Logan express braintree. And probably sometimes LE back bay - they do some experimenting with routing at rush hour. That's about it.
Crazy Transit Pitches
- Thread starter BostonUrbEx
- Start date
Logan express braintree. And probably sometimes LE back bay - they do some experimenting with routing at rush hour. That's about it.
F-Line to Dudley
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 9,523
- Reaction score
- 10,305
No. Zero T routes. Adjacent Red Line running alongside the highway all the way from SS to Quincy Adams obviates any need for an express bus like the Pike ones and the Routes 1 & 1A ones.
84's are very well-represented by CTransit bus routes, as well as a steady stream of Greyhounds and Peter Pans heading this way. Very healthy park-and-ride patronage out to Manchester, Vernon, and out in less-congested 6-lane territory to Tolland and Willington. It does work well. But still no cars using the thing to substantial degree 30 years later.
I-91's north of Hartford are even less utilized, and are going to be devoid of anything but the Greyhounds when the Hartford Line opens. Since the rail route to Manchester ID'd by Amtrak 2040 as a Shoreline bypass candate--which the state would dearly like to eventually restore contiguous to Willimantic--is in near-constant view of 84 the whole way from downtown Hartford to Buckland Hills Mall those HOV buses aren't going to have a lasting shelf life either. Not an expensive line to upgrade to the end of active track in Manchester Center (or 1 mile of restoration past there to an Exit 65 P&R), and nonstop walk-up density and TOD potential the whole way. Say goodbye to what little HOV transit traffic exists once that inevitable build happens. Once they saddle up and build the Hartford-Waterbury line flanking 84 west of Hartford it's too dead-obvious a move to keep going the 8.5 miles east and scoop up the real tasty ridership in E. Hartford Ctr., Buckland Hills, Manchester Ctr., and the P&R's that are pre-existing and multi-decade popular. When, not if. If HFD-WBY is running by 2022-23 in advance of the hellish I-84 Aetna Viaduct tear-down carmageddon, then HFD-MAN will be running within 5 years after. Guaranteed.
At least ConnDOT took a savage enough beating for those ludicrously overbuilt 1986 and 1991 HOV installations north and east of Hartford that they're >20 years past the point of rationalizing that they're a raw deal never to be spoken of again. MassHighway is still spewing that HOV/"managed lane" conceptual vomit in 2015 with Route 3, I-93 in the Andover-to-495 stretch, and that Savin Hall cromulence. We've got a long way to go reprogramming those attitudes.
JeffDowntown
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 28, 2007
- Messages
- 4,766
- Reaction score
- 3,607
Some of the south side regional service Logan buses use it as well. P&B tends to loop to South Station first, then on to the HOV tunnel for Logan. They also use the special South Station bus only exit from the I-90 tunnel outbound from Logan.
The Globe is not exactly known for their transportation expertise. The press corp in general goes nuts for stories about "empty buses" and "empty bus lanes" and "empty HOV lanes." Take it with a huge grain of salt.
Remember, it's all a form of the "empty lanes attack" used by drivers to destroy facilities like bus lanes and HOV lanes in favor of more asphalt for single-person vehicles.
An HOV lane or a bus lane (or a rail track) should look empty most of the time. Otherwise it's not going to be a reliable alternative. An HOV lane can tolerate denser traffic perhaps, but it's still going to "look empty" to angry crusading drivers and their enablers in the press no matter what.
And if it doesn't "look empty" it's because the HOV lane is just as locked up and bogged down as everyone else -- a failure.
F-Line to Dudley
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 9,523
- Reaction score
- 10,305
While the Globe is almost certainly going on looks, that's not the problem with HOV's. They have traffic counts for them. State DOT's obsessively take traffic counts for them to try to continue benchmarking to justify their existence. And traffic counts on a majority of those installations (not all...case-by-case)...stinks.
