Crazy Transit Pitches

[Commuting Boston Student]

Why stop at TF Green, F-Line? Zone 9 (and beyond) is a pox upon the fare system and there's no way to turn the train at TF Green, is there? Providence is a more logical endpoint. TF Green commuters will have to transfer, but that shouldn't matter. So will Wickford, Kingston and Westerly commuters.

I'd like to see a branch off of Wickford to Newport, too, because there's plenty of room for a new ROW out that way. I'm sure you won't even need to take any houses to build it.

Any plans to terminate Amtrak service to Mystic? Obviously they're keeping Kingston if they plan to rebuild it and you can't axe Westerly service, but something about 3-4 Amtrak changeovers in a row feels wrong.

 

[Riverside]

Why stop at TF Green, F-Line? Zone 9 (and beyond) is a pox upon the fare system and there's no way to turn the train at TF Green, is there? Providence is a more logical endpoint. TF Green commuters will have to transfer, but that shouldn't matter. So will Wickford, Kingston and Westerly commuters.

I'd like to see a branch off of Wickford to Newport, too, because there's plenty of room for a new ROW out that way. I'm sure you won't even need to take any houses to build it.

Any plans to terminate Amtrak service to Mystic? Obviously they're keeping Kingston if they plan to rebuild it and you can't axe Westerly service, but something about 3-4 Amtrak changeovers in a row feels wrong.

Wait, as in branch off from Wickford to Newport, going across the bay? Going through Jamestown? I don't know... I don't think there's really that much of a Newport-Providence commuter market... Besides, rail service to Newport would be more easily done coming down from Fall River, since the tracks are still there, I would think.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Why stop at TF Green, F-Line? Zone 9 (and beyond) is a pox upon the fare system and there's no way to turn the train at TF Green, is there? Providence is a more logical endpoint. TF Green commuters will have to transfer, but that shouldn't matter. So will Wickford, Kingston and Westerly commuters.

I'd like to see a branch off of Wickford to Newport, too, because there's plenty of room for a new ROW out that way. I'm sure you won't even need to take any houses to build it.

Any plans to terminate Amtrak service to Mystic? Obviously they're keeping Kingston if they plan to rebuild it and you can't axe Westerly service, but something about 3-4 Amtrak changeovers in a row feels wrong.

No, Amtrak's not giving up those stops. And definitely not short-turning. They may streamline once commuter rail gets going and fills the local need, but you'd be surprised how high the ridership is at Mystic, Westerly, and Kingston so I bet there's some Regionals that keep them. It'll most likely be that no one train will ever stop at all 3 once CR fills in the gaps, and more will express through from New London. Whatever stops at Mystic won't hit Westerly, etc. Kingston is still an ideal Regionals intermediate stop after New London, though.


As for the Providence Line...yes, Providence is probably the logical turnback for most trains. But there's some value in having direct access to a secondary regional airport so limited turnbacks would be worth keeping. Emphasis on the limited. After all, there's so much talk about the long-term value of connecting Manchester Int'l with Boston, and so much talk about Amtrak Inland Regionals offering a Logan/Bradley link. It would be a little incongruous to open up direct access to T.F. Green and then drop it altogether a few years later. There's enough demand for limiteds, especially for people commuting from Sharon/Mansfield south.

Yes, Zone 9 sucks so there's good reason to wean RI off the T's umbilical cord by decade's end. It's serving its purpose lowering the barrier of entry for RIDOT to get its plan off and running incrementally, and that's nicely smart planning. But it's nobody's idea of a permanent commute solution. If RIDOT tags along with Charlie and the Providence Line gets the post-SS expansion headways it needs and equipment that actually can top 100 MPH it's going to be damn easy to transfer and possibly more convenient at some schedule slots to do the transfer vs. a direct.

Wait, as in branch off from Wickford to Newport, going across the bay? Going through Jamestown? I don't know... I don't think there's really that much of a Newport-Providence commuter market... Besides, rail service to Newport would be more easily done coming down from Fall River, since the tracks are still there, I would think.

Exactly. They want Newport, but they want it as an express train blasting around the horn Providence-Attleboro-Taunton-Fall River and being *very* selective about local stops to keep travel times competitive with I-195 on the roundabout route. Like, probably Taunton and downtown Fall River and that's it in MA before it starts serving the local stops in RI. Traffic's awful in the morning on 195 and the bridges, and FR is more or less the eastern edge of the Providence metro job market with a large labor force under stress from gas prices. That's a highly desirable route for them if they can do 100 MPH on the NEC to Attleboro and 80 around the horn expressing through the branches. They preserved the approaches to the demolished Sakonnet River rail bridge when they built the new road bridge and did a study 18 years ago on rebuilding cost/benefit. If South Coast Rail gets built to FR, they're pretty much decided they're goin' for it and reconnecting the active on-island tracks to the mainline.

