Commuter Rail to TF Green Airport

quadratdackel

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I was on the phone with the MBTA yestarday suggesting they add commuter rail service to Providence on weekends. (This baffles me- they go all the way to South Attleboro. Why not continue one more stop to the area's biggest destination? So instead I gotta take a bus tomorrow.) Anyways, the customer service guy on the phone said that he expects weekend service to Providence once the extension to TF Green Airport opens up, which he said should happen within the next year. This Wikipedia article says that the station won't open until 2008. Anyone know when it really is supposed open? Is this currently under construction? The MBTA curiously doesn't have a page for it under its projects section.
 
the North Station expansion project is listed on the T web site.
 
DudeUrSistersHot said:
Commuter rail stations are not listed on the MBTA website as they are projects of the MBCR.

No they're not. The MBCR is simply an operating company, they operate (I.E. run trains and routine maintenance) the MBTA commuter rail system under contract with the MBTA, which owns all equipment, branding, rights-of-way, etc. They have nothing to do with capital projects.
 
Roxxma said:
DudeUrSistersHot said:
Commuter rail stations are not listed on the MBTA website as they are projects of the MBCR.

No they're not. The MBCR is simply an operating company, they operate (I.E. run trains and routine maintenance) the MBTA commuter rail system under contract with the MBTA, which owns all equipment, branding, rights-of-way, etc. They have nothing to do with capital projects.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere, though I may be wrong, that the MBCR is in charge of managing maintenance and capital projects on their facilities as well as operation of the commuter rail.
 
From their website:
Fleet Maintenance: The MBTA's Commuter Rail Maintenance Facility provides the capacity to conduct all types of repair and upgrade work on the system's fleet. Fully utilizing this facility will help increase fleet availability for service and will keep jobs in Boston.

Infrastructure: Annual work plans call for ongoing improvements and replacement of track, signals and other system infrastructure. MBCR has the capacity and experience to complete these tasks that will help ensure safe and reliable service as ridership grows.

Innovations: MBCR's global rail transit experience will be called upon to help the MBTA system grow and respond to customer needs. In areas such as ticketing and pass sales, customer information, fleet maintenance and service schedule management, MBCR will identify opportunities for improvements in the service and work with the MBTA to implement new practices.
That it quite ambiguously vague.
 
The MBCR operates the Commuter Rail, meaning that the MBTA has paid a flat fee to MBCR to operate it (which includes routine maintenance and operating costs).

Capital projects (eg: system expansion, new stations, etc...) are handled through the MBTA and the state.

That is the way it is.


:)
 
Commuter to TF Greene

A better source for information on this project would be Rhode Island's DOT. This extension, like the one to Providence before it, are products of the Pilgrim Partnership--an arrangement whereby Rhode Island agrees to provide the MBTA funding for the associated additional operating costs and trainsets in return for the service extension. Funding for the construction of the station and the payments to the T have to be approved through Rhode Island's transportation funding process, so the MBTA really has very little to do with this project at this point.
 
There was a similar conversation at
http://urbanplanet.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t17245.html

...I couldn't find any info on this on the RI DOT site.

...My Providence trip last weekend:
Down: Bonanza, leaves hourly, takes one hour, South Station to Kennedy Plaza (Providence's open air downtown bus transfer place), $8.75, completely full.
Back: Got a ride to South Attleboro, and caught the train to Back Bay, leaves every two hours or so, $5.75. There was a large crowd at South Attleboro (a train worker said 'What, are they giving away money in Boston?') and mostly young people so I'm guessing many, if not most, came from Providence. More people (and progressively older people) got on at later stops; the train was pretty full but not standing room only. Overall, I'm impressed with how many people take transit between Boston and Providence over weekends.
 
I don't know if this belongs here, but here goes...


The Boston Globe
Commuter rail service to Providence will expand

July 14, 2006

For the first time in decades, the MBTA plans to expand commuter rail service to and from Providence by the end of the month, increasing the number of weekday trips and starting weekend service.

The line is also getting a new name, switching from the Attleboro-Stoughton line to the Providence-Stoughton line.

Weekday runs from South Station to Providence will increase from 11 to 15 starting July 24, said Daniel A. Grabauskas , general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Nine round trips will be added on Saturdays, and seven on Sunday, starting July 29. There is currently no service to Providence on weekends.

Currently, the last weekday train to Providence departs South Station at 8:15 p.m. but the new service will add three night trips, departing hourly on the hour from 9 p.m. to midnight, officials said.

The additional service is enhanced by a new $18.5 million MBTA layover facility in Pawtucket, funded by the T and the state of Rhode Island, which drew on federal funds to lure T service farther south.

Commuter trains were previously stored overnight at a crowded facility farther north in Attleboro. In addition, the state of Rhode Island paid for five new bi level coaches to meet the increased demand.

Rhode Island state officials continue to talk to the MBTA about expanding commuter rail service to T.F. Green International Airport in Warwick.

