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

Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

South Coast Rail project moving along

With soil samples recently being taken in Easton, Raynham and Taunton, plans for the South Coast Rail are moving along with the goal of 15 percent design by July 1, 2015.

By Cody Shepard
The Enterprise
Posted Dec. 6, 2014 @ 8:58 pm
Updated Dec 7, 2014 at 8:04 AM

When deciding how to redevelop downtown Stoughton, the potential long-term impact of the South Coast Rail project is more than in the back of officials’ minds.

The project would extend the commuter rail to New Bedford and Fall River on the line that now ends in Stoughton. It would also run through Freetown, Lakeville, Berkley, Easton, Taunton and Raynham.

The project has taken small steps forward as teams from the Massachusetts Bay Transport Authority took soil samples as recently as last week on Main Street in Easton. Samples have also been taken in Lakeville, Raynham and Taunton to advance project design.

MBTA Deputy Press Secretary Kelly Smith said the samples are sent to a lab and the process, a necessary preliminary step, can take several weeks. She said the authority will take about 135 borings along the route. After samples are finished being taken in Taunton, the project will be on hold for the winter.

“We anticipate being at about 15 percent design by July 1st,” Kelly said.
In Stoughton, where the commuter rail currently ends, officials are excited about the prospect of what the South Coast Rail could bring to town paired with the redevelopment of downtown.

“I see the rail as an asset to the town,” Stoughton Selectman Bob O’Regan said. “For some investors, it would mean an opportunity they want to get ahead of.”

But the town has proposed moving the train station away from its current location. They would prefer that the station, combined with a large parking garage and businesses, take the place of the current police station on Rose Street.

“What some of us in government are trying to do are have the town work with the state to make the town an attractive positive investment,” O’Regan said. “If we can get the roadway through downtown configured in a way that doesn’t scare people away from driving downtown, more people will come.”

While the downtown redevelopment and rail projects are separate, Stoughton Redevelopment Authority Chairman Michael Barrett agreed that the future is on board members’ minds.

“A huge parking lot, with a below-grade train station and businesses, it would keep the train from two key intersections,” Barrett said if the station ends up on Rose Street. “It could become a real win-win. The State Theater alone would be more of a regional attraction.”

Barrett said he thinks the redevelopment will draw more people than the commuter rail.

“The actual South Coast Rail has offsetting factors that probably keep it more neutral,” he said.

As signs of design begin along the extended route, officials in some towns remain concerned about the future of the South Coast Rail.

In Easton, the plan is for the train to run underground on Main Street through historic downtown. In some places, it would be in residents’ backyards.

“The stations themselves aren’t the concern, it’s the train coming through if the downtown station is going to be where they say,” Easton selectmen Chairman Daniel Murphy said. “A lot of people are worried about their house values; we need to make sure we try to protect those people.”

The train in Easton would run through an existing underground tunnel which has since been filled with dirt. The town is adamant that the state dig further below the tunnel, not above.

“One of the conditions that the town has held to very strongly is that Main Street not be raised, that it be kept at the same grade,” Easton Land Use Agent Stephanie Danielson said.

Some businesses in Easton are welcoming the plan although, in its current state, it doesn’t include parking. The Children’s Museum is among them.

“We hope it’s going to be a positive impact and let more people know about the museum and get more people to us,” Executive Director Paula Peterson said. “I certainly think the revitalization is wonderful. Easton has so much to offer.”

Murphy isn’t as optimistic about the prospect of bringing more people to downtown Easton businesses. He said he doesn’t know why it would.

“I think most people think it will be more of a nuisance,” he said. “People in Easton have commuter rail options close already. It’s not going to cut down their commuting time at all.”

Raynham has similar concerns to Easton about the impact of traffic, but that’s why the town is requesting that the train run underground and not across Route 138, Selectman Joseph Pacheo said.

“If it didn’t go underground, we’d probably be pretty frustrated with the process,” Pacheo said.

Pacheco said he doesn’t see the rail drawing more people to town now that they lost the bid for a slot parlor license. There aren’t plans for other development.

“If they would have turned it into a high-class gaming establishment, it would have created a thousand jobs,” he said.

The plans are not final in any towns, though. Many are playing a waiting game and proposing alternatives or adjustments to the state’s plans.

“It’s a big question mark,” Barrett said.
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Wicked Local Easton
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Yeah, what a fiasco this is going to be...
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Semass said:
Perhaps one way to start the funding for this would be for the driving cities and towns to join the MBTA district now. Those funds could be put into an escrow account of some sort to advance the SCR construction in those communities - like stations. It is hard to tell exactly what the formula is. It seems to be a function of service frequency, population, and other factors. For some small towns with a commuter rail stop or bordering a town with a commuter rail stop, the annual bill is about $50K. It is not a ton of money but it gets some skin in the game and over 10 years or so could add up if all of the communities are included.