No way could they ever build a straight route east. Pell Bridge is only 43 years old, new Jamestown Bridge just turned 20. Those aren't being replaced until the 22nd century.

 

[Riverside]

^^^One thing I've often thought about is building a Providence-Fall River line directly down 195, either in a median and/or elevated above the median. That's 13 miles almost exactly as the crow flies, as opposed to about 38 going via Taunton and Attleboro.

I mean, obviously if SCR happened, it would be a lot cheaper to go the 38 miles, because all the track would be there.

But if SCR doesn't happen (which looks more than possible), wouldn't make more sense just to build a direct route directly paralleling the way people clearly want to go? I have no idea what the numbers would be, but it would be less than 15 miles...

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

^^^One thing I've often thought about is building a Providence-Fall River line directly down 195, either in a median and/or elevated above the median. That's 13 miles almost exactly as the crow flies, as opposed to about 38 going via Taunton and Attleboro.

I mean, obviously if SCR happened, it would be a lot cheaper to go the 38 miles, because all the track would be there.

But if SCR doesn't happen (which looks more than possible), wouldn't make more sense just to build a direct route directly paralleling the way people clearly want to go? I have no idea what the numbers would be, but it would be less than 15 miles...

Warren Branch used to do exactly that...through the East Providence tunnel, down the Bristol Branch to Barrington, crossing Route 103 at the state line, across Cedar Cove and Lee's River on embankments that are still there, then crossing the Slade's Ferry Bridge that used to carry Route 103 across the river to President Ave. halfway between the Brightman St. bridge and Braga Bridge.

What's frustrating is that the Wattupa Branch goes from New Bedford to downtown Fall River (active to Westport, landbanked to FR), but there's a 1/3 mile gap to the Fall River Line now blocked by the City Hall air rights. And it ALWAYS dead-ended there...never a thru rail connection even in historical times. Then the Fairhaven Secondary (landbanked to Mattapoisett, municipal-owned and trailed in Fairhaven, generally all-intact) ran from the Old Colony mainline right by the 195/495 interchange to the docks at Fairhaven. But it never crossed into New Bedford because it went along South St. instead of parallel to Route 6 where it could cross through Fish Island and reach the end of the New Bedford Line. It seems really bizarre that there were those two chintzy little gaps preventing a total one-seat thru ride from Providence to the Cape. Both the Wattupa and Fairhaven stub branches were owned by the Old Colony RR...it's not like they couldn't reach ends back in the 19th century.

At any rate, there's no way to rebuild it now. The Bristol and Warren branches are 100% landbanked and intact in RI with state-owned trails, but the ROW to Fall River in MA had its ownership lapse and is blocked by houses at Cedar Cove. The viaduct to the Providence Tunnel was demolished when the tunnel was abandoned, and could only be put back together as a tunnel extension under Park Row (that has at least been napkin-sketch studied as a way of doing CR on the Bristol Branch to Roger Williams U...in 2050). The only open path to get to the state line from the tunnel is by reactivating the landbanked Bristol Branch...nothing but dense residential along 195 so that reroute impossible. But then, there's no path on the Warren Branch on the MA side of the border that doesn't plow into houses...be it the original route or a new one reaching 195. Slade's Ferry Bridge has been gone 42 years, but at least the Brightman St. bridge looks like it's going to keep standing after its demotion as a thoroughfare route. OK...but you can't reach that and repurpose it as a rail bridge without hitting more residential on the Somerset side getting there.

Then there's the FR Line-Wattupa gap. I suppose if Fall River relocated its not-very-beloved City Hall to the land opening up by the Route 79 demolition that they could re-do the crumbling air rights tunnel with a rail berth off the westbound 195 shoulder. Even with the Wattupa Branch landbanked MassHighway probably would do that future-proofing option because the branch was only cut back from downtown to Westport in the last 10 years. But on the New Bedford end you ain't getting to the much longer-abandoned Fairhaven Secondary without blowing up lots of houses. It would have to be built all-new along the highway median from the Route 18 interchange the NB Line passes under, over a landfill-widened the causeway (won't have any expansion space when they finally widen 195 over it to 6 lanes), then hug the highway to Exit 19 in Mattapoisett where the original ROW finally joins. Any other route is a demolition derby.