New schedules were expected to be distributed to riders yesterday afternoon.

The commuter rail line is the busiest in the MBTA system, making 26,950 passenger trips daily.

MAC DANIEL
dingbat_story_end_icon.gif



Link to article.
 
This is great news. The additional weekend service should benefit both cities.
 
ZenZen said:
This is great news. The additional weekend service should benefit both cities.
Indeed. But the schedule should be improved. Saturdays the first train to Providence leaves South Station at 6:05, and there isn't another train till four hours later. That gets you into Providence after 11am. Sundays it's even worse; the first train doesn't leave South Station untill 11:05. That gets you to Providence after noon.
 
Station project to link MBTA to R.I. airport
By Robert Preer, Globe Correspondent | July 18, 2006

WARWICK, R.I. -- A ceremonial groundbreaking yesterday marked the start of work on a new train station that will be within walking distance of the T.F. Green Airport terminal here.

The $222.5 million facility, scheduled to open in 2009, will mean travelers from Boston and Providence will be able to take trains directly to the increasingly popular airport. The trains are to be operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, as an extension of the Attleboro-Providence commuter rail line from Boston's South Station.

The Warwick station will be about 1,500 feet from the airline ticket counters and will be connected by a skyway with moving sidewalks.

It would be the closest rail station to an airport in the United States, Rhode Island airport officials said. Acting US Transportation Secretary Maria Cino, who participated in the groundbreaking, hailed the plan as a breakthrough in connecting different forms of transportation.

``Cities across America should take notice of how the state is addressing transportation in this integrated and innovative approach," Cino said.

A parking garage will have 1,000 spaces for MBTA commuters. Missing from the station, though, are facilities for Amtrak trains, which will run right past the station.

Rhode Island and Amtrak officials could not reach an agreement on building a new track at the station for the Acela and Metroliner trains. Accommodating Amtrak would have added tens of millions of dollars to the project's cost.

Mark Brewer, president of the Rhode Island Airport Corp., voiced optimism that Amtrak would find a way to connect to the station once the facility is completed.

The MBTA has agreed in principle to extend its service to Green Airport, but has not yet signed a detailed contract with Rhode Island officials, according to T spokesman Joe Pesaturo.


http://www.boston.com/news/local/rh...port/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+City/Region+News
 
It's hard to imagine this station being closer to the airport than the DC Metro gets to Reagan airport, which is right across the street. Perhaps by "the closest rail station to an airport in the United States" they mean heavy rail and not metro.

Re: the parking garage: is it just me, or don't airports already have parking? Why create two systems, especially since it's so easy to get between the airport and the rail station?

Re: Amtrak: Especially the Acela already has too many stops between Boston and New York. It's supposed to compete with air, not commuter trains. If it stops at the airport, who's it stopping for? People who live in Connecticut and are flying out of TFG? That can't be very many people. They should also axe the Route 128 stop, which I hear is used by very few people.

My lingering concern with this project is that the headways will be too long to make service reliable: even if people try timing their flight to land shortly before the train leaves (which is plausible with modern flight booking websites), flight delays can totally throw this off. Unless they send all the trains currently running that route all the way to the airport, the headways will be on the order of an hour, which is too long to make it practical, and even then the mid-day headways will approach two hours. current schedule for the line.

A good comparison here is to BWI, which is serviced by MARC & Amtrak. The Baltimore-Washington corridor is much more heavily travelled than the Boston-Providence, and BWI is a bigger airport (4 runways vs. 2 for TFG). I've done MARC to DC and it worked pretty well, although I may have been lucky I didn't have to wait for an hour for the next train to come.
 
I'm sure they mean only railroad stations, not transit stations. The Chicago L goes right to both airports.
 
The Amtrak line here is double-tracked, correct? So I must assume that the new station at T.F. Green will have one (or two) stub tracks off the main line, to prevent track congestion and these will be the station tracks. Given this setup, I can see Amtrak not wanting to participate.

The assertion that its the closest heavy rail station to a terminal is still suspect. The SEPTA R1 train in Philadelphia stops at each terminal! There is a pedestrian overpass between the car approaches and the airside which travels over the rail and the stations. Sorry, but this has to be closer than 1500 feet.

Demand from the MBTA despite headways? Yes. Southwest has a major presence at TF Green and airfares are typically pretty low here. I know people who take Bonanza to downtown Providence and the RIPTA buses from there to reach TF Green from Boston. Even hourly headways will beat that (and especially from intermediate destinations along the Attleboro/Providence line).
 
quad, to answer your original question (of why the commuter rail service doesn't go to Providence on weekends), I was told that it was due to the fact that this is the MASSACHUSETTS Bay Transportation Authority, operated by the Mass government. They didn't want their Massachusetts residents to be going down to the beautiful Providence Place Mall (conveniently placed close to the Mass border) to spend their money (and pay taxes).
 
As of July, all MBTA commuter trains run to Providence, both weekdays and weekends.
 

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