General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

The line from the slide is "On the Old Colony Lines, the CIP includes design funding for double-tracking to deliver hourly service on the branches and start planning for the megaproject to double track between Boston and Quincy Center"

I read this as being two separate things:
  • Adding double track/passing sidings on the branches where needed to support hourly all-day service (and more reliable service on the trunk). Probably focused on what can be done most easily; hourly service wouldn't require full double track. I could see Middleborough getting full DT as far as Brockton, though, to support SCR and Brockton short turns. Like the Franklin Line double-tracking, a lot of this could be done relatively quickly within the existing ROW and without substantial controversy, with construction happening this decade.
  • The Boston-Quincy double-track megaproject. This will be expensive, difficult, controversial, and long.
 
Updated TransitMatters data dashboard is out, I don't think it has been posted here yet.


info page is here: https://transitmatters.org/blog/transitmatters-launches-all-new-data-dashboard

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RandomWalk said:
It’s going to get bogged down in horse trading for I-93, and it will probably end up being a environmental promise to facilitate a highway project.
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It would make sense as part of a project to extend/add HOV toll lanes toward the cape (and somewhere here we’ve seen/discussed a proposal for that and a new bridge to the Cape)
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
I would imagine this is just a wad-up of that pu-pu platter of minor items, since the total price tag (excepting the ADA station costs, since we can never seem to keep those in check) required to institute dense diesel service on those lines is pretty low.
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This is what I don’t completely understand. Doing ADA compliant high level platforms shouldn’t really require much if any railroad related construction expertise just following blueprints to pour concrete in the right place. I’m oversimplifying the construction process but it’s should be something any number of construction companies around the state should be capable of. So in the case of the ground level stations at least, why are high level platforms such an expensive and slow undertaking? Can they not even build the platforms over the existing low level ones without having to tear them out first? The entire Blue Line was made high platform in a single weekend in the 1920s, half a year per CR platform should be doable.
 
Koopzilla24 said:
This is what I don’t completely understand. Doing ADA compliant high level platforms shouldn’t really require much if any railroad related construction expertise just following blueprints to pour concrete in the right place. I’m oversimplifying the construction process but it’s should be something any number of construction companies around the state should be capable of. So in the case of the ground level stations at least, why are high level platforms such an expensive and slow undertaking? Can they not even build the platforms over the existing low level ones without having to tear them out first? The entire Blue Line was made high platform in a single weekend in the 1920s, half a year per CR platform should be doable.
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Project management or lackthereof. The T (esp. Commuter Rail division) has simply lost the plot at managing the nuts-and-bolts of station projects. Right down to repairs, which is why we've got a record number of closed-for-repairs stations at the moment.

The Reading Line would actually be a great slump-buster for getting back to basics. All of the stations excepting Reading (full-highs around the historic depot building is going to be a complex undertaking, but thankfully that one is currently ADA-compliant with the mini-high) are generic as can be, no architectural touches that need preservation, zero curves, no property pinches, and dirt-simple access points from a grade crossing (i.e. no up-and-over required). About the only halfway-tricky (but really not hard) one is Wakefield, since it would have to be flipped south of the Albion St. grade crossing to net T-regulation 800 ft. platforms. You could wad up all 5 stops south of Reading Depot into one project bid, and close them 1-2 at a time to blitz 'em, prefab the hell out of everything, and be done on a rapid construction schedule. Make it big enough that workflow efficiencies have to rule and project management bloat simply has no time to accumulate.
 
Reading (full-highs around the historic depot building is going to be a complex undertaking,
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Probably cheapest to just jack up the station building to the new platform level.
 
Arlington said:
Probably cheapest to just jack up the station building to the new platform level.
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Or move the station south of the Route 28 grade crossing (Ash St. crossing is scheduled to be eliminated by an intersection reconfig) next to the Mall, where the proposed Orange Line extension station was going to go. Plenty of property room for it, and it's physically a little closer/more direct walk to town center along Route 28 than the current depot, with equivalent parking to be had. Then cannibalize the abandoned parking area by the depot to densify with more development along Lincoln St. abutting the depot. The depot, while nice, just hosts a couple private businesses (a mortgage company and a catering company) with no lingering railroad function.
 
Aprehensive_Words said:
Sure, the Globe editors just showed how credulous they are when it comes to transit stuff: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/18/business/boston-transportation-innovation/

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But they also just helped collect all the buzziest gadgetbahn ideas in one place so they can be efficiently dunked on and dismissed before some state legislator or developer picks them up.

🍿🍿
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This is maybe the single stupidest thing I have ever seen attributed to someone who is ostensibly a transit "expert"...and affiliated with MIT nonetheless.

