The same way I propose to sell any other short-turn. Extra service for the part of the corridor that sees the highest amount of demand.
And you plan to quell the angry pitchfork-and-fire wielding mob of South Shore commuters who lose their guaranteed one-seat to downtown...how? That is insane. How about doing no harm to the two busiest branches on the rapid transit system.
Math is math, but your math relies an awful lot on disingenuous assumptions and doesn't work if we dispel the myths that:[*]The sum total of all boardings across an entire line or an entire system have any bearing whatsoever on the number of boardings going to a specific location. We don't have any way to track those numbers, and it's somewhat foolish to equate demand for point-to-point rides with total system utilization, or draw a conclusion about one based on the other.
Then offer up your empirical evidence.
[*]Separate portals must be assigned to the various north-side Lines. There's plenty of leading room on the final approach to place one portal for all four North Station lines, and this has the added bonus of allowing us to tunnel under the river crossing, minimizing the impact of that draw bridge we can't replace with a fixed span. Separate portals for any North-side lines is a deliberate cost inflater and one of the first things that will be compromised away into a single portal after the sticker shock hits.
At 2% grades--already steep, and just about the max allowable--the incline has to be 1 mile long from the station platforms. The portal for the NH Main, Western Route, and Eastern Route just barely hits the surface where the NH Main tracks split from the others, 100-200 feet shy of where
this I-93 billboard is. They can't bring it any closer or the trains can't climb it. So Fitchburg's got to have a separate portal on a curve, at an easier grade around the curve. Is that worth the ridership loss in the towns of Belmont, Waltham, Lincoln, Concord, Acton, and Littleton when Ayer-Wachusett is easily accessible out of Lowell? Probably not.
[*]"Fairmount isn't important enough to justify its own portal." Actually, we both know that Amtrak wants to kick as many commuter rail trains off of the NEC in Boston as it possibly can, and Fairmount is the relief valve where most of the Franklin Line trains can be exiled to. Because Fairmount Station exists, Hyde Park Station can be busted out of existence, and Readville can be grade-separated again with 90% of its traffic no longer needing to move from the NEC to the Franklin Line. Furthermore, this isn't even beginning to touch on the "Indigo Line," which people want to see as a full-scheduled _MU service. DMUs or even EMUs running up and down the Fairmount Line every 20 minutes in each direction, and that's not "important" enough to extend to North Station at the least?
For $1.5B extra. Hell no. The ridership doesn't even come close.
But they don't have to tri-portal to incorporate Fairmount. The 19th century ROW used to hang a right, go through what's now the
shopping center parking lot, and join the Old Colony just after the Boston St. curve. You can see on Google the basic outline of it is still there given how the property lines interact. The OC portal would be roughly by Southampton St.
Did it occur to anyone why build 2 when 1 + an easy realignment will do? Of course not.
But I still don't think they'll be able to afford to build that right off the bat. So put a tunnel cut where it merges with the NEC and revisit 10 years later. I can support an eventual OC portal add-on way more than doing anything ever with a Fitchburg portal.
[*]There's no possible way to fan out into more platforming tracks underneath the station. You seem to be convinced that there's no room for any more than 4 tracks and 2~4 platforms underneath South Station and North Station - when, in fact, there's easily room for 8 tracks and 4 platforms. The crossover merges will be a bit tight, but it's far from the worst engineering challenge associated with the Link.
North Station somehow manages to stay wholly within capacity cramming 10 active tracks through two 2-track movable bridges despite a pronounced layout skew onto only 1 of the bridges. The Link, having a symmetrical track layout, is easier to handle than that. So long as you're not dropping that Central Station turd in the punchbowl.
And yes, the crossovers are tight, compounded by the steep grades, and constrained by things like the NEC and OC lead tunnels splitting very soon after the platforms. It's likely to take a little bit of the luster off what traffic levels they can cram through there and may necessitate 2-tracking for sheer simplification purposes. The initial studies
stated no preference for # of tracks because this hasn't been studied out.
[*]You need to through-run all the lines to get to the point where there's a train in the Link every three minutes or less. BET is still on the wrong side of the city relative to South Station and isn't going anywhere, and we both know that more platform space available for dead trains to take up is a temporary solution to a real capacity problem. Every line being through-run is an incredibly doubtful proposition, but dead-heading trains through the Link into BET (or keeping them in revenue service only as far as North Station) is not.
There will never be trains that frequent through there. Conflicting movements at the crossovers alone will prevent that. This is going to be a slow ride with those grades. Probably something like 15 MPH and an even slower crawl out of the platforms where the trains really have to work hard to pull through the crossovers. If the engineering kneecaps the speed because of acceleration issues, they may only be able to run EMU's and Amtraks (which have power cars at both ends). No push-pull for the diesel branches that would have dual-mode locos running through.
