Crazy Transit Pitches

[TheRatmeister]

Wait, I'm sorry, can you clarify, are you suggesting that automating the Orange Line is the better deal, or building a Sullivan <> GJ <> Longwood service is better?

I'm suggesting that the UR is the better deal.

 

[ritchiew]

@TheRatmeister Thanks for pulling out that data. But I'm not sure I follow some of your conclusions

Therefore, I think it can reasonably be said that if an Everett Subway was built, Wellington ridership would plummet, Sullivan would suffer both in terms of bus transfers and subway ridership but it probably wouldn't be catastrophic, and Malden Center would be basically unscathed.

In that hypothetical, I'm not sure what's wrong with ridership numbers dropping at those specific stations. The goal isn't to keep ridership numbers high at Wellington Station. The goal is to move people from where they are to where to need to go. If an Everett Branch captures a lot of those riders, that's a good thing.

That would generally support the conclusion that branching the OL with basically anything worse than 90 second trunk headways is not a great idea.

I don't really understand how this follows from what you said. And I'm really not sure where the 90 second cutoff is coming from. Pre-covid, Malden was getting 4-5 minute headways. That's the current target again, once the new signaling is done. That would seem to be totally sufficient for Malden. So if there were an Everett Branch, why wouldn't it be sufficient to have 2-2.5 minute trunk headways? I don't want to sound like I'm nitpicking here, but that difference could be big. Running 1.5 minute headways will for sure require total automation. But 2.5 minute headways might not. The difference in required infrastructure could be $100s of millions.

I know the MBTA studied at least CBTC for the Red Line before they started this latest signaling project and found it wouldn't be worth it. I thought they did a similar study for the Orange Line, but I've never seen the specifics of that. Does anyone know where to find that?

90 second headways basically demand full automation which has proved to be very expensive. The full automation of the 10 mile long Paris Line 1 (About the same length as the OL) cost €750,000,000 (inflation adjusted),

Calling a project "expensive" gets trickier when talking about automation like this. In the long run, operating costs dwarf the capital costs, and automation is a way to drastically reduce those huge operating costs. Full automation and driverless trains would be a massive upfront investment. But if we then run twice as many trains, all day, with almost none of the associated labor costs, that's a massive win in the long run.


Just to be clear, I'm not really advocating for an Everett Branch of the Orange Line. I would not be surprised if it couldn't work out. But you seem a little too quick to dismiss it, and I don't really follow your logic why.