Cape Cod Rail, Bridges and Highways

LexSEDotVille said:
(The WHOOSH, Bourne Run (pink) have since been eliminated, and H2O backtracks to E Harwich from Chatham)
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It's not that those have been eliminated, and more that they're seasonal only routes (the Bourne Run in pink is likely the Cape Flyer to Woods Hole ferries shuttle). There's also the seasonal Provincetown/North Truro Shuttle. Now, if you're looking for an actually eliminated route, a few years back they had a Cape Cod Rail Trail bike shuttle that was literally a minibus pulling a bike trailer along the route of the rail trail. That would've been a fun ride.

LexSEDotVille said:
CCRTA is pretty limited in scope and seems to be most focused on Hyannis of ferry connections. The 'flex route' stands out to me as a big missed opportunity for connections to Lower and Outer Cape locations - it really should extend to Hyannis for transfer options. That and a route 6A route would make the system more 'complete' in my opinion. I could see two routes extending beyond Cape to Middleborough/Lakeville and Kingston CR stations being useful, including service to Wareham and Plymouth.

From my understanding, on-off Cape commuting has grown significantly as the vacation vs. worker housing crunch on the cape has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Off Cape connections really should be a new priority, though I'm unfamiliar with where most Cape commuters are coming from - Wareham, New Bedford, Plymouth are my guesses.
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Flex to Hyannis would be nice, except that would take an already 2 hour 15 minute route and make it nearly 3 hours long, which might not be great. The gap in Dennis and Yarmouth is somewhat mitigated by their SmartDart microtransit and as a whole, the CCRTA seems to be pretty dependent on their Cape-wide public dial-a-ride service.

As for off-Cape connections, coordination or even direct routes as you suggested would be great, but I did want to not that all of those destinations are technically reachable right now, though only for insane people who put up with 4 seat rides and rush hour only routes...
 
king_vibe said:
Convert the rail trails back to rail.
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In my experience, rail trails in general are super popular. You'd run into weapons grade NIMBY if you tried to take it away.

It is true that jobs that pay anything on the Cape are extremely scarce. I personally think the main reason housing prices skyrocketed on the Cape was more the WFH NYCers. I'm not convinced they will stick around but maybe they will.
 
TrolleybusFoaming said:
Now, if you're looking for an actually eliminated route, a few years back they had a Cape Cod Rail Trail bike shuttle that was literally a minibus pulling a bike trailer along the route of the rail trail. That would've been a fun ride.
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Are there any images of this out there? I've been scouring the internet for images of this, but haven't found anything. Where did it begin/end?
 
LexSEDotVille said:
Are there any images of this out there? I've been scouring the internet for images of this, but haven't found anything. Where did it begin/end?
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You can find its schedule page and the rider's guide on the Wayback Machine. It ran every 90 minutes from Provincetown down to Marconi Beach, so I suppose my memory was wrong and its purpose was more to connect the rail trail to Provincetown and the rest of the outer Cape. It is a bit odd that there are pretty much no photos besides that one used on the CCRTA's website, though.
 
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Charlie_mta said:
Or at least convert them to BRT. Have fast, traffic free bus routes instead of the meandering traffic clogged routes they have now.
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Rail + Trail maybe? Light rail lines along the rail trails whilst also maintaining the trails themselves. Or a guided trolleybusway but that’d be a lot of concrete in a reservation area.
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Imagine this but along the marshes.

(I am completely ignoring overhead catenary and Nor’Easter conflicts. DMU FLIRTs could do the job instead)
 
I guess the question would be could the ROW width support that? From a quick looks it looks like its about 15-20' in width but that's super eye balling it on google maps.
 
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bakgwailo said:
I guess the question would be could the ROW width support that? From a quick looks it looks like its about 15-20' in width but that's super eye balling it on google maps.
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A lot of the rail trail is in areas where widening the ROW should be possible if it isn’t already wide enough, but an alternative could be operating narrow gauge or single track with coordinated passing sidings. Also, running it for a limited segment along the trail while having it be in the utility or Rt6 corridors in other parts could work.
 