The share of suburban commuters commuting to a city's CBD as solo drivers is even worse than the national average for commuters commuting anywhere-to-anywhere (e.g. suburbs to suburbs): 82% for 'burbs-to-CBD vs. 76% for an any-commute. Now, almost that entire discrepancy is accounted for by availability of transit as alternative to driving, which displaces carpools. That's what you expect to see: carpools siphoned as the very first transit impact before solo drivers start getting siphoned. In a suburb-to-suburb commute where transit isn't available, carpools are a necessity for lowest-income or limited-mobility demographics to have access to the job market. You would expect to see the multiple-occupancy share higher (albeit at generally lighter density) out there. But HOV builds cluster overwhelmingly to those last 10 miles immediately outside a big city's CBD. Precisely the place where the multiple-occupancy shares are least favorable of all despite the traffic density. Conventional wisdom says "must...build...HOV's!" on every mainline expressway shooting out a compass point from the CBD because of surrounding density, not occupancy share. And then you get embarrassments like dropping the requirement to 2 occupants instead of the original goal of 3 because the share is too poor so the utilization is too poor. When this underutilization keeps happening in dense cities that conventional wisdom surmises have the requisite density to overpower the poorer multiple-occupancy share...the conventional wisdom is what needs revisiting, not the occupancy requirement or other force-fits to try to goose up the HOVs' self-justification.
HOV's work a lot better on super-congested intercity trips between relatively even-matched job centers (Jersey Turnpike, for instance) or very spread-out places (L.A., Dallas-Ft. Worth) where traversing the centermost density of a sprawled metro area involves unusually high driving miles. That doesn't fit the profile of anywhere in New England. Not even I-95 between New Haven, Bridgeport, and Stamford. MassDOT is one of the last DOT's in the nation who has an excuse to keep doubling-down on this myth in 2015. Yet it keeps appearing again and again in first-offer proposals right into present tense...this "managed lane" fad being the latest re-branding.
Last edited:
I wonder if this particular HOV lane isn't used because navigation apps don't tell people to use it. I've been in taxis and Ubers many times going to the airport and they don't even know about this lane. They always follow their GPS to the regular lanes, which from downtown and the South End have different ramps at different intersections than the HOV lane.
JeffDowntown
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 28, 2007
- Messages
- 4,766
- Reaction score
- 3,607
The I-90 HOV lanes are some of the best kept secrets in the city. From the South End you cannot even see signage until after you actually make the turn to access the lane. It is as though the DOT did not want anyone to find them.
Traffic counts only count vehicles, but people are the important metric. DOTs often forget that.
I'd say that even given that view, if the people-moved-per-hour count is low, perhaps it's time to consider expanding bus service that makes use of the HOV lane.
And yes, HOV lanes should be planned in correspondence with transit improvements that can use it. And I'm generally not supportive of brand-new asphalt for any kind of lane -- HOV or not. If the DOT is really serious about improving people-per-hour then they'll reuse existing asphalt, not pump more taxpayer money into the asphalt contractor's pockets.
Most DOTs are not really serious about moving people, and care more about moving money.
I'd say that even given that view, if the people-moved-per-hour count is low, perhaps it's time to consider expanding bus service that makes use of the HOV lane.
And yes, HOV lanes should be planned in correspondence with transit improvements that can use it. And I'm generally not supportive of brand-new asphalt for any kind of lane -- HOV or not. If the DOT is really serious about improving people-per-hour then they'll reuse existing asphalt, not pump more taxpayer money into the asphalt contractor's pockets.
Most DOTs are not really serious about moving people, and care more about moving money.
Shepard
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2009
- Messages
- 3,518
- Reaction score
- 68
Good or bad, used or unused, fact remains that the tunnel usefully dips under fort point channel, and that a shallow cut from Albany/Herald could bring rapid transit on alignment into it. Dropping the question of whether it's politically feasible and focusing only on routing, is there an opportunity here that's never been examined?
Charlie_mta
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 4,544
- Reaction score
- 6,434
I would rather see the existing Silverline tunnel converted to light rail or even heavy rail, and then the I-90 HOV tunnel used for the SS to Logan and Chelsea "Silver Line" bus routes (plus other HOV traffic and buses).
The existing Silver Line tunnel is already set up for rapid transit ready stations, and the HOV tunnel is already set up for buses.
