* Build a rail connection between the Fitchburg and Worcester lines in the Newton/Weston area. There's only about one mile between them here. Major NIMBY land, I know, but I-95 is already here, and in the worst-case the line could simply be run alongside I-95 for most of its length. Create a rail loop from South Station to North Station, create cross-terminus routes e.g. from Worcester to North Station, and use it for equipment transfers that used to run over the Grand Junction.

The 90/95 interchange really makes that difficult. You either need to tunnel under it, or go over it. It's also not really a huge boon for riders. It only opens up a couple new routes (Worcester to NS and Wachusett to South Station), both of which are pretty easily done with a subway connection today. The benefit for equipment moves is nice if you close the GJ (The alternative is Worcester-Ayer) but ideally those moves should mostly just not happen. Build the South Side Maintenance facility yesterday.

If we are committing to that fairly large expense, I'm not convinced it would be best to build it as a regional rail line. You really want something more nimble, that can handle sharper curves as the line moves on and off the highway ROW to hit nearby business parks, and steep grades to navigate road junctions.

* Run a BRT (or at least bus lanes) along the length of I-95 from at least Woburn to Westwood, if not from Peabody to Braintree. Intersect it with every commuter rail line and rapid transit line which crosses or reaches I-95. Provide station access to every major junction and major office park along I-95. Imagine the transformation this could bring, by making office parks on I-95 once again appealing to companies who in recent years have squished themselves downtown, in Kendall, and in the Seaport. My sense is that many of these companies did so to attract younger workers who want to live in the city, but at the cost of torturous commutes for older workers with families who live in the suburbs. By making offices on the 95 loop accessible to people who wish to live in the city, a nice averaging of location can be achieved, which would help relieve the pressure on the housing market inside of I-95.

This is dependent on making connections to the rail lines that cross 128, and indeed building more rail lines which cross 128, but if you can do that I do think it's a good idea. BRT (especially with double-articulated vehicles) is well-suited to run on the existing road infrastructure.

The difficulty of commuting forces commuters into a limited set of options for where to live which are practical to get to their workplace. For example, people who work in Seaport and Kendall bias heavily toward housing which is along the Red Line axis, driving up cost in these areas and underutilizing residential areas alongside other lines, such as Orange and Blue.

This is why the Red-Blue connector is important.