This is why the studies state no preference in # of tracks. And this is why they're being unrealistic as hell calling for +3 extra portals and a Central Station. You may not be able to run Fitchburg, Haverhill, Franklin, Needham, South Coast, Old Colony, etc. etc. through there push-pull. Those are the lines on the system that may not support electrification because of freight clearances (Haverhill, inner Franklin, outer Fitchburg, maybe South Coast if container freight makes its way to ports of FR/NB) or will be waiting many decades down the priority pile for the full treatment behind the biggies Worcester, Lowell, Newburyport/Rockport (definitely forcing the issue with Needham and Reading about full rapid transit conversion).
If you've got 3 or 4 lines that can't swing EMU's because of freight, 2 that probably shouldn't be CR at all, and end-to-end/EMU-supporting electrification that may not make economic sense outside the NEC, B&A, NH Main, and Eastern Route...the surface terminals are going to outslug thru traffic by a wide margin.
[*]The average Boston resident assigns a higher priority on what trips they take and how they take them based on what modes are available to them, and would only be willing to ride "true Rapid Transit" rolling stock through the Link. They'll turn their noses up at icky commuter rail and choose some other means of travel instead. Now, I remember when we last had this modal warfare argument... don't you?
I have no bloody idea what you're even saying here. But let's talk math.
-- Rapid transit trains on 3-min. headways feeding from branch sources with some of the highest ridership on the system (or potentially, in GLX's case) slay the ridership of the
entire commuter rail system. The existing Red Line does that. If you're going to dismiss that out-of-hand, at least show
something empirical to back it up. A theory about how the numbers would shape with the service patterns.
-- Penn Station has survived for 100 years on 2 tracks from NJ with thru traffic levels that dwarf our entire commuter rail system. What is so different here with stations that can only physically fit 6-8 berths and can't run a majority of the CR traffic???
-- What is modal warfare about fitting 2 modes through there? You explain that one.
Finally, they are not going to have money right off the bat for a full build. Central Station almost certainly a casualty. The extra portals likely needing to be punted off later to prioritize NEC/Worcester, NH Main/Western Route/Eastern Route. Not nearly enough lines will be 100% end-to-end electrified with the priority order pretty firmly established, and engineering still has to bear out whether single-loco push-pull has enough power to make the grades.
Who says they have to fill all 4 track berths first, or says there's going to be a single pile of money to put something on Tracks 3 & 4...rapid transit or otherwise? It's quite likely we're looking at a minimum build, then debating the add-ons. Sort it out accordingly.
[*]A branch of the Red Line running through the Link would ONLY stop at South Station and North Station. We all know what a boondoggle proposition Central Station will be, but there's no reason to believe it'll be any less of a boondoggle as "Aquarium Under" for the Red Line Link branch.
No. Because "Aquarium Under" would be a simple 6-car/450 ft. island platform with single set of elevators and escalators. Central Station is 3 800 ft. islands...set on a partial incline...with egresses from each. That's like 2-1/2 times the cavern to bore out. "Aquarium Under" is like Broadway.
I don't know if it'll still be a boondoggle. But it is most definitely 2-1/2 times less a boondoggle than Central Station.
There...there's an empirically-argued compromise for the need to have a Blue connection that milks better value-for-money.
For that matter, the path of the Link passes right under Haymarket and Rowes Wharf. As a Greenway trolley, all three of these stops can be accommodated cheaply, easily, and thanks to the traffic lights you're so concerned about, without causing any undue delays relative to what would otherwise hold up the trolley. As a Red Line Link branch, you just took your one problem-causing, money-draining station and tripled it. As a Red Line Link branch that proceeds farther north up GLX, it's even worse: you've got to provide those stops, because god forbid anyone ever needs to transfer. The revolution was fought and won for our right to a single seat ride, after all![/list]I'm not screaming "zany" for my own health. I'm screaming "zany" because that's what any proposal for Link-running Rapid Transit is.
Yeah, so build a Greenway heritage trolley San Fran Market line style and unseal the Green Line Haymarket portal. Do something useful while supporting the local tourism industry. The Link's going to move much, much more people than a street-running trolley that has to stop at every light and doesn't have cross-platform terminal access.
You're the one arguing this on modal warfare grounds.
Look...I am tired of having these arguments every page. If you want to throw a tantrum about how it *has* to be done your way or the highway and any other way is a civil engineering abortion, start offering up some compelling empirical evidence for why things
must be so. And how you plan to get it built--laying out what's compromisable--that doesn't involve tactical nuclear strikes, overriding the stringent objections of commuters and property owners, and printing money the likes of which have never been amassed before. This indignant absolutism is a waste of everyone's time.