Whew...that's an awful lot of very expensive gap-filler for a metro area with a lower-case "m". It really is too bad the Old Colony RR left such baffling gaps in the historical route and that the Warren Branch got abandoned about 10 years too early in MA for the public ownership and landbanking era. There's almost all the pieces available for an east-west thru route Providence-Hyannis. But almost is nothing at all when the blockers are that severe.

 

[omaja]

Why not call it Inman? Man, even fantasy transit planners seem to want to use the least obvious stop names.

To be honest, it slipped my mind. I was in the mode of looking at street names for the rest of that line. I'll definitely rename it.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

I don't see blasting around the horn as an initially viable option regardless of the ultimate fate of South Coast Rail, not when there's nothing but empty space between Wickford and Jamestown. You want guaranteed zero-resistance construction to a brand new ROW? It's right there. Wickford's bizarrely huge parking garage might start looking a bit more appropriate with people parking there to go to Providence, Newport, Westerly, or anywhere else, you shouldn't have to replace either bridge because even building a brand new rails-only bridge is a hell of a lot more doable than getting Fall River to shut up and fall in line.

It's not like having Newport via Wickford is a death sentence for South Coast or South Coast via Attleboro or express around the horn, either. There's no reason RI Rail has to be just one hub and many spokes.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I don't see blasting around the horn as an initially viable option regardless of the ultimate fate of South Coast Rail, not when there's nothing but empty space between Wickford and Jamestown. You want guaranteed zero-resistance construction to a brand new ROW? It's right there. Wickford's bizarrely huge parking garage might start looking a bit more appropriate with people parking there to go to Providence, Newport, Westerly, or anywhere else, you shouldn't have to replace either bridge because even building a brand new rails-only bridge is a hell of a lot more doable than getting Fall River to shut up and fall in line.

It's not like having Newport via Wickford is a death sentence for South Coast or South Coast via Attleboro or express around the horn, either. There's no reason RI Rail has to be just one hub and many spokes.

Hell of a lot more doable? That's insane. These aren't itty bitty little river bridges...this is Narragansett Bay. Jamestown bridge is 7300 ft. long and over 140 feet tall over a navigable deep shipping channel. Pell is an 11,250 ft. long, 400 ft. high suspension bridge. Do you know how fracking expensive it would be to build a wholly secondary bridge over there for a commuter rail line between a parking lot and a tourist trap? You either have to go as high as the road bridges to minimize the number of piers or do a squat causeway moveable bridge with a bazillion piers in deep water. Try $1B for each span...almost a South Coast Rail per bridge. Just the spans. And you realize Jamestown Bridge is 25 miles from Providence via 95/4 or the NEC/Davisville Industrial? That's pretty freaking around-the-horn itself. And, no, the metropolis that is Westerly is not going to make that a hot centralized location.

Around-the-horn Providence to Sakonnet River Bridge is 40 miles on active track, 2 miles of track in Tiverton to restore, a new 380 ft. ground-level river drawbridge they already want to build, and...more active track to an existing transit center terminal. I think people will live with the extra travel time when it serves a larger population pool in Fall River (pop. 88K), Portsmouth (18K), a stop at Portsmouth side of the Mt. Hope Bridge close to Bristol (22K), and Newport (25K) vs. Jamestown (6K) and Newport (25K). It's also a hell of a lot cheaper, as RI doesn't do anything here until South Coast Rail is already built at 80 MPH to Fall River, and probably also not until the Amtrak Cape Codder is back doing minimum 60 if not 80 between Attleboro and Taunton. They're not thinking big here...they're thinking pounce on complete existing MA infrastructure and complete the link inside their borders on-the-thrift as a value added.

Emphasis on-the-thrift. i.e. $75M in RI-built infrastructure, not $2.5B. Sorry, there's Crazy Transit Pitches and there's INSANE Transit Pitches.

 

[Riverside]

Warren Branch used to do exactly that...through the East Providence tunnel, down the Bristol Branch to Barrington, crossing Route 103 at the state line, across Cedar Cove and Lee's River on embankments that are still there, then crossing the Slade's Ferry Bridge that used to carry Route 103 across the river to President Ave. halfway between the Brightman St. bridge and Braga Bridge.