It ain't gonna be $2 billion but moving from rail-as-handout to rail-as-partnership could be useful for any future extensions.
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Note that cities/towns in the outer MBTA district that are also part of a regional transit authority (RTA) are allowed to subtract their RTA assessments from their MBTA assessments. The result is that cities like Lowell and Worcester, which pay a lot for their RTA service, actually end up paying nothing for the MBTA assessment. Fall River and New Bedford pay a lot to SRTA, even if/when they technically join the MBTA district, the actual amount of additional money paid beyond their existing SRTA bill will be small or nothing.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

PaulC said:
I don't remember but they must have had a shuttle when the NEC was shut down for the Orange Line relocation
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The MBTA did run a Back Bay-South Station shuttle while the NEC was rerouted over the Dorchester (Midlands) Branch in 1979-87.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

I haven't kept up with this project. Why are people saying it's a boondoggle?
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

vanshnookenraggen said:
I haven't kept up with this project. Why are people saying it's a boondoggle?
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- $2b+ ($2.4b is a good estimate)
- single-track system
- Branches, producing near-unusably-infrequent headways on the two branches
- Trip time something like 90 minutes
- Projected 8,000 to 10,000 new riders is probably inflated like Greenbush's were because the service will be so crappy.

But, politically, that gives them the Y-shaped purple lines on the map that politicians can tout as transit-coverage--the classic Crazy Transit Pitch lines-on-a-map-where-the-ROWs-used-to-go--even though the tracks will rust far faster than any actual users could wear them out.

So it is a whole lot of new iron, a very expensive restoration through a wetlands, surrounded by NIMBY's at its inner-end (who have yet to fully mobilize but are the kinds that weigh these things down with tunnel costs and quad gate quiet zones in the final planning stages--all with likely lousy ridership.

If you take the 10,000 riders that the Army Corps fantasizes about, that $240,000 per new rider. If you get the half-of-estimates that we got on Greenbush in a similar politically-hyped ridership scenario, you're up to ~$500,000 per new rider--better off giving away 10,000 condos in Middleboro for the same ridership, faster implementation, and little operating costs.

True, the Green Line Extension will cost about the same per new rider (~2b for 8,000 new transit riders) but it's expected to have 44,000 *other* riders (who currently take the bus), and, at the rate that Somerville is densifying and being populated by car-free younger people, the ridership estimates are likely conservative. (and built into that price is a big vehicle storage/maint facility that can power future 3-car ops on most GL branches and relieve the over-full yards on the C & D branches today...we're getting a lot more than just 8,000 new riders and a linear extension for the GLX's $)

Meanwhile the SW exurbs of Boston are sprawly and car dependent. The non-boondoggle version of SCR would have a two-track, short-headway service terminating (initially) at big CR park-and-ride in Taunton, similar to (actually better than) the Middleboro line which runs in the 10k to 14k riders per day range.
 
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Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

No, the EIR doesn't even have a [relatively] rosy projection of 8,000. The EIR projects that there will be 4,500 riders of SCR, and that most of them will be siphoned from the existing bus services.

So that's about $500,000 per projected rider, and will probably only go up in cost. It's outrageously expensive.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

OSUPhantom said:
I will agree this would be the best way to do this however are there cost estimates on a two track system? Was it considered at some point and eliminated for some reason?
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Too expensive, and too "We don't want high frequency trains coming through" NIMBYs. The smart thing to do for planning and service would have been to double track to Taunton and terminate. But Mass politics being Mass politics, the state decided it needed to get some sort of train service to the South Coast. No Phases. So we have this "crippled before it's even begun" boondoggle.
 
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Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

OSUPhantom said:
I will agree this would be the best way to do this however are there cost estimates on a two track system? Was it considered at some point and eliminated for some reason?
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Mystical/NIMBY objections to two tracks through wetlands (even though we know that Nature's problem with the rail is mostly based on length, not width, there is a acres-lost fetish) & political preference to take the same track-miles (plus more) and be able to draw a purple line all the way to the coasts for the map-optics
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

OSUPhantom said:
I would imagine double-tracking could/would occur sometime in the future similar to what they've been doing on the Fitchburg line.
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'cept that, in this case, they're restoring a fully abandoned stretch. Going from 0 to 2 is about as affordable as going from 0 to 1 and immediately gets you a service than is "worth driving to" and worth incurring the mode-change penalty of a 2 seat ride (car-to-train).

