F-Line to Dudley
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In an alternate universe where the US maintains UK-style branch lines with cute little dinkies, you could reactivate the Central Mass with diesel LRT vehicles that terminate at Weston/128 and share a yard with the Green Line. In the real world, that's an answer asking for a question, alas.
Alternate universe musings aside: In some ways, what we're discussing here (GLX to Waltham) is the same idea that was had with the Riverside Line 70 years ago, except about 100 years later. Moderate density suburbia, historically running mainline rail, whose frequencies have steadily increased over time, eventually get converted into LRT. (Cue *Circle of Life* soundtrack.)
CM reactivation to West Berlin has a full 1996 feasibility study on the books: http://www.mapc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Central-Mass-Commuter-Rail-Feasibility-Study-1996.pdf.
It's very of-its-era dated on study metrics, favoring parking sinks over traditional station sitings in walkup areas...noteably the Hudson station site moved out of downtown density. But several down notes sounded wouldn't hold up to scrutiny under fresh study, either:
- ROW is askew from the traditional downtowns of Weston, Wayland, and Sudbury. Study only included Wayland and South Sudbury and skipped old Weston Depot, but all 3 suffer from walkup being 1/3 to 1/2 mile from what passes for village centers, with spotty sidewalk coverage sharply limiting the catchment radius. No buses, either. Wayland at least has an asphalt-special strip mall with Stop & Shop and misc. to terraform nearby for TOD, but Weston is still 49 years later a little Kendal Green-type zit stop and S. Sudbury likewise an unchanged time warp (though that was the highest-ridership of the group pre-'71). Ridership would be way anemic at all of these. Weston would probably slug considerably higher transit shares at the 128 superstation via just one bus route pinging down US 20 to village center, matched to the supremely better headways at the superstation.
- No other intermediates worth bringing back. 1964-71 T-era stops Cherry Brook, Tower Hill, East Sudbury, Ordway, and Gleasondale were a bunch of sub- Silver Hills with more deer than humans for catchment.
- Only Hudson hit the ideal mix of dense, walkable downtown in transit-starved area (yet this is the one the study relocated out-of-town to a forlorn parking sink!!!). Downtown of a town of population 19K is the selling point. That's not nearly enough. Not when a bus off the MA 85 stub of the I-290/495 interchange out of Northborough Station on Fitchburg Secondary commuter rail can adequately serve the town if bus schedules are timed well enough with what projects to be a highly-utilized and RUR-caliber branch.
- West Berlin (ROW directly behind the guardrail at this P'nR lot @ 495 Exit 26) is in a desolate forest. No TOD...just a parking lot. Stop siting is exactly 5 miles and 2 exits via 495/290 from Northborough stop on the Fitchburg Sec., which is in a TOD-rich industrial park ripe for supersizing. As w/ Hudson, the much higher-priority Fitchburg Sec. CR kicks the primary legs out from the Central Mass' value proposition with plenty good enough approximations for the only catchments worth a damn.
- If pursuing the option to direct-connect the CM to Fitchburg Sec @ MA 62 in Berlin for run-thru to Clinton the above-and-beyonds aren't super. North Station-Worcester didn't study out in the Grand Junction/Metrowest feasibility study with much demand outside of tippy-top peak when Orange Line suffers the most under load; fixing Orange and pumping up trunk B&A frequencies is the all-day solution there. So you're not going to net anything special bending back down from Clinton Jct. on the PAR Worcester Main. Travel times of 53 min. to West Berlin and maybe 1:00-1:05 to Clinton also aren't stratospherically better enough than the curvy Fitchburg Sec. to matter. You can always goose the Fitchburg Sec. travel times to Boston with liberal skip-stopping on the B&A main since the Worcester Line service layer cake backstops headways on the main.
- And the Fitchburg Sec. would be a first candidate to trial a shuttle dinky if Worcester Union-Framingham were a MetroWest-exclusive sweep-up pattern of local stops with cross-platform transfers to dense RUR service at both endpoints. While thru-Boston service on the branch terminated at Northborough or Clinton for the sake of acceptable schedules. If the CM is slightly faster into Clinton for making the Worcester Union bend-back and thus theoretically doesn't need to be a shuttle...the fact that it whiffs on the biggest intra- MetroWest stops makes it less-overall useful than the shuttle for all the extra money.
- Nothing is ever going to go past Clinton to Sterling or Leominster on the Fitchburg Sec. Too excruciatingly long. Leominster is already in the MRTA bus district with fast service to North Leominster on the Fitchburg Line. Simply graduate Sterling into the MRTA district and extend the bus on MA 12 down to I-190 and you've pretty much captured it. So thru-routing the CM to Leominster/Fitchburg does nothing, as N. Leominster and the Fitchburg Main will slug higher frequencies.
I mean, it's not useless...but for such a straight-looking ROW it's got an awfully low on-base percentage and no real tools to carve it a role on your transit ballclub. When your bench already has some very useful sluggers like Fitchburg Sec. waiting for at-bats and hyper-targeted bus augmentation from there to play the matchups, it really looks like a waste of a roster spot...even if you were willing to pay the league's Luxury Tax for carrying an elite payroll.
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