Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail (South Coast Rail)

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Could we add the Orange Line extension to Roslindale since we have some money to spare?

Is there anyway we can bring this to the public's attention, in an effort to spark outrage that so much money could be spent to benefit a greater number of people? Or does enough of the public just not care that it wouldn't even matter? It sounds like the politicians already have their mind made up, just wondering if there is anything that could be done to change what this money is spent on before SCR gets built.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

^ Go to public meetings and redundantly bring it up. Contact local journos. Contact the Republican Party. Talk to transit advocacy groups. Write your reps/senators. The price tag per expected rider is the real mind opener...
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

The Boston area stuff (R-B Connector, Lynn, etc) has a great payback, of course, but it doesn't solve the political problem/opportunity to promote statewide development.

I understand, politically, that we cannot simply "take" the $2.3b that FR/NB feel "entitled" to now (that they got "entitled" to back when it was $1b) and spend it on "Boston people" (like me in Medford) but I have to believe that there are still other, better ways to spend this money to benefit FR/NB that would actually give all taxpayers better payback on South-regional mobility and economic development. And that it isn't too late for a politician running for Governor to "switch to" now.

1) Double track, frequent service to a world-class park-and-ride in Taunton/24/140. Probably best done as an upgrade to the NEC, not a re-activation. But make it a real, "worth driving to" hub.

2) Give Fall River's "west side" better options for doing a park-and-ride (or bus) (build a new station at Roger Williams Park / I-95 / RI-10)..a 20 minute drive from FR. The "waste" on Rhode Islanders using is still going to be less than the waste on *nobody* using it.

2) Give New Bedford's "east side" better options by creating frequent service on the Middleboro line to Wareham, Put another "world class" park and ride at I-195 & I-495.

Because, let's face it, the reason the line is going to attract only 10k riders is that there's nobody living close enough to the stations to walk anyway--it is going to be 99% park-and-ride anyway, so why are we laying all that shiny new rail (on two branches) that's going to sit unused--untouched by a train--for something like 90% of its day.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

That they aren't phasing this to Taunton first is enormous idiocy.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

I would be supportive of spending those billions for SCR instead to create a real transit system within NB and FR. Just think of how many high frequency bus routes you could create and operate, for decades, on that money.

They wouldn't even want to be a bedroom community of Boston after that.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Also, FR/NB should be made to see that more parking at PVD (Downtown/Acela) and at PVD Airport (Amtrak Regional), and connectivity to New York & the NEC are probably an equally-valuable thing. Once-a-week business trips seem equally plausible (and higher value) than daily commutes.

Rhode Island has proven a worthy collaborator to Mass on rail service and that whole corner of Mass would benefit from improved air/rail connectivity in Providence.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

It's all about jobs and the need for politicians from non Boston regions to act like their region counts too. People should write some editorials, so people might wake up and realize that $$ for public transit isn't magically transformative no matter what. I mean, people agitate for CR to Springfield! Like thousands of yuppies are going to rejoice and rejuvenate the Pioneer valley because of a 2 hr CR trip each way. Seriously, people... Put the money where it will help the most - give it to the locals, build local BRT or a LR to Prov, or build better infrastructure in the city. Jeez. People should seriously start writing letters to the Globe. About that and about Melnea Cass, another dumb project.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

I challenge any of you to go to public meetings in FR/NB and tell them that they simply aren't worth the investment and the dollars will instead be diverted to the Blue and Orange lines. Easier said than done.

Everyone, including our politicians, knows that this money could be much better spent on that laundry list of MBTA expansions. But the reality of the situation is that the South Coast has been neglected and allowed to wallow in post-industrial decline for decades. Without an easy connection to Boston, these cities stand no chance at ever attracting economic investment.

So yes, it sucks that the price tag is $2.2 billion, but the responsibility of our government is to the entire Commonwealth and it's hard to justify spending billions more on booming Boston while a bit further south a region is hanging onto a dying fishing industry and the only thing thriving is the heroin market.

Access to Boston is Condition A if the South Coast ever hopes to turn itself around. And no, a bus isn't going to cut it.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

^ The point isn't that South Coast deserves the shaft, it's that the South Coast will not be well served by this solution, and there are better ways to improve their situation than dropping $2B on a shitty Commuter Rail branch and saying "you're welcome."
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

I challenge any of you to go to public meetings in FR/NB and tell them that they simply aren't worth the investment and the dollars will instead be diverted to the Blue and Orange lines. Easier said than done.
I'd divert it no further than Taunton, Middlboro, and Providence...a 20 minute drive from any point.
But the reality of the situation is that the South Coast has been neglected and allowed to wallow in post-industrial decline for decades. Without an easy connection to Boston, these cities stand no chance at ever attracting economic investment.
And how does being a state willing to waste $2.3b worth of bonding authority attract economic investment? Being stupid and wasteful with government money is not a turn on to employers.
So yes, it sucks that the price tag is $2.2 billion, but the responsibility of our government is to the entire Commonwealth and it's hard to justify spending billions more on booming Boston while a bit further south a region is hanging onto a dying fishing industry and the only thing thriving is the heroin market.
My conclusion would be that I don't trust heroin-addled, desperate post-industrialists to make smart economic decisions.
Access to Boston is Condition A if the South Coast ever hopes to turn itself around.
And you assert this based on...facts you quote directly from memory? Access to places on the NEC might be better...it certainly is for Springfield and has been for Amtrak Virginia (where once a day trains on the NEC have been well-patronized and cash-positive.)
And no, a bus isn't going to cut it
Why not? We're experiencing something of a bus renaissance in this country.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