The existing Silver Line tunnel is already set up for rapid transit ready stations, and the HOV tunnel is already set up for buses.
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2012
- Messages
- 5,078
- Reaction score
- 1,661
+1. No need to reinvent the wheel when we have two wheels that work well for their design. Problem is more that one of the wheels is not being used as designed (transit way tunnel).
JeffDowntown
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 28, 2007
- Messages
- 4,766
- Reaction score
- 3,607
Totally Agree. Then the Logan and Chelsea buses could just be regular diesel buses; no more clunky dual modes.
tangent
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 11, 2012
- Messages
- 1,789
- Reaction score
- 68
Yes, NSRL let's you convert Grand Junction to a green line branch all the way over to West Station. Neither of which should be in crazy transit pitches. Being able to turn GJ into a green line branch would be THE best reason to do NSRL in my mind.
F-Line to Dudley
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 9,523
- Reaction score
- 10,305
NSRL isn't a requirement for taking the Grand Junction. You just need a few hundred mil total in strengthening the independence of the southside equipment pool from the northside: more cars for less swapping, and a full-service maint facility so increasingly space-constrained Boston Engine Terminal doesn't have to be the be-all/end-all of the entire Purple Line. Then a considerably less-expensive upgrade of the Worcester Branch for a minimum of 40 MPH passenger equipment speeds to reduce travel time on the Widett Circle-Worcester-Ayer-BET equipment deadheads from 5 hours to maybe 3; it's currently 25 MPH with a lot of 10 MPH restrictions.
If diesel locomotive heavy repair continues to be done at BET but all manner of southside coach repair and future xMU servicing can be done at the new southside maint facilities, and you can reduce the north-south swaps to once or twice a week instead of once or twice a day...the operating costs scale to a wash and the Grand Junction can become wholly expendable. In fact, this gets easier if you start electrifying the southside. You really only need to string up Fairmount and Worcester, and start operating an EMU pool for those + Providence + RIDOT Providence-Westerly to have flipped the lion's share of the southside equipment pool over to southside-'captive' rolling stock and send well over half of the push-pulls back north. That substantially solves the problem of equipment segregation limiting the frequency of north-south swaps to the point where you can take the GJ and the Worcester County scenic route doesn't cost more with a miserly couple day per week swapping schedule.
That amount of electrification + vehicle purchase + support facilities is not far-fetched at all in the 10-15 year range if they felt like prioritizing it. There's enough design-build paperwork to do in the meantime that you wouldn't get a shovel in ground on that UR segment sooner than 10-15 years to begin with. Therefore, timetable for weaning commuter rail ops off the Grand Junction isn't constrained if today, 11/1/2015, is your planning ground zero for taking the first step.
The only unique route you lose by cannibalizing the GJ is an Amtrak NYC-Portland train with a Boston intermediate...a one-a-day and weekender-centric thing that doesn't even rate as a consideration for future GJ plans. The proposed 5-per-rush unidirectional Worcester-North Station trains in the study a few years ago are mainly justified by Orange @ Back Bay and Red @ SS being too overloaded for tolerable travel times from a Worcester train to the North Station or Kendall areas during rush. The study found virtually no travel time advantage running the same route on the off-peak when Red and Orange are running at normal travel times off the BBY and SS transfers, and found net losses in total off-peak ridership by forking the Worcester schedule instead in lieu of keeping off-peaks as frequent as possible to only one terminal. So precluding that one by taking the GJ is no loss either...just fix the incredible decay in Orange and (much moreso) Red dwell times at rush and the justification for Worcester-Kendall-NS directs more or less goes away at all hours.
Any which way you're never going to lose an ounce of sleep converting the GJ to light rail without the NSRL. There's no fear of precluding some commuter rail or intercity option, because they just don't rate and are fixable by other things (Red/Orange) that are dire necessities in any universe. It is strictly and only a matter of shoring up southside CR's non-revenue independence from the northside. Total eat-your-peas type prerequisites. An expensive to-do list, no doubt, but some of that stuff like storage space and more rolling stock bodies are acute needs today, and the maint facility is going to be an acute need in a few years. So settling up that checklist is something that they don't have much choice but to chip away at in the mid-term. Explicitly planned or not, the two sides of the commuter rail will gradually drift towards more operational independence from each other strictly on their own necessity without any push from rapid transit or big, bold expansion megaprojects. It's strictly a matter of how much push you want to give that momentum.
