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

[Riverside]

In general, my feeling is that I'm in favor of any capital improvements to and expansions of rail infrastructure, full stop. Despite everything else, in most cases I really do believe that building something bad is better than building nothing at all.

There are a very few exceptions to that personal policy -- for example, the original disastrous proposal for rebuilding the CR platforms in Newton. For a while, even despite the underwhelming ridership projections, I still felt that SCR was worth building, under my general rule. But over the last few years, I'd started to feel that it crept over the line into the "Rare Exception" category, in particular with the decision to build a whole new station at Pilgrim Junction.

However, recently I've swung back around to the other side. Building rail is a generational project. Fall River and New Bedford are among Massachusetts' top 10 largest cities (by a comfortable margin) and are among New England's top 20; on both of those lists, FR & NB are alone in lacking rail service (aside from Nashua and Manchester, New Hampshire's libertarian tendencies coming home to roost). In the New England I want to see in the future, intercity rail service is commonplace and is the backbone of the region. That vision will likely not be met in my lifetime, but that transformation also is not the work of one lifetime. The work must be started now, wherever we can.

And there just isn't any way to get there from here without building South Coast Rail. Bringing the Southern Triangle up to passenger rail standards, and building the train stations, will mean that there is a way for passenger trains to serve the South Coast. We don't currently have a great way to get trains to the Southern Triangle, but there are solutions to that problem.

It's like planting trees: the best time to (re)build a rail line was yesterday; the second best time is today.

And to be clear -- I actually think very little of the current SCR plan is "bad". I think Pilgrim Junction is a waste of a station, but I think the track upgrades to the Middleboro Secondary are good, as they will provide extra redundancy to the full-build network (and would help accelerate any future Amtrak service to Cape Cod). Yes, as usual I am unhappy about the seas of parking around these stations, but that's par for the course these days and I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face. I wish the plan was bigger -- more double-tracking, for example. But "not big enough yet" does not equal "bad". The service plan is lousy. But service plans are a lot less permanent than concrete.

As for what the money could've been used on instead... I'm not indifferent to that argument, and there clearly is a utilitarian case to make that monies should be spent where they will help the most people the soonest. But think about it on a 100-year timescale. By 2121, we need SCR built, plus NSRL, plus subway extensions to 128, plus any number of things. But they all need to happen by then (if not sooner). The money to build SCR will need to be spent, one way or another. And we all know that, sadly, the public monies for this kind of thing aren't fungible -- trying to redirect these funds to other projects would essentially mean giving the money away and trying to recapture it.

So, we've got the money now, and we've convinced enough people to build a key part of the expansion. Is it going to be "successful"? I dunno. Are we no doubt going to see lots of Globe articles talking about "underwhelming ridership"? Oh probably.

But the stations will be built. And the tracks will be upgraded. And no number of Globe editorials or MassDOT ridership powerpoints or even service suspensions will undo that progress.

So, suffice it to say, I've come back around.

 

[Brattle Loop]

In general, my feeling is that I'm in favor of any capital improvements to and expansions of rail infrastructure, full stop. Despite everything else, in most cases I really do believe that building something bad is better than building nothing at all.

There are a very few exceptions to that personal policy -- for example, the original disastrous proposal for rebuilding the CR platforms in Newton. For a while, even despite the underwhelming ridership projections, I still felt that SCR was worth building, under my general rule. But over the last few years, I'd started to feel that it crept over the line into the "Rare Exception" category, in particular with the decision to build a whole new station at Pilgrim Junction.

However, recently I've swung back around to the other side. Building rail is a generational project. Fall River and New Bedford are among Massachusetts' top 10 largest cities (by a comfortable margin) and are among New England's top 20; on both of those lists, FR & NB are alone in lacking rail service (aside from Nashua and Manchester, New Hampshire's libertarian tendencies coming home to roost). In the New England I want to see in the future, intercity rail service is commonplace and is the backbone of the region. That vision will likely not be met in my lifetime, but that transformation also is not the work of one lifetime. The work must be started now, wherever we can.

