Crazy Transit Pitches

[F-Line to Dudley]

^ I think your pessimism is misguided in this case. Google it - every year there is a Globe article about how little these HOV lanes are ever used.

Yeah, but then we get boondoggles chucked out there by the Asphalt Builders like that whole Savin Hill stretch proposal which buries both the Red Line and the Old Colony in kajillion-dollar tunnels so they can make 93 dozens of feet fatter, extend the HOV contiguously to the barely-used SS ones, and double it up to two permanent lane structures in a transition off the zipper in another gratuitous capacity add. They can't afford it, but lizard-brain still defaults to 'always add capacity!' as first offer. Then they dig in with it and don't relinquish unless they take a brutal beating from citizen revolt. If this happens habitually with stuff on city streets like the frickin' Cambridge St. overpass proposal, 93 is in a whole other stratosphere of stubbornness.


Until the actual PDF's they vomit out stop doubling-down on more HOV's and...now..."managed lanes" as the magic bullet to always add capacity there's going to be a disconnect. Drivers have long known how useless HOV's are. I remember well from my childhood when ConnDOT rebuilt I-84 east of Hartford to a football field-and-a-half wide with HOV's, then they had to drop the occupancy requirement from 3 passengers to 2 because you could literally drive the whole stretch and never see a car in the HOV. At least that's one with real shoulders. The ones that usually get shivved in between impossibly close jersey barriers lock up worse than the main roadway in a disablement (which happens constantly because they're jersey-barriered into a space too tight for a high-speed travel lane).

Yet 30 years of failure later this is the myth that won't die. I definitely think they'll stop building new ones very soon if not immediately because the cost is no longer plausible. But lead with them as first offer? Yeah...probably another decade of that public comment time-waster. Rip out the existing ones? I think that's going to trail the rest of state-level DOTs' evolution on personal transit capacity vs. mass transit capacity by order of decades. By way more lag time than parkway and city street road diets and general mass transit expansion getting fully representative share of the pie. They've doubled-down on it so long I can't see it happening until the highway infrastructure in a given place hits end-of-life and has to be done over again just like the modern reconstructions that introduced the useless HOV's in the first place. That's 50-60 years at 15-year-old South Bay. I may still be alive by then, but my last drive on that HOV before its transit conversion will probably end with my nonagenarian cataract-obscured eyes plowing a Buick into a crowd at a Greenway farmer's market.

 

[Scalziand]

At least the I-84 HOV lanes will see imminent use being incorporated into ctfastrak, extending the service for far cheaper than the New Britain Busway boondoggle.

And I do admit I've found them useful traveling between school in Worcester and home in CT (not a regular commute, mind you) when we happen to run through metro Hartford at rush hour, and have been far from the only ones using the HOV lane.

Are there any bus routes that use the HOV tunnel in question, or is it moot because it bypasses SS?

 

[CSTH]

Are there any bus routes that use the HOV tunnel in question, or is it moot because it bypasses SS?

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]

At least the I-84 HOV lanes will see imminent use being incorporated into ctfastrak, extending the service for far cheaper than the New Britain Busway boondoggle.

And I do admit I've found them useful traveling between school in Worcester and home in CT (not a regular commute, mind you) when we happen to run through metro Hartford at rush hour, and have been far from the only ones using the HOV lane.

Are there any bus routes that use the HOV tunnel in question, or is it moot because it bypasses SS?

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]

Logan express braintree. And probably sometimes LE back bay - they do some experimenting with routing at rush hour. That's about it.

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.

 

[Matthew]

^ I think your pessimism is misguided in this case. Google it - every year there is a Globe article about how little these HOV lanes are ever used.

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]

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.

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.

 

[cden4]

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]

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.

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.

 

[Matthew]

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.

 

[Shepard]

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?

 

[Upstruk]

Once the new route crosses fort point channel where would it exit the existing hov lane and have a seaport station? I assume this route would be in addition too and not connected to the existing silver line tunnel?

 

[Charlie_mta]

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.

 

[George_Apley]

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.

+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]

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.

Totally Agree. Then the Logan and Chelsea buses could just be regular diesel buses; no more clunky dual modes.

 

[tangent]

I'd have to assume there's much greater bang-for-buck going Charles/MGH - Kenmore - West Station - Harvard (with intermediate stops of course), and re-routing the B line eastbound onto the GJ through Cambridge (as Davem, I believe, showed on one of his maps). That's both cost-effective for the Blue, and gives Cambridge, in addition to Allston, all sorts of new transit lines.

*...Of course, that all depends on NSRL, doesn't it...

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]

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.

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.

 

[Arlington]

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?

 

[The EGE]

Would it be possible to keep a single mainline track (perhaps a gauntlet between the GL tracks) and only do equipment / maintenance moves with time separation?

 

[Charlie_mta]

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.