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2011
- Messages
- 5,599
- Reaction score
- 2,717
Sorry if I missed this, but couldn't the FRA permit a deal similar to NJ River Line's time-of-day separation to mix CR/Freight/FRA Rule trains and Light Rail?
Charlie_mta
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 4,544
- Reaction score
- 6,434
Awhile back on here I had read that tracks are slightly different for light rail vs. FRA railroad. I think F-line had said that.
F-Line to Dudley
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 9,523
- Reaction score
- 10,305
No, because you intermix with mainline rail at both the Worcester Line and Fitchburg Line ends at all service hours. Last mile to North Station being particularly impossible to square because of the various overpasses and drawbridges that prevent installing anything traffic-separated to bridge the gap between North Station and where the GJ meets the Fitchburg Line. Commuter rail equipment won't fit underneath Green Line overhead, and the rails are ground to a different wheel profile RR vs. rapid transit (just try running a Type 8 on RR tracks and see how far it gets before ending up on the ground). So you also can't time-separate it as true light rail and feed it into Lechmere. It either switches modes entirely or not at all. A dinky that starts at Twin City Plaza and ends at West without ever touching commuter rail revenue track would attract bupkis for ridership.
That's overthinking it to an extreme. Eat one's peas bolstering the southside's equipment independence and you can take it off the RR network at no operational consequence. Ugly and/or unworkable kludges are just inventing kludges that don't need to exist.
Given that the ROW is only 2 tracks wide I don't know how it would be possible to run any meaningful service levels that way. See also the issue of different wheel profile between modes. While theoretically you can do gauntlets, that doesn't solve the problem of a locomotive or commuter rail bi-level physically not clearing light rail overhead wire...even when it's turned off. And I wouldn't want to drive a Type 8 over a half-RR, half-LRT gauntlet anyway.
Kludges: they're not necessary to take the line for real Urban Ring. In some cases like the above, it makes it worse while costing just as much as the to-do list of southside equipment independence boosts that allow the GJ to be totally expendable.
We're starting to waaaaaay overthink this and invent hurdles that don't really exist in the real world.
Yes. I grabbed this diagram from an old post, in turn grabbed off Wikipedia (can't locate the source article) showing the difference:
Railroad wheel profile is at left, trolley wheel profile at right (in-street track depicted). Even when the trolley is running on regular track + ties instead of street, you can see how the rail edge and the train's wheel are ground differently and cup each other differently.
There's almost zero difference between RR and LRT/HRT track beyond that, and indeed you can change the profile of the tracks without replacing the rail just by running a rail grinder over it. But you can easily see why the track on the left is going to be FAIL-city trying to make 100 trips out of 100 successfully without a derailment using the wheel on the right. Or vice versa.
Some brand new LRT systems that recycle RR tracks start from Day 1 with the RR wheel profile used on track and the trolley's wheels as a necessary compromise for getting built at all. And with higher-extension pantographs that allows for overhead installations that will clear a RR train when the juice is turned off. But modding legacy systems for a wholesale different wheel profile ranges from stupidly difficult to impossible, and degrades vehicle performance enough that there's no practical reason for using the other mode's wheel profile. It's only an option when you're locked into that no-choice as a prerequisite for starting a self-contained LRT system at all. The Green Line is doubly moot because there isn't nearly enough room to swap out every pantograph on every car for ones that super-extend to touch higher-clearance wire that a RR train could slip under.
JumboBuc
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2013
- Messages
- 2,658
- Reaction score
- 1,554
I've always liked this plan to open up the Grand Junction for light rail:
Here's what I think the link between the Fitchburg/north side and Worcester/south side between Brandeis/Roberts and Auburndale should look like.
Casualties:
slivers of two parking lots
2 or 3 houses