And there just isn't any way to get there from here without building South Coast Rail. Bringing the Southern Triangle up to passenger rail standards, and building the train stations, will mean that there is a way for passenger trains to serve the South Coast. We don't currently have a great way to get trains to the Southern Triangle, but there are solutions to that problem.

It's like planting trees: the best time to (re)build a rail line was yesterday; the second best time is today.

And to be clear -- I actually think very little of the current SCR plan is "bad". I think Pilgrim Junction is a waste of a station, but I think the track upgrades to the Middleboro Secondary are good, as they will provide extra redundancy to the full-build network (and would help accelerate any future Amtrak service to Cape Cod). Yes, as usual I am unhappy about the seas of parking around these stations, but that's par for the course these days and I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face. I wish the plan was bigger -- more double-tracking, for example. But "not big enough yet" does not equal "bad". The service plan is lousy. But service plans are a lot less permanent than concrete.

As for what the money could've been used on instead... I'm not indifferent to that argument, and there clearly is a utilitarian case to make that monies should be spent where they will help the most people the soonest. But think about it on a 100-year timescale. By 2121, we need SCR built, plus NSRL, plus subway extensions to 128, plus any number of things. But they all need to happen by then (if not sooner). The money to build SCR will need to be spent, one way or another. And we all know that, sadly, the public monies for this kind of thing aren't fungible -- trying to redirect these funds to other projects would essentially mean giving the money away and trying to recapture it.

So, we've got the money now, and we've convinced enough people to build a key part of the expansion. Is it going to be "successful"? I dunno. Are we no doubt going to see lots of Globe articles talking about "underwhelming ridership"? Oh probably.

But the stations will be built. And the tracks will be upgraded. And no number of Globe editorials or MassDOT ridership powerpoints or even service suspensions will undo that progress.

So, suffice it to say, I've come back around.

Interesting analysis. The problem I have with SCR is that it gives a big whiff of either being designed to fail, or at least designed with a near-total indifference to whether or not it fails.

The problem is that the single-track Old Colony main (which the state resolutely refuses to do...anything...about) can only handle so many trains. FR/NB are never going to get the kind of robust schedules that make transit/rail really useful, and sparse schedules are even more of a problem when the travel times are as long as those routes are going to be. So while it's being done, and being done by the cheaper, faster, and easier route, that choice means a trade-off in terms of usability.

I think that's a problem for two reasons beyond the fact that it's poor service for FR/NB. The first reason is that it comes at the expense of headaches for efforts to bring the CR to Buzzards Bay because it eats up so much of the Old Colony's remaining capacity. FR/NB could be served by an alternate routing that doesn't touch the OC, Buzzards can't be, and I don't like that they (and potential Cape service) get screwed by this when it didn't have to happen.

The other reason, and the big one why I can't really agree with your thesis in its entirety, is that by building it on the cheap the way they are, and particularly because of the poor schedules that will inevitably result because of the main line's capacity crunch, they're at the very least running a huge risk of artificially suppressing ridership. Globe articles about underwhelming ridership might not undo infrastructure improvements, but they sure as heck give Baker & Company all the cover they need to never touch the idea again, leaving it permanently broken (and potentially taking Buzzards/Cape with it), or even killing it off next time there's a budget crunch and it needs to be "temporarily suspended" only to never restore it because we tried it and know that the ridership isn't there, even if that's only because it was done wrong.

I am entirely in agreement that it's usually a good idea to build even if the project is less than ideal. I'm not convinced that that's true in this case, between the trade-offs and the elevated risk that getting it wrong dooms the entire prospect of ever doing it right.

 

[Riverside]

Lots and lots of agreement here, and all excellent points.

Interesting analysis. The problem I have with SCR is that it gives a big whiff of either being designed to fail, or at least designed with a near-total indifference to whether or not it fails.

Yes, I agree with this. I think it's worth examining our definition of "failure" though, and I'll come back to that below.

The problem is that the single-track Old Colony main (which the state resolutely refuses to do...anything...about) can only handle so many trains. FR/NB are never going to get the kind of robust schedules that make transit/rail really useful, and sparse schedules are even more of a problem when the travel times are as long as those routes are going to be. So while it's being done, and being done by the cheaper, faster, and easier route, that choice means a trade-off in terms of usability.