Yeah, I know about the Warren Branch. As you say later, it's not a feasible option anymore because of the rail trail. (And honestly, aside from East Providence, I'm not sure how much those communities would even want rail service through them.)

Amusing geographical side-note: I had figured that going as the crow flies along 195 would be a much shorter distance than the Warren Branch. Turns out it's only a difference of about 3 miles. About 16 for the Warren Branch, 13 for 195. Of course, 195 is a much straighter corridor, with few likely stops, so that would help service speed.

You make great points, by the way, F-Line, about the rest of that never-existent Providence-Hyannis corridor. What a shame.

I don't see blasting around the horn as an initially viable option regardless of the ultimate fate of South Coast Rail, not when there's nothing but empty space between Wickford and Jamestown. You want guaranteed zero-resistance construction to a brand new ROW? It's right there. Wickford's bizarrely huge parking garage might start looking a bit more appropriate with people parking there to go to Providence, Newport, Westerly, or anywhere else, you shouldn't have to replace either bridge because even building a brand new rails-only bridge is a hell of a lot more doable than getting Fall River to shut up and fall in line.

It's not like having Newport via Wickford is a death sentence for South Coast or South Coast via Attleboro or express around the horn, either. There's no reason RI Rail has to be just one hub and many spokes.

I mean, CBS, I feel like you are underestimating the community opposition one would face for putting in a new ROW there. That's been my experience with South County-ers, anyway.

And we still haven't really addressed the question of whether or not the Providence-Newport corridor is by itself large enough to sustain a route via Wickford. The 195 route and the Attleboro route both combine the Newport market with the Fall River market, which the Wickford route does not.

EDIT: F-Line, I agree with your impromptu cost-benefit assessment. Sorry, CBS.

Though your point, CBS, about not necessarily needing one hub is related to another point I was going to make. In a hypothetical (Newport-)Fall River-Providence route, either via 195 or Warren, how would we get from East Providence to downtown?

Crazy idea: don't. Run it across the old (renovated) bridge to a station just south of East Side Marketplace. Leave a provision for tunnel access and future expansion eastward. Have passengers transfer to an extended streetcar route and/or buses. As the market for the new rail line grows, restoring the tunnel and creating a downtown link become more tenable.

...

Hmm, that's actually really crazy. I'm gonna look at that in the morning and be embarrassed. Ah well.

 

[Shepard]

Crazy Transit Pitch: "Blue Line eats Green Line"

In today's crazy transit pitch, the BL takes over the entire Central Subway, GLX and D line. How? Government Center station and adjacent tunnels would obviously have to be heavily modified but the result would be that eastbound BL trains through the central subway could continue on either towards Wonderland (or, what the hell, Lynn) or towards North Station and the GLX.

Bowdoin is abandoned, and the issue of the Blue-RedX at Charles MGH becomes moot thanks to the new B-RX at Park.

B line and C line are orphaned as "high speed lines" to Kenmore. (B could also be a BL branch cut and covered to the BU bridge and then an El from there.)

E line is diverted under Stuart Street or under the NEC to South Station and beyond into the Piers Transitway (current SL tunnel) making it a light rail line unto itself.

Crazy or stupid?

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

I mean, CBS, I feel like you are underestimating the community opposition one would face for putting in a new ROW there. That's been my experience with South County-ers, anyway.

Yes, I would be massively understating the community opposition if there was a community at all in Slocum and Saunderstown to oppose it. There isn't.

According to F-Line, I'm massively underestimating the cost of new rail bridges, which does pose a significant obstacle, but I maintain that waiting for South Coast Rail means nothing happens, ever, since Fall River very clearly does not want it and are simply jerking the rest of us around to avoid outright stating how much they don't want it.

Crazy idea: don't. Run it across the old (renovated) bridge to a station just south of East Side Marketplace. Leave a provision for tunnel access and future expansion eastward. Have passengers transfer to an extended streetcar route and/or buses. As the market for the new rail line grows, restoring the tunnel and creating a downtown link become more tenable.

...

Hmm, that's actually really crazy. I'm gonna look at that in the morning and be embarrassed. Ah well.

First we build a streetcar, then we build some more streetcars, then we bury the streetcars, then we stick them together and call it a subway.

That's also really crazy, but I want a Providence Subway.

Crazy Transit Pitch: "Blue Line eats Green Line"

In today's crazy transit pitch, the BL takes over the entire Central Subway, GLX and D line. How? Government Center station and adjacent tunnels would obviously have to be heavily modified but the result would be that eastbound BL trains through the central subway could continue on either towards Wonderland (or, what the hell, Lynn) or towards North Station and the GLX.