Also waiting for the 2nd track is a long time for a line (and all that bond-using capital) to sit idle. It is better public policy that new capital goods (rails and trains) gets heavily used from the get-go with frequent, useful service. That favors densifying existing lines and building only densly-used extensions.

The Greenbush line's experience is HIGHLY instructive. It would have been much better to take the same track-miles and double-track/upgrade Middleboro, and the same vehicle-miles and produce highly-frequent (reliable, predictable, better-than-car) service (highly worth driving a teensy bit farther from Scituate, even), rather than, as we got, a Middleboro that's crushed and can't grow and a Greenbush that sits empty and runs empty. All that capital stock would be working better/smarter/cheaper/happier if it had been focused on 1 branch.

Everywhere, ridership is tied to frequency. Most of what it takes to be "better than driving" is about being "ready when you are", and much less about how fast you go once going.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Arlington said:
Everywhere, ridership is tied to frequency. Most of what it takes to be "better than driving" is about being "ready when you are", and much less about how fast you go once going.
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This -- so much so.

By the way, check out what Toronto's doing.

One year ago, GO took the most significant step yet in that direction, bringing all-day, half-hourly, two-directional service to the Lakeshore commuter lines, up from one-hour headways. The change has already increased ridership by 30% on those lines.
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Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

^ Get those DMUs running on every inside-128 Commuter Rail line that can handle the capacity ASAP.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Arlington said:
Mystical/NIMBY objections to two tracks through wetlands (even though we know that Nature's problem with the rail is mostly based on length, not width, there is a acres-lost fetish) & political preference to take the same track-miles (plus more) and be able to draw a purple line all the way to the coasts for the map-optics
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Arlington: South Coast Rail is deader than the proverbial door nail

Charlie may not quite be the reincarnation of "Cap the Knife Weinberger" -- but he's not exactly exhilarated at the prospect of spending $500k per person user of the SCR -- the equivalent of a couple of Peter Pan Buses per day

On the other hand for a lot less -- Foxboro / Gillette offers the prospects of non-game day access to essentially unlimited CR parking

That's much more likely
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

South Coast Rail project chugs ahead, but uncertainty lingers

The South Coast Rail project is edging forward with new construction and design activity amid fresh concerns about whether the $2.3 billion plan will get the long-term funding it needs.

This April, contractors are set to begin a new round of improvements to area freight rail routes that will also help prepare them for future commuter rail service. The work involves building five new grade crossings and replacing four bridges, and it follows the state’s award of a 10-year, $220 million contract to an engineering consultant team last July to oversee the rail project, which would return passenger trains to the South Coast for the first time since 1958.

The consulting team’s target is to bring the project to the level of 15 percent design by June 30, according to Jean Fox, project manager of South Coast Rail for the state Department of Transportation.

In other activity, workers along the route have been making test borings since last fall, and the Department of Transportation has begun a series of community meetings.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/re...nty-lingers/ADkLMUjx4Tpiz5SunquDPL/story.html
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

If any project is to get slow-walked as a sacrificial lamb to the "no expansion" crowd it should be this one. Cut it back to Taunton and call it a day. Revisit FR/NB after reform.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

^Agreed, at this point... please just move on... give them an express bus and leave it alone.
Question is can the funds actually be diverted to other projects \ upgrades..
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

BussesAin'tTrains said:
If any project is to get slow-walked as a sacrificial lamb to the "no expansion" crowd it should be this one. Cut it back to Taunton and call it a day. Revisit FR/NB after reform.
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That's what I was thinking. But can they still throw NB and FR a bone by giving them shuttles to the Taunton station? Then, would there be a process they have to go through to get the money repurposed towards other MBTA projects?
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

bolehboleh said:
That's what I was thinking. But can they still throw NB and FR a bone by giving them shuttles to the Taunton station?
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Sure, but make it part of a local RTA.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

I understand that most of the cost of building (not operating) the project is simply getting to Taunton. The tracks to NB and FR are currently in-use freight tracks.
 
Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail

Back a few years ago when I was working on SCR I thought Taunton would make a much better terminus. With the recent delays and cancellations, who would want to rely on a train with poor headways taking you hours away from your house to get to work? I'm all for greater opportunities for Fall River and New Bedford, but why does that mean shuttling people miles and miles away to Boston?

The Stoughton branch is a stub. Just two stops off the mainline. Taunton is a mid-size City close enough to Boston that commuting makes sense. I feel like it would help balance the Stoughton and Providence lines.
 
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