I think that's a problem for two reasons beyond the fact that it's poor service for FR/NB. The first reason is that it comes at the expense of headaches for efforts to bring the CR to Buzzards Bay because it eats up so much of the Old Colony's remaining capacity. FR/NB could be served by an alternate routing that doesn't touch the OC, Buzzards can't be, and I don't like that they (and potential Cape service) get screwed by this when it didn't have to happen.

I agree 100% -- the routing via Middleboro is disastrous for both of these reasons.

The other reason, and the big one why I can't really agree with your thesis in its entirety, is that by building it on the cheap the way they are, and particularly because of the poor schedules that will inevitably result because of the main line's capacity crunch, they're at the very least running a huge risk of artificially suppressing ridership. Globe articles about underwhelming ridership might not undo infrastructure improvements, but they sure as heck give Baker & Company all the cover they need to never touch the idea again, leaving it permanently broken (and potentially taking Buzzards/Cape with it), or even killing it off next time there's a budget crunch and it needs to be "temporarily suspended" only to never restore it because we tried it and know that the ridership isn't there, even if that's only because it was done wrong.

So I don't actually disagree with you here. I think what you describe is entirely possible, and even to some extent likely.

However, Baker won't be king forever. And even the current "Massachusetts Republican Governor" vogue won't last forever. On a hundred-year timescale, eventually someone will come along and be willing to "unbreak" this mess -- particularly since advocates will have had plenty of time to narrow their focus to something like "Double track the Old Colony Main" or "Build the Taunton Rail Connector" or "Build the new Mansfield Junction".

Now, I do worry about service suspension and then a lack of maintenance. That is a gamble here, I agree. If the stations or rails are left to deteriorate completely, then we're back to square one. (Although can you imagine the optics?)

But, to my knowledge, no commuter rail service in the US or Canada has been indefinitely suspended in the last... 20 years? The most recent one I can think of is the Lower Boonton Line on New Jersey Transit, but that was replaced by a service just a mile or two away and so doesn't really count. Shore Line East, Wickford Junction, Greenbush... once (mainline) trains start running somewhere, it seems extremely rare that they get eliminated outright.

(I will grant that there have been one-off suspensions: Gardner, Plymouth, Foxboro. But I think that's different than shutting down an entire subnetwork. I may be splitting hairs here, but I'll stand by it.)

(And I could be wrong about the lack of large suspensions -- my knowledge is not exhaustive. That being said, I think I'm pretty familiar with systems on the scale of South Coast Rail, so I feel modestly confident.)

So Baker or his successors just shutting down the service due to low ridership seems unlikely to me. Yes, there will be artificially depressed ridership for certain, and it will be up to advocates to continue holding the state's feet to the fire.

I am entirely in agreement that it's usually a good idea to build even if the project is less than ideal. I'm not convinced that that's true in this case, between the trade-offs and the elevated risk that getting it wrong dooms the entire prospect of ever doing it right.

And I'll say that I am very sympathetic to this view, as it's the same way I had felt for a number of years. I could very well be wrong -- 20 years from now, I might look back and shake my head at my naïveté. But I think it goes back to the question -- what do we mean by failure? And the more I think about the long view, the more I feel that the short-term negatives are outweighed by the long-term positives -- and certainly outweigh the do-nothing alternative, which I truly believe is the only other option at this point. If we have to wait til the Stoughton alignment is squared away before doing the Southern Triangle, I firmly believe this will never get built.

 

[The EGE]

But, to my knowledge, no commuter rail service in the US or Canada has been indefinitely suspended in the last... 20 years? The most recent one I can think of is the Lower Boonton Line on New Jersey Transit, but that was replaced by a service just a mile or two away and so doesn't really count. Shore Line East, Wickford Junction, Greenbush... once (mainline) trains start running somewhere, it seems extremely rare that they get eliminated outright.

(I will grant that there have been one-off suspensions: Gardner, Plymouth, Foxboro. But I think that's different than shutting down an entire subnetwork. I may be splitting hairs here, but I'll stand by it.)