Bowdoin is abandoned, and the issue of the Blue-RedX at Charles MGH becomes moot thanks to the new B-RX at Park.

B line and C line are orphaned as "high speed lines" to Kenmore. (B could also be a BL branch cut and covered to the BU bridge and then an El from there.)

E line is diverted under Stuart Street or under the NEC to South Station and beyond into the Piers Transitway (current SL tunnel) making it a light rail line unto itself.

Crazy or stupid?

It feels like a losing proposition to me, in the sense that we end up with less transit overall to show for it. Doing this blocks Blue Line at Charles/MGH, blocks any future Blue extensions west of the Red Line (ergo blocking Blue to Watertown/Waltham), possibly blocks proper light rail on Washington Street depending on how the E line diversion goes, and nicely screws over the single-seat ride between North Station and Kenmore.

 

[czsz]

Crazy Transit Pitch: "Blue Line eats Green Line"

In today's crazy transit pitch, the BL takes over the entire Central Subway, GLX and D line. How? Government Center station and adjacent tunnels would obviously have to be heavily modified but the result would be that eastbound BL trains through the central subway could continue on either towards Wonderland (or, what the hell, Lynn) or towards North Station and the GLX.

Bowdoin is abandoned, and the issue of the Blue-RedX at Charles MGH becomes moot thanks to the new B-RX at Park.

B line and C line are orphaned as "high speed lines" to Kenmore. (B could also be a BL branch cut and covered to the BU bridge and then an El from there.)

E line is diverted under Stuart Street or under the NEC to South Station and beyond into the Piers Transitway (current SL tunnel) making it a light rail line unto itself.

Crazy or stupid?

I like it. The B and C can run to Lechmere and then along the Somerville extension, or run alternately there and to the Piers Transitway (the E line could then run to Somerville as well).

 

[Shepard]

^ Just to clarify, since I think you've misunderstood. The B and C, so long as they remain streetcars, wouldn't be able to go past Kenmore, since the central subway would be BL'd. (That's what makes this rather sort of crazy.)

In other news, power is out in the Back Bay where I'd rather perch here on battery power than descend 25+ flights of stairs into the rain.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Frankly, as long as we're talking fantasy here, if you don't combine the E and D lines, you're just crazy.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Frankly, as long as we're talking fantasy here, if you don't combine the E and D lines, you're just crazy.

I would not only combine them, but combine them this way:

1) (this-decade/short-term) D-to-E surface tracks, limited rush hour thru service turning at Brookline Village or Reservoir. Game-day service in a circuit loop to clear out the Kenmore crowds faster. Supplemental service via Reservoir and Chestnut Hill Ave. to BC so they can put in a turnback on the B at Harvard Ave. to load-balance the crowds at the ends during peak hours.

2) Eliminate Copley Jct. with a new subway off the former Lenox St. side of the Tremont tunnel under Marginal Rd. to Back Bay, rejoining the E at Prudential where the tunnel straightens off the curve. Green Line needs a direct BB stop...it's a poor man's North-South Link. Marginal's one of the easiest city streets to tunnel under because you just dig sideways through the Pike retaining wall and basically have it be a surface-level box tunnel with the street supported on "air rights" like the Pike Pru tunnel construction. The surrounded blocks were all obliterated by the Pike in the 60's...there isn't the mess of utilities behind that retaining wall that there is anywhere else in immediate downtown.

3) Huntington subway Phase I: Northeastern-Brigham Circle extension. Another easy dig under the reservation.

4) Huntington subway Phase II: Brigham-Brookline Vill. Harder...Huntington's got a lot of old utilities underneath. But mercifully short. Thru-route the D permanently. Permanent "circuit service" GC-Kenmore via either flank so everything flows like buttah through the Central Subway and it's got the capacity to absorb the whole of the Urban Ring northside as an LRT appendage zigzagging from the Grand Junction (also feeding a short subway extension to BU Bridge), Kenmore, Brookline Vill.

5) N-S Link NEC Portal + SL Phase III LRT in one piggyback double-deck tunnel build from the City Point side of the Tremont tunnel to South Station. Install a wye so JP/Brookline-originating trains can thru-route to Southie at-will in the Transitway (still Airport BRT but now a dual-use subway with rails in the pavement).

