Rail Grade Maximums are not exactly just "silly FRA rules". They also reflect real world physics. Steel on steel is not known for its great traction and stopping resistance on grades.
Would the cost of the bridge opening pay for itself? If the marginal cost of opening the the bridge X more times is less than the profit gained from running X more trains, it seems a no-brainer. Even if its just comparable, the benefit of declogging those bridges is pretty handy, too.
Heck, why are we even talking about needing to be profitable (i.e. generating more revenue than the cost of bridge openings) for commuter rail operations? Transit is supposed to be a public good.
Hence my closing sentence.
Yeah but that's not a crazy idea that requires a crayon sharpener. What's the cost per lift?
There was already was a House bill floated in this last session about MassDOT taking ownership of the rail bridge, filed by some Cape passenger rail advocates. It didn't get picked up because it was a wad of pie-in-sky proposals mainly designed to be a conversation-starter. But the ownership portion could easily be broken out into action for a solo bill.
The Haverhill Line next to the Orange Line doesn't need double-tracking...for Reading service. It's only if you plan to keep Haverhill trains conjoined to the Reading Line instead of returning them to their pre-1979 alignment via the Lowell Line + Wildcat Branch that the Somerville-Medford single-track becomes a constriction. Which the Rail Vision does not do...it assigns Haverhill trains to the NH Main to double-up service out to Wilmington.
That's really interesting. Thanks for your input!
Interesting effort.
An interesting idea given the space but man that stop would be horrible to use, noisy and 4 lanes of traffic and probably a 5 minute walk away from anywhere you'd actually want to go.
If you can win the argument with Everett officials (you'd probably wind up having to kill some of the big trees in Sweetster Circle to make room for cranes etc.), there is certainly enough room to build a deck over Revere Beach Parkway to put the station closer to the train.
Yeah, it would be very busy but is there any way around this? This is pretty much the only way out of Everett to the south towards Somerville/Charlestown and it interfaces with the parkway. I think regardless of how you rebuild it, you will still be dealing with a lot of traffic in this area. You could enclose the bus hub so it isn't as overwhelming, something like the ground floor mezzanine at Charles/MGH. Additionally, replacing cars on the western ramp up from Broadway with a bus lane and expanded sidewalk/bike lane seems quite pleasant to me. Lastly, (it probably isn't clear) but I thought you might be able to take advantage of the elevation of the circle with a tunnel underneath the road and connect the bus stop to Main Street so you don't have to play chicken with the cars.
Yeah it's not right in the middle of somewhere you want to be but like @Aprehensive_Words mentioned, it is the best place for connecting all of the likely transit that could go through this area, unless we are straight up tunneling up Broadway. While you could walk if you really wanted to, I think most people would use it to transfer between and regional rail and frequent local buses for the last portion of their trips.
perkinswill.com