Gardner and Plymouth were both extremely low ridership - Gardner averaged 24 daily boardings in the mid-1980s, and Plymouth 21 in 2018 - and Plymouth is supposedly reopening next July. Foxboro was a trial service to begin with, and is supposedly suspended during the pandemic.

Overall, the era of commuter rail cuts in the US ended pretty sharply in the mid 1980s; the last viable lines to be cut were the Woburn Branch (1981) and SEPTA's massive cutbacks. The only cuts I can name since then were a couple of marginal services in Pittsburgh (ended 1985 and 1989), Syracuse (1994-2007), and Burlington (2000-2003), plus a couple SEPTA Main Line stations switching to Amtrak-only.

Even if SCR is an utter failure, you're still talking in the realm of a thousand riders a day. It'll limp along like Greenbush, too much a political football to kill, with heavily padding schedules to prevent the rest of the Old Colony riders from complaining.

 

[OldColony]

I think that's a problem for two reasons beyond the fact that it's poor service for FR/NB. The first reason is that it comes at the expense of headaches for efforts to bring the CR to Buzzards Bay because it eats up so much of the Old Colony's remaining capacity.

It's worse than that. The assumption on past studies for Buzzards Bay commuter rail is that the service would be an extension of the existing Middleborough/Lakeville service, so passengers would have a one-seat ride to South Station. Now if Buzzards Bay happens, it will be a crappy shuttle service. And full service would have been at a fraction of the capital cost per passenger than either phase of South Coast Rail. Look at the most recent study that has just been released, and this one is based on a cross-platform transfer at the new Middleborough station.

Never mind how SCR phase 1 eliminates commuter rail service to the existing Middleborough/Lakeville station, with hundreds of residential units (Kensington Court and Sterling Place) built next to the station since it opened in 1997. So much for the Commonwealth's BS claims it's committed to transit-oriented development.

These are not "short-term negatives." Look at the history for the push for South Coast Rail--it started at the latest in the 1990s, when progress on the Old Colony Middleborough/Lakeville and Kingston/Plymouth was well along. Does anyone really think Buzzards Bay or full SCR service will quickly fare better after Baker is out of office?

 

[Riverside]

Overall, the era of commuter rail cuts in the US ended pretty sharply in the mid 1980s; the last viable lines to be cut were the Woburn Branch (1981) and SEPTA's massive cutbacks. The only cuts I can name since then were a couple of marginal services in Pittsburgh (ended 1985 and 1989), Syracuse (1994-2007), and Burlington (2000-2003), plus a couple SEPTA Main Line stations switching to Amtrak-only.

Pittsburgh and Syracuse I didn't know about (and Syracuse is interesting!), though I should have remembered about Burlington. But you're right -- those are all pretty marginal services.

(And, to emphasize this point, there are an astounding number of piddly little commuter rail systems that do continue to putter along, despite daily ridership under 10,000, including in Albuquerque, Austin, Dallas, Dallas again, Minneapolis, Nashville, Orlando, Portland, San Diego, Stockton and San Jose, and Sonoma-Marin.)

Even if SCR is an utter failure, you're still talking in the realm of a thousand riders a day. It'll limp along like Greenbush, too much a political football to kill, with heavily padding schedules to prevent the rest of the Old Colony riders from complaining.

Right, this is my thinking exactly. Which is still disastrous. But the stations will be there, and the system will be, as one of our fellow board members once colorfully put it, "unfuckable".

 

[Brattle Loop]

So Baker or his successors just shutting down the service due to low ridership seems unlikely to me. Yes, there will be artificially depressed ridership for certain, and it will be up to advocates to continue holding the state's feet to the fire.

I may have gone a little overboard in implying that service would necessarily be on the chopping block, though I still think it's a possibility depending on the economics, even if not a very likely one.