^ The point isn't that South Coast deserves the shaft, it's that the South Coast will not be well served by this solution, and there are better ways to improve their situation than dropping $2B on a shitty Commuter Rail branch and saying "you're welcome."

Sure, and low-wage workers who commute to jobs in Boston would probably gladly take a bus to a "world class" park-and-ride at Middleborough/Lakeville, as has been suggested as a higher value alternative. Mostly because there would be no better choice.

The problem is that solution barely changes the region's economic status quo. The South Coast is going nowhere with its current industries and labor pool. It wants to attract tourism and hospitality, maybe become a viable bedroom community for slightly higher wage workers. No amount of kinda sorta nearby park-and-rides will do that.

Judging from my own experience, I've taken many day trips from Boston to towns all over eastern Mass. The one thing they all have in common is commuter rail access. South Coast Rail is not just about connecting the area to Boston jobs, it's about getting me to go spend my money in New Bedford. I'll gladly go, but not if it involves a park-and-ride at Middleborough/Lakeville...
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Sure, and low-wage workers who commute to jobs in Boston would probably gladly take a bus to a "world class" park-and-ride at Middleborough/Lakeville, as has been suggested as a higher value alternative. Mostly because there would be no better choice.

The problem is that solution barely changes the region's economic status quo. The South Coast is going nowhere with its current industries and labor pool. It wants to attract tourism and hospitality, maybe become a viable bedroom community for slightly higher wage workers. No amount of kinda sorta nearby park-and-rides will do that.

Judging from my own experience, I've taken many day trips from Boston to towns all over eastern Mass. The one thing they all have in common is commuter rail access. South Coast Rail is not just about connecting the area to Boston jobs, it's about getting me to go spend my money in New Bedford. I'll gladly go, but not if it involves a park-and-ride at Middleborough/Lakeville...

But why should the rest of the state pay the bill to do so? The state's existing infrastructure is crumbling, which could mean destroying existing economic centers and tourist areas. Why should we focus on extending CR to the south coast when the same things can be offered on the existing north shore? What does the south shore have to offer that makes such a superflous and exaggerated extension necessary?
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

It wants to attract tourism and hospitality, maybe become a viable bedroom community for slightly higher wage workers. No amount of kinda sorta nearby park-and-rides will do that.

Tourism and hospitality does not get stimulated by commuter rail. Name a post-industrial place, anywhere in North America, that was not a tourist destination that turned itself into one with commuter rail.

Spend $2.3b on commuter rail and you'd be lucky to get $230,000 in additional "tourism"...about a 10,000 year payback.

The CapeFlyer succeeded by siphoning a teensy bit of the huge, pre-existing Cape Cod summer high season (onto pre-existing rails). Meanwhile, the Hampton Jitney *is* a bus that serves one of the highest-end summer destinations.

Point being: until the "leisure destination" has proved that people want to go there, it makes no sense to build $2.3b worth of infrastructure "on the come", and once you *are* a leisure destination, the "family car" is going to be your #1 mode and non-stop bus will be all it takes to get rich-car-free-kid-free people out there.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Is there any actual evidence stating the efficacy of rail transportation in driving new economic growth? I'm not talking about opinions, talking points or anecdotes but rather hard facts presented by a reputable organization - a university researcher or a semi-middle of the road think tank.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

The benefits of rail service are that you get cars off the road (good for the environment and traffic), you can sleep or get work done on the train, and you don't have to be driving/sitting in traffic. Between parking fees and the actual fare, its not much cheaper. If anything, it's more expensive. Wasn't there just an article about CR ridership declining because its cheaper to drive?

So NB/FRs poor, unwashed masses are not going to be riding the train. Even if they were, where are these jobs in Boston? Brockton and Lynn are both shitholes, and they have pretty great rail access, and are one hell of a lot closer to Boston to boot. They have real bus networks and walkable downtown stations as well.

Just for fun, lets say the train does come, there are a few thousand magical open positions in Boston for work, and their employers give them a T pass for free out of the goodness of their hearts. How are they getting to the stations? They are not going to be walkable, so you need a car or a vastly improved bus network to get there. I see no urban planning going on for TOD around the station sites, or a promise to create a real bus system. I see nothing other than a magical train that will somehow bring wealth and prosperity down there, even though there is no plan to make that happen.