Wonk said:
Most recent bridge replacement alignments and crossing configurations from Mass DOT's May presentation.

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Destroying more land for bigger faster highway interchanges to bring more noise and air pollution to Cape communities especially Bourne.
The worst part is the very last page.
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Have we learned nothing about human behavior behind the wheel from the 90/95 interchange? Trying to do this short weave interchange where you add the additional cars to the roadway before allowing some to exit is going to create more massive jams, reckless driving, and accidents. That’s on top of making an area that is already incredibly hostile to anyone not driving a car basically impassible.
 
Latest I heard (and this is pretty consistent with that presentation) is that the DOT wants to copy what they did with the Whittier Bridge project. Replace one bridge with two network-tied-arch bridges. Or in this case replace two bridges with four network-tied-arch bridges. Latest price tag is $4.7B.
This is clearly a bigger priority for DOT than Allston-Brighton and I'm not sure why since ACOE pays the cost of maintaining the existing bridges.
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
Latest I heard (and this is pretty consistent with that presentation) is that the DOT wants to copy what they did with the Whittier Bridge project. Replace one bridge with two network-tied-arch bridges. Or in this case replace two bridges with four network-tied-arch bridges. Latest price tag is $4.7B.
This is clearly a bigger priority for DOT than Allston-Brighton and I'm not sure why since ACOE pays the cost of maintaining the existing bridges.
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So basically the NSRL link in price.

Also - yeah are they drunk proposing another enter before the exit setup? Hasn't it been the plan forever to fix that sin on the 128/90 interchange?
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
Latest I heard (and this is pretty consistent with that presentation) is that the DOT wants to copy what they did with the Whittier Bridge project. Replace one bridge with two network-tied-arch bridges. Or in this case replace two bridges with four network-tied-arch bridges. Latest price tag is $4.7B.
This is clearly a bigger priority for DOT than Allston-Brighton and I'm not sure why since ACOE pays the cost of maintaining the existing bridges.
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Im definitely not complaining about the Boston area gaining a few more network tied arch bridges. In the modern age of prefabrication and rock bottom infrastructure spending these are about as elegant as youre going to get. (Although it would be pretty cool if one span was tied arches and the other cable stay to add some diversity the costs dont make sense for cable stay here).

The lake champlain bridge is probably exactly what were going to get (x4) and its a beautiful bridge. Heres some pictures of what we can expect to see as far as construction and the finished product.

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I am convinced that MassDOT has absolutely no focus or incentive to come up with a cost-efficient design and is only concerned about not reducing capacity during construction and reducing "bottlenecks" by adding more capacity in the final design. They tack on multi-use paths and call it a "complete streets" design but in the end it's just adding more car capacity and having an even more negative effect on the adjacent neighborhoods.
 
cden4 said:
I am convinced that MassDOT has absolutely no focus or incentive to come up with a cost-efficient design and is only concerned about not reducing capacity during construction and reducing "bottlenecks" by adding more capacity in the final design. They tack on multi-use paths and call it a "complete streets" design but in the end it's just adding more car capacity and having an even more negative effect on the adjacent neighborhoods.
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We are talking about the Canal here. The adjacent neighborhoods is a couple of strip malls and the base.
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
This is clearly a bigger priority for DOT than Allston-Brighton and I'm not sure why since ACOE pays the cost of maintaining the existing bridges.
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It's probably political/constituent demand. The Cape is really car-brained. A lot of the discussion around the region's tourism economy revolves around "how are people going to drive here" -- something that's intensified in recent years as house prices and rents have gotten so crazy that it's really hard to find a home there if you're an ordinary working person. Now, instead of solely an economic development concern, it's also an access-to-workforce concern.
 
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