6) Surface streetcar branches in Southie off the Transitway to Melnea Cass (reservation-running), Dudley (connecting with Washington St. LRT), and Brookline Vill (either subway flank + D + zigzag to the northside Ring). Transfers at Dudley coming every direction. Yes, some street-running to the south because tunneling there is too hard, but all services are load-balanced to the Dudley midpoint, perform much better than BRT, and offer one-seat subway access at both BV and Southie ends with a straight shot down Washington at the middle terminal.


There...two load-balancing subways, the full Silver Line as originally envisioned, Urban Ring, a cost-contained pooled build of SLIII + the most critical N-S Link feeder tunnel underneath RR land instead of impossible Chinatown streets, one-seat from North Station to South Station or Back Bay on a half-dozen different service configurations. All on one mode, all on one interconnected system. The way it should've been...and used to be before the streetcar network was destroyed by urban renewal. For less cost than the far more limited-utility, separate mode boondoggles actually proposed for SLIII/UR/N-S.

 

[Matthew]

Any way of providing better service to the Fenway neighborhood itself? It's one of the most densely populated in Boston.

 

[Equilibria]

^ Just to clarify, since I think you've misunderstood. The B and C, so long as they remain streetcars, wouldn't be able to go past Kenmore, since the central subway would be BL'd. (That's what makes this rather sort of crazy.)

In other news, power is out in the Back Bay where I'd rather perch here on battery power than descend 25+ flights of stairs into the rain.

As long as you're truncating the B/C (and A, since this is Craaaazy), why not just route them onto the Grand Junction? A/B are already there, and C could be rerouted down St. Paul (Longwood/Fenway could cover that neighborhood).

In fact, if you do it that way, you can route them all the way to Lechmere that way. The BL could take the West Medford routing, while the new Green Line LRT could pull the hairpin turn onto the Union Square and Porter track, all the way to Waltham in theory.

Not the best way to reorganize things, IMO, since I maintain that HRT in Newton and Needham (and possibly Brookline) is actually counterproductive to intra-suburban travel in those cities, and you don't get Kenmore as an LRT station that way, so transfers would stink, but it's worth mentioning.

 

[HenryAlan]

And, yes, I bet MARC has filled the last gap by then, so by 2020-2022 (at latest...RIDOT is for-reals about this)...MBTA --> RIDOT --> SLE --> Metro North --> NJ Transit --> SEPTA --> MARC --> Virginia Railway Express gets you from South Station to Fredericksburg, VA via NYC and D.C. in one very very long all-day commute without once seeing the inside of an Amtrak train.

Technically, there's still a gap between MetroNorth and NJT. After New Rochelle, MetroNorth leaves the NEC to terminate and Grand Central, but NJT runs out of Penn, so you have to add a walk or a hop on the subway to close that gap. It's all rail, but it's not 100% commuter rail. Or will MetroNorth have through service to Penn established by then?

 

[czsz]

^ Just to clarify, since I think you've misunderstood. The B and C, so long as they remain streetcars, wouldn't be able to go past Kenmore, since the central subway would be BL'd. (That's what makes this rather sort of crazy.)

While we're in the realm of crazy anyway we might as well keep/build new trolley tracks for the B and C in the old central tunnel up to Government Center to permit through service...

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Technically, there's still a gap between MetroNorth and NJT. After New Rochelle, MetroNorth leaves the NEC to terminate and Grand Central, but NJT runs out of Penn, so you have to add a walk or a hop on the subway to close that gap. It's all rail, but it's not 100% commuter rail. Or will MetroNorth have through service to Penn established by then?

There are some mega political heavies at the state level pushing MNRR to Penn after East Side Access is open. Long Island RR is fighting it kicking and screaming because the two MTA commuter RR's institutionally hate each other, but Bloomberg and Cuomo are both twisting the screws for it. And ultimately the kingpins with potential Presidential ambitions are going to get what they want.

Tense politics involved, but this will get fast-tracked for 2020 at latest. Intermediate stops along the Amtrak line to come as they come. They have to lay a little bit (1 mile?) of LIRR-style 3rd rail out of Penn because MNRR cars can't handle the weird Amtrak overhead grid D.C.-to-Penn and need 3rd rail territory to reach the voltage break onto the more conventional north-of-NYC overhead. But the new M8 cars are designed out of the box with 3rd rail shoes that can run on both MNRR and LIRR 3rd rail, so they've got their ongoing total fleet replacement ready and waiting for Penn access.