Case-in-point, spending the 3 billion this is likely to cost after a million overruns and fiasco is NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING TO HELP THE SOUTH COAST. The residents will not be able to afford to ride or even get to the train. No one is going to commute from there when there are many other shitty cheap cities much closer to Boston they could settle in. The train line itself is being built with a single track trunk that will cripple the service from the get-go, eliminating the possibility to run frequent service without dumping even more millions into the line.

The really horrible part, though, is that its going to be the big-dig mentality all over again. When the train is built, and it doesn't rejuvenate the economy or make anyone's life easier, and they see what actually would need to be done to make it useful, they won't get any funding to do it because they just spent 3 billion for nothing. The pols will be focused on some other batshit crazy idea (rail from Palmer?), and the south coast will be stuck with a useless, expensive train and no money to make it work.



Spend a billion to get a really awesome two track mainline to Taunton. Dump 250mil into buying a gigantic fleet of buses for the South Coast. Create feeder lines that loop around the neighborhoods, and then use the shoulder of 24 to cruise to the Taunton terminal. Maybe even run a train from Taunton to Providence in addition to Boston. COMMIT another half billion to future improvements, but don't earmark anything specific.

Once that is running, ridership is primed, and commuting trends start to appear, start slowly clearing brush and upgrading track. I would say go to Fall River first with the trains, redirecting the NB buses there first. Then after a few years bring trains to NB. Or maybe the other way. Or maybe it would make more scene to restore the E-W line between FR and NB instead. The thing is, no one knows what would actually be best, because the south coast hasn't had transit in ages. Don't spend 2.3 billion on something that has unproven demand and will be a complete and utter flop. Do what you know will work, and make changes once trends start to appear. Just like the Downeaster and Cape Flyer.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

The problem is that solution barely changes the region's economic status quo. The South Coast is going nowhere with its current industries and labor pool. It wants to attract tourism and hospitality, maybe become a viable bedroom community for slightly higher wage workers. No amount of kinda sorta nearby park-and-rides will do that.
No amount of park-n-ride American commuter rail, even after spending $2.3 billion to bring stations to New Bedford and Fall River, will do that. Period.

Dropping $2.3 billion on commuter rail is not going to turn FR/NB into day trip destinations any more than they are right now.

Judging from my own experience, I've taken many day trips from Boston to towns all over eastern Mass. The one thing they all have in common is commuter rail access. South Coast Rail is not just about connecting the area to Boston jobs, it's about getting me to go spend my money in New Bedford. I'll gladly go, but not if it involves a park-and-ride at Middleborough/Lakeville...

People going there for the day are going to continue doing what they currently do: drive.

Now, a couple billion of investment in real, local, frequent, abundant transit could radically transform FR and NB in a positive way that actually promotes a local economy instead of a weak link to Boston.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

BTW, I've been digging through the FEIR lately and I've discovered some other whoppers.

The FEIR claims that travel times will be "73-76 minutes" depending on terminus. But the only basis for that claim is a citation of a study from 2008 that is not included in the FEIR and does not exist on the Internet.

The FEIR does include the output of analysis conducted with the RAILSIM software package, an analysis that was performed back in 2009, and it comes to the conclusion that the expected running times for the Stoughton Electric alternative will be "83-89 minutes" but it might be improvable in the future if they do something about the single tracking.

I also noticed that the RAILSIM package predicts a 50% increase in average signal delay to ALL commuter trains traveling on the NEC, caused by SCR. Under ideal, deterministic conditions as well as under randomized circumstances.

In short: South Coast Rail will cost over $2.3 billion, will probably result in trip times near 1.5 hours, and may degrade service for most south side commuter rail riders.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Is there any actual evidence stating the efficacy of rail transportation in driving new economic growth? I'm not talking about opinions, talking points or anecdotes but rather hard facts presented by a reputable organization - a university researcher or a semi-middle of the road think tank.

Not that I've seen.

The closest most come is to say that successful projects are
1) high-frequency transit (and it can be bus, e.g. Seaport's Silver Line)
2) Walkable (permitting development to be massed atop the stations)
3) In dense corridors getting denser.

No FR/NB booster will find any academic research to suggest that there are economic benefits. FR/NB self-disqualifies as:
1) Low frequency service
2) Too park-and-ride
3) Too end-of-the-line / far from "the center"
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Now, a couple billion of investment in real, local, frequent, abundant transit could radically transform FR and NB in a positive way that actually promotes a local economy instead of a weak link to Boston.

I really like this. I wonder what $2b spent on connecting Fall River to Providence and improving local service within FR/NB would get you.

I'm thinking a light rail line in New Bedford along the proposed South Coast Rail corridor, with ~five stops (Leonard's Wharf, Whale's Tooth, Coggeshall Ave, Nash Rd, King's Highway), commuter rail service to Taunton, and a commuter rail line from Fall River to the R.I. border along I-195 with Rhode Island paying for the rest, through East Providence.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

If it was some nice 160-200km/h higher-speed commuter rail I'd be all for it. But all this is is a half-assed, single track (WTF!), slow as fuck boondoggle.
 

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