And I'll say that I am very sympathetic to this view, as it's the same way I had felt for a number of years. I could very well be wrong -- 20 years from now, I might look back and shake my head at my naïveté. But I think it goes back to the question -- what do we mean by failure? And the more I think about the long view, the more I feel that the short-term negatives are outweighed by the long-term positives -- and certainly outweigh the do-nothing alternative, which I truly believe is the only other option at this point. If we have to wait til the Stoughton alignment is squared away before doing the Southern Triangle, I firmly believe this will never get built.

Absolutely fair. If the question is "build it badly, or don't build it at all", then I agree that if the collateral damage isn't too severe, building it badly is better than nothing. The problem I have is that the state didn't even bother to try to revive the Stoughton-Taunton alignment that would make the most sense operationally. I'd have fewer objections if it had come down to Stoughton being actually impossible or if they'd tried their hardest and it was just not feasible. They didn't try to fix any of the issues that originally screwed up that route. So some of my annoyance comes from the fact that they're picking the worse, more-collaterally-harmful option out of (at least it appears this way) a combination of cheapness and laziness.

Gardner and Plymouth were both extremely low ridership - Gardner averaged 24 daily boardings in the mid-1980s, and Plymouth 21 in 2018 - and Plymouth is supposedly reopening next July. Foxboro was a trial service to begin with, and is supposedly suspended during the pandemic.

I'll believe Plymouth and Foxboro coming back when I see trains on the line. "Temporarily suspended" because reasons is a favorite of the T, to the chagrin of Arborway proponents, among others. (Not saying that they're lying about these being pandemic suspensions, just that their history gives good cause to not give them the benefit of the doubt.)

I seem to recall someone (probably F-Line) saying that Gardner getting cut was literally because Guilford was upset at not getting the CR contract and kicked the T off their tracks out of spite? (It sounds ridiculous, yet also exactly like something that particular railroad would absolutely do)

Even if SCR is an utter failure, you're still talking in the realm of a thousand riders a day. It'll limp along like Greenbush, too much a political football to kill, with heavily padding schedules to prevent the rest of the Old Colony riders from complaining.

Most likely outcome. I don't like it, I especially don't like that it screws with Buzzards Bay, and I worry that if an expansion this high-profile dramatically underperforms it'll put a damper on other, better expansion proposals. Those hysterical Globe stories about how the ridership is terrible won't lead with the problem being routing-induced bad schedules, after all.

 

[jklo]

So Baker or his successors just shutting down the service due to low ridership seems unlikely to me. Yes, there will be artificially depressed ridership for certain, and it will be up to advocates to continue holding the state's feet to the fire.

Well, what if they need SS capacity? Killing SCR would be the easy solution. Baker being gone makes that even easier.

 

[Riverside]

Never mind how SCR phase 1 eliminates commuter rail service to the existing Middleborough/Lakeville station, with hundreds of residential units (Kensington Court and Sterling Place) built next to the station since it opened in 1997. So much for the Commonwealth's BS claims it's committed to transit-oriented development.

Like I said, I think Pilgrim Junction is a waste of a station, in large part because of the damage to the TOD.

These are not "short-term negatives." Look at the history for the push for South Coast Rail--it started at the latest in the 1990s, when progress on the Old Colony Middleborough/Lakeville and Kingston/Plymouth was well along. Does anyone really think Buzzards Bay or full SCR service will quickly fare better after Baker is out of office?

Emphasis mine. To answer your question, no, I don't think it's gonna quickly improve after Baker leaves. To be frank, I believe full SCR service and direct Buzzards Bay-Boston service is a full generation away. I'm not kidding when I'm talking about a hundred-year timescale here.

@Brattle Loop, pretty much agree with everything in your last post, cheers.

EDIT: @Old Colony, thanks for linking the study -- interesting read.

 

[themissinglink]

I may have gone a little overboard in implying that service would necessarily be on the chopping block, though I still think it's a possibility depending on the economics, even if not a very likely one.

IMO there's more of a risk of Phase II never happening as a result of low ridership and less of a risk of the entire service being cut due to low ridership, but your predictions of the whole thing being cut due to the ridership are not out of this world seeing as how infrequent the service will be.

 

[Brattle Loop]

IMO there's more of a risk of Phase II never happening as a result of low ridership and less of a risk of the entire service being cut due to low ridership, but your predictions of the whole thing being cut due to the ridership are not out of this world seeing as how infrequent the service will be.

