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

[bigeman312]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

For the same cost of SCR ($2.3b), you could build Red-Blue Connector ($750m), Blue Line to Lynn ($900m), and still have enough left over ($650m) to extend the Green Line from Union Square to Porter Square with an intermediate stop at Wilson Square, and construct a Red Line infill station in Dorchester (Port Norfolk). Wow.

 

[Matthew]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Hurry up and get it done before the election. A two billion dollar train to nowhere could be quite the Alcatraz around a Democratic candidate's neck.

Alas, the Republicans are just as bad about South Coast Rail.

 

[Matthew]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

For the same cost of SCR ($2.3b), you could build Red-Blue Connector ($750m), Blue Line to Lynn ($900m), and still have enough left over ($650m) to extend the Green Line from Union Square to Porter Square with an intermediate stop at Wilson Square, and construct a Red Line infill station in Dorchester (Port Norfolk). Wow.

With projected ridership at 5,000 people, this means spending about $460,000 per person to build this craziness.

You could buy them all helicopters, for half a million each! Nice ones!

 

[kmp1284]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Alas, the Republicans are just as bad about South Coast Rail.

With Baker there's at least the possibility of him still opposing it as he did in 2010.

 

[Matthew]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

With Baker there's at least the possibility of him still opposing it as he did in 2010.

http://www.capecodtoday.com/article/2014/03/04/24358-baker-supports-cape-wind-south-shore-rail

The Standard-Times editorial adds "Baker said it now looks as if South Coast Rail will eventually win the necessary environmental permits it needs for construction to start and, with more than $2 billion already appropriated for it by the Legislature, he said he is 'now open to moving that forward.'"

So much for that.

 

[kmp1284]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Well that bites, won't be sending him a check this year.

 

[bobthebuilder]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

For the same cost of SCR ($2.3b), you could build Red-Blue Connector ($750m), Blue Line to Lynn ($900m), and still have enough left over ($650m) to extend the Green Line from Union Square to Porter Square with an intermediate stop at Wilson Square, and construct a Red Line infill station in Dorchester (Port Norfolk). Wow.

that fact hurts. So much could be done that would benefit so many more people and generate so many more opportunities. Such a waste.

 

[mass88]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

For the same cost of SCR ($2.3b), you could build Red-Blue Connector ($750m), Blue Line to Lynn ($900m), and still have enough left over ($650m) to extend the Green Line from Union Square to Porter Square with an intermediate stop at Wilson Square, and construct a Red Line infill station in Dorchester (Port Norfolk). Wow.

Ugh, that's kind of depressing to read. I should think the projects you listed would be a better investment than the rail down to Fall River.

 

[ant8904]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Remind me again who and why is there so much support for this dumb project? Googling "south coast rail opposition" gets me on the first 2nd option of Blue Mass Group where apparently all the Democrats supports it while the Republican Charlie Baker is painted to sound evil while he apparently wiggles in the question. The site itself is quite supportive. Everyone here seem to know this is a inefficient use of money, in a site that tend to really like trains, yet we know it's a bad idea. Not to mention, to my understanding, there's actually organized grassroots opposition against SCR versus the screaming grassroots advocacy for the other projects.

Yet, it seems of all the projects, SCR is the only true project the powers want while everything else is kicking and screaming.

 

[kmp1284]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

It isn't so much a matter of quantifiable support as it is a simple case of politics. A number of Patrick's earliest supporters were members of the Southcoast political establishment, one of whom was also particularly instrumental in pawning off the Southern New England Law Skool on UMass.

 

[davem]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

I did some really rough back of the napkin math, and even if the extension was somehow a runaway success and attracted 10,000 riders, with each passenger riding 250 days a year and paying $20 each way to do it, it would still take 23 years to pay back the cost of just building the extension, not even taking into account operating and maintenance costs.

Now, if it gets a more realistic 5,000 riders paying the current $28 round trip riding 250 days a year, it takes over 65 years. Contrast that with the 750mil R-B connector, projected to serve 12,000 riders. If they rode 250 days a year paying $4 round trip (both of those figures would be higher in reality) it would take just over 60 years to recoup the costs. Serving more than double the ridership, with far less maintenance and operational overhead. Oh yeah, it also doesn't require expanding a major terminal, expanding storage capacity, or buying new trainsets. Oh, and it frees up capacity in one of the most overcrowded parts of the system.

But please, lets build a supertrain through a swamp. Because votes.


*edit*
I grew up in NY's Hudson Valley, riding the Port Jervis Line into Manhattan. It is very, very similar in many ways to the South Coast extension. The big difference is passenger service was never severed, and the platforms were nothing but asphalt strips until a recent modernization program. I think that restoring rail service to FR and NB is a good idea, but not for the absurd costs associated with it. Phase the extension to Taunton first, and then slowly experiment with extending service south. Only peak at first to test the waters on slow freight track. If the numbers are there and people are willing to ride crippled freight track (as everyone on the PJ line did for years, I rode many 2 hour trains), then begin upgrading speeds. This full build nonsense is insane, and disregards the Greenbush fiasco that didn't happen all that long ago, as well as the runaway success of slow phased service such as the Downeaster and Cape Flyer.

 

[Matthew]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Dave, you're actually more optimistic than the FEIR. They estimate about $35 per rider to pay the capital and operating costs annualized over 30 years.*

It's amazing.



*And that's using the $1.8 billion / 10,300 riders numbers from awhile ago.

 

[Schorschico]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

For the same cost of SCR ($2.3b), you could build Red-Blue Connector ($750m), Blue Line to Lynn ($900m), and still have enough left over ($650m) to extend the Green Line from Union Square to Porter Square with an intermediate stop at Wilson Square, and construct a Red Line infill station in Dorchester (Port Norfolk). Wow.

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

 

[fatnoah]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Dave, you're actually more optimistic than the FEIR. They estimate about $35 per rider to pay the capital and operating costs annualized over 30 years.*

I agree that there are SOOOO many more things that this money should be spent on, but have any studies been done regarding what (if any) additional taxes/revenue would be generated as a result of this line being built. Will it make some communities more desireable, etc.? It's a boondoggle all the way, but a fair accounting should try to include ancillary benefits.

 

[bobthebuilder]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

I agree that there are SOOOO many more things that this money should be spent on, but have any studies been done regarding what (if any) additional taxes/revenue would be generated as a result of this line being built. Will it make some communities more desireable, etc.? It's a boondoggle all the way, but a fair accounting should try to include ancillary benefits.

I'm sure there will be some decent economic benefit to this, and will likely spur some however minimal TOD, but it's really pennies on the dollar when compared to the fringe benefits of all the other proposed projects that could be completed with this money.

 

[Deetroyt]

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.

 

[George_Apley]

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...

 

[Arlington]

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.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

That they aren't phasing this to Taunton first is enormous idiocy.

 

[Matthew]

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.