Yeah, I don't think it's likely to get chopped simply for low ridership so much as the low ridership likely (at least in part) induced from the poor schedule both makes Phase II unlikely and means that SCR would be among the low-hanging fruit (along with Greenbush) for temporary (or temporary-to-permanent) cuts in the event of future unanticipated operational or budget issues. That all of that results from bad decision-making is...irksome.

 

[HenryAlan]

From a broader view of what really is equitable on a regional level, I also think it’s both arrogant, unfair, and unrealistic to assume that every low income employee is breaking down the door to get into the Boston markets. Why does Boston have to be the hub for every line? How about we actually build a network of cities and employment hubs that looks at the actual geography of the population and transit needs, and accelerates those patterns with transit? We could accomplish the south coast network and it would build jobs and resiliency and save people a 2 hour expensive train ride, too.

Yes, that was really the larger point I was getting at. LRT might not be specifically what is needed down there, but there has to be something much more helpful that could be done for the sort of money being invested in a train to Boston that few people will ever ride. I would love to see the state spend a few billion dollars upgrading RTAs in some fashion so that they can be truly helpful to the folks that live outside the Boston commuting catchment.

 

[FK4]

Yes, that was really the larger point I was getting at. LRT might not be specifically what is needed down there, but there has to be something much more helpful that could be done for the sort of money being invested in a train to Boston that few people will ever ride. I would love to see the state spend a few billion dollars upgrading RTAs in some fashion so that they can be truly helpful to the folks that live outside the Boston commuting catchment.

Yes. But a big rail project = union jobs and the unions pay a lot of money to local political campaigns. So, there's that.

And, big rail projects are just but one of the many ways people get hung up on big shiny objects as being the magic solution to problems, rather than the less glamorous but more meaningful smaller things that could be done for a lower cost, and, more importantly (if we actually really care about improving lives, rather than just talking about improving lives as a neat concept), now, rather than in 20 years.

Hire a MIT student group to figure out the transit needs of NB and FR and then study solutions, rather than imposing a CR project that's not gonna do all that much.

Granted, longer range we need to build out our rail network, it's just that as we've said, when resources are finite and the suffering is now, you should at least be doing parallel work with both solutions for 2022 and 2040, not just 2040.

 

[Lrfox]

Even if SCR is an utter failure, you're still talking in the realm of a thousand riders a day. It'll limp along like Greenbush, too much a political football to kill, with heavily padding schedules to prevent the rest of the Old Colony riders from complaining.

I don't know if I completely agree with this. I've generally been in the "building a flawed SCR is better than no SCR" camp, but I don't think it's all that kill-resistant from a political standpoint. This is a service that, for more than a generation, has been pitched as the region's savior. People have been told that it'll singlehandedly turn FR/NB into thriving economic hubs by whisking white collar commuters from their affordable historic waterfront homes to their offices in Boston while simultaneously stimulating the local economy by creating a never ending stream of tourists that will fill local restaurants, shops, bars, etc.

If SCR is coming short of those expectations by running 90 or so minute trips to South Station with a limited number of passengers and people start noticing that it hasn't been the sole savior in revitalizing FR/NB that was sold to them, it won't be hard to change the attitude about the service. The next non-Charlie Baker governor is likely going to be a Dem. Less likely is that it's a Republican, but from a different camp of the MA Republican party. Each of them will be more than happy to paint SCR as a failure of Baker to deliver on his promises. As long as it's accompanies by promises to continue the investment in the Southcoast in other ways (road/highway infrastructure, wind power, education/vocational opportunities, etc.) and to "study" ways to improve transit access to Boston, I don't think pulling the plug is necessarily political suicide. Especially if the services is as bad as people here expect it to be.

 

[Brattle Loop]

I don't know if I completely agree with this. I've generally been in the "building a flawed SCR is better than no SCR" camp, but I don't think it's all that kill-resistant from a political standpoint. This is a service that, for more than a generation, has been pitched as the region's savior. People have been told that it'll singlehandedly turn FR/NB into thriving economic hubs by whisking white collar commuters from their affordable historic waterfront homes to their offices in Boston while simultaneously stimulating the local economy by creating a never ending stream of tourists that will fill local restaurants, shops, bars, etc.

If SCR is coming short of those expectations by running 90 or so minute trips to South Station with a limited number of passengers and people start noticing that it hasn't been the sole savior in revitalizing FR/NB that was sold to them, it won't be hard to change the attitude about the service. The next non-Charlie Baker governor is likely going to be a Dem. Less likely is that it's a Republican, but from a different camp of the MA Republican party. Each of them will be more than happy to paint SCR as a failure of Baker to deliver on his promises. As long as it's accompanies by promises to continue the investment in the Southcoast in other ways (road/highway infrastructure, wind power, education/vocational opportunities, etc.) and to "study" ways to improve transit access to Boston, I don't think pulling the plug is necessarily political suicide. Especially if the services is as bad as people here expect it to be.

Given how much of a political project this has been, I don't think it's likely to be chopped just for the sake of it. The poor-quality service induced (at least in part) by the cheapskate way they did Phase I (relying on the Old Colony main) undermines SCR from the get-go, and is very likely to result in artificially depressed ridership because of how sparse the schedules will be. That's going to show up, on the data sheets and Globe articles read by people (read: politicians) who don't know the details, as a failure not unlike Greenbush's anemic ridership, rather than an indictment of the unnecessarily-poor utility resulting from the half-assed build.

The problem is that that gets read as a project failure, as a lack of demand, and therefore as a lack of need. Political pressure is really what's getting this built (poorly, in classic Baker fashion) and it will sustain it for a while even at lousy ridership numbers unless literally no one uses it. Unfortunately, everyone else with transit service has politicians too, and once SCR has been built the ability to use the "we don't have any transit" unfairness argument goes out the window, so the next time the budget crunch comes, SCR's stuck duking it out with everyone else in the game of budgetary musical chairs. If the numbers are as anemic as this board tends to worry they will be, that makes them some of the lowest-hanging fruit, because of how potent the argument is that "hey, we tried it, we built it, you guys just didn't use it" even if it's disingenuous at best. It's absolutely not political suicide to kill a money-wasting enterprise, and even though it'd not do anything useful for a politician with South Coast voters, it'd be an easy way for a governor to burnish his/her credentials as fiscally responsible (and, for the cynical type, to take the "SCR money" and move it to somewhere else where the squeaky wheels need greasing).

 

[Java King]

As someone who lives in the Greenbush area, I do see some positives happening recently along Greenbush that could also impact SCR:

• Greenbush services started in 2007. So, it's been 14 years of service. It's good to establish a known service level for people buying homes, etc.
• TOD has finally started happening at several stations along the line including the terminus at Greenbush.
• The MBTA's implementation of a partial effort to provide consistent hourly service is the right direction to improve ridership.
• Weekend fare passes and other fare proposals can increase ridership.

I've been harping for 14 years that the train has to have a consistent, flexible schedule and pricing to make it attractive. I think Transit Matters really understands this concept and has been pushing the MBTA to make improvements.

SCR is severely flawed for all the reasons people mentioned. However my hope is that it can be made to work with possible express trains from FR/NB like on the Worcester line. Plus the addition of a more clock-facing schedule, and then eventually the Phase 2 full electric build as quickly as possible.

 

[RandomWalk]

FR/NB seem to be more closely aligned geographically with Providence than Boston. Too bad there isn’t a RoW to service that market

 

[themissinglink]

However my hope is that it can be made to work with possible express trains from FR/NB like on the Worcester line. Plus the addition of a more clock-facing schedule

I would love to see any type of service increase for Phase 1, but I'm somewhat doubtful that any meaningful service increases would be possible due to the single-track Old Colony mainline through Dorchester and Quincy.

It's too bad that modifications to JFK/UMass and Quincy Center for 2 track center platforms (exactly what F-Line has proposed before) weren't a prerequisite to Phase 1 SCR, or even part of the project entirely.

 

[Lrfox]

Given how much of a political project this has been, I don't think it's likely to be chopped just for the sake of it. The poor-quality service induced (at least in part) by the cheapskate way they did Phase I (relying on the Old Colony main) undermines SCR from the get-go, and is very likely to result in artificially depressed ridership because of how sparse the schedules will be. That's going to show up, on the data sheets and Globe articles read by people (read: politicians) who don't know the details, as a failure not unlike Greenbush's anemic ridership, rather than an indictment of the unnecessarily-poor utility resulting from the half-assed build.

The problem is that that gets read as a project failure, as a lack of demand, and therefore as a lack of need. Political pressure is really what's getting this built (poorly, in classic Baker fashion) and it will sustain it for a while even at lousy ridership numbers unless literally no one uses it. Unfortunately, everyone else with transit service has politicians too, and once SCR has been built the ability to use the "we don't have any transit" unfairness argument goes out the window, so the next time the budget crunch comes, SCR's stuck duking it out with everyone else in the game of budgetary musical chairs. If the numbers are as anemic as this board tends to worry they will be, that makes them some of the lowest-hanging fruit, because of how potent the argument is that "hey, we tried it, we built it, you guys just didn't use it" even if it's disingenuous at best. It's absolutely not political suicide to kill a money-wasting enterprise, and even though it'd not do anything useful for a politician with South Coast voters, it'd be an easy way for a governor to burnish his/her credentials as fiscally responsible (and, for the cynical type, to take the "SCR money" and move it to somewhere else where the squeaky wheels need greasing).

Right, that's essentially what I'm saying. Political pressure is the reason the half-baked proposal is being pushed forward as-is. For the last 20+ years, rail has been pitched to the region as the thing that's going to correct all of the area's ills. It was never going to be the sole savior of the region, but as-built, it's unlikely to do much of anything apart from serving a few hundred riders per day from each city. So not only is it easy for Globe reading politicians to point it out as a "failure"/ low-hanging fruit, the people living in Fall River/New Bedford will no longer be clinging to the notion that SCR is the key to the region's success. For close to a quarter of a century, you could not succeed as a politician in the South Coast if you didn't jump on board the South Coast Rail bandwagon. A "completed" phase one that serves the region as poorly as this proposal appears it is going to will pretty quickly change the local feeling towards the rail connection to Boston from "we need it!" to "it's a waste." It will no longer be a death sentence to oppose it, even if the bigger issue was really the flawed project.

 

[Stlin]

Combined with the discussion over in the MassDOT rail thread, This actually lends itself to an interesting hypothetical: You are MassDOT secretary. You have been given 2.5 Billion 2020 dollars in federal funding, which cannot be diverted to another mode. To access it, you alone must choose to advance one of 2 projects; you cannot complete both. It is up to you to choose which one will be a better use of limited funds and will be better for the commonwealth as a whole. Which one would you choose, and why?

1. You can complete SCR Full Build, restoring the Stoughton alignment with electrification. (The 2017 full build cost estimate was ~3.4 billion, - ~1.1 Phase 1= 2.3B + time escalation)
2. You can build some version of East-West rail. (The cheaper build alternatives come in around that Mark, option 3 coming in at ~2.4B in 2020 dollars.)

Given the realities of constrained fiscal means, I honestly think that in the before 2035 timeframe it'll come down to a choice between the two.

Much like SCR was, E-W rail is being pitched as the shot in the arm that will cure the ailing economies of Western Mass urban centers - and their ridership numbers are no worse than projected for SCR (?)

Personally... I think I'd advance SCR, but that's not relying on any empirical data whatsoever- just a personal opinion. The EW alignment isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but SCR would have significant knock on effects on the rest of the network. With Full Build, you can conceivably have timed meets at Canton Junction to provide 2 seat rides to Providence, (far from ideal, but possible / future service via the Attleboro connector) as well as providing relief for the Old Colony Line and attendant possible extension to Bourne & The Cape.

Politically however.... Now that Fall River and New Bedford have their trains, no matter how hampered... I think Springfield may have a strong argument for being included in the connectivity map for the sake of completionism if nothing else.