A more radical notion involves paving over commuter rail tracks to open them up to more frequent service by smaller, electric, autonomous vehicles. Moavenzadeh makes the case that that could pull more single-driver vehicles from the road than today’s commuter rail service.

“We still call it commuter rail,” he says. “It was designed for the typical male breadwinner to take the train to the office and then come back – that 1950s lifestyle.”

Putting smaller vehicles onto those rights-of-way, he says, would allow service to better adjust to demand, whether a big festival in Boston, a Taylor Swift concert at Gillette, or a game at the Boston Garden. “It blows my mind that I can take the train to North Station to see a game,” Moavenzadeh says, “but the train to return leaves exactly eight minutes before the game ends.”

Going from "gee whiz these train schedules don't fit with this particular narrow use case" to "rip out the tracks, pave it with asphalt and let autonomous golf carts reclaim these ancient ROWs" should win the annual clownishness award from aB. That it's flavored by a subtle wink at the DEI community, suggesting only fedora-wearing 40-something WW2 vets use the commuter rail to go to their big office job makes me think this is actually some kind of PsyOp. Is this Rage Bait? Am I a sucker for some engagement tool by the Globe? This can't be serious. Improve headways and have adaptive schedules! Lord.
 
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Justbuildit said:
This is maybe the single stupidest thing I have ever seen attributed to someone who is ostensibly a transit "expert"...and affiliated with MIT nonetheless.

A more radical notion involves paving over commuter rail tracks to open them up to more frequent service by smaller, electric, autonomous vehicles. Moavenzadeh makes the case that that could pull more single-driver vehicles from the road than today’s commuter rail service.

“We still call it commuter rail,” he says. “It was designed for the typical male breadwinner to take the train to the office and then come back – that 1950s lifestyle.”

Putting smaller vehicles onto those rights-of-way, he says, would allow service to better adjust to demand, whether a big festival in Boston, a Taylor Swift concert at Gillette, or a game at the Boston Garden. “It blows my mind that I can take the train to North Station to see a game,” Moavenzadeh says, “but the train to return leaves exactly eight minutes before the game ends.”

Going from "gee whiz these train schedules don't fit with this particular narrow use case" to "rip out the tracks, pave it with asphalt and let autonomous golf carts reclaim these ancient ROWs" should win the annual clownishness award from aB. That it's flavored by a subtle wink at the DEI community, suggesting only fedora-wearing 40-something WW2 vets use the commuter rail to go to their big office job makes me think this is actually some kind of PsyOp. Is this Rage Bait? Am I a sucker for some engagement tool by the Globe? This can't be serious. Increase headways and have adaptive schedules! Lord.
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So that's where @whighlander disappeared to. :cautious:
 
Watertown water shuttles...
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I can't read the article, as someone that commuted from Beacon Hill to Watertown Square, I would have loved a water shuttle for that route vs. getting hung up in traffic on one of the various bus routes.


Currently, I've eliminated the subway from the North Station to seaport leg of my commute. The MCCA ferry from Lovejoy Wharf to the Seaport is amazing.
 
Justbuildit said:
A more radical notion involves paving over commuter rail tracks to open them up to more frequent service by smaller, electric, autonomous vehicles. Moavenzadeh makes the case that that could pull more single-driver vehicles from the road than today’s commuter rail service.

“We still call it commuter rail,” he says. “It was designed for the typical male breadwinner to take the train to the office and then come back – that 1950s lifestyle.”

Putting smaller vehicles onto those rights-of-way, he says, would allow service to better adjust to demand, whether a big festival in Boston, a Taylor Swift concert at Gillette, or a game at the Boston Garden. “It blows my mind that I can take the train to North Station to see a game,” Moavenzadeh says, “but the train to return leaves exactly eight minutes before the game ends.”
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Looking at this concept I actually think this is a pretty great idea. We SHOULD open up the commuter rail right of ways to more frequent service by running electric vehicles on them. We should in fact run multiple electric vehicles on them.

And in order to fit the maximum number of electric vehicles onto the right of ways they should be fairly long and have many of them attached together. They could be called electric multiple units or EMU’s for short.

Then in the center of every town along the way we can build new ingress/egress portals to and from these electric vehicles with level boarding for maximum convenience. They could run at 15 minute intervals because electric vehicles have good acceleration.

Finally right in the city center we can build one final large multiple electronic vehicle depot where all of the electric vehicles can park and allow people to easily walk to and from work or anywhere else. I think that with just a slight bit of tweaking this idea could actually work!
 
This article is the equivalent of the Darwin Awards for public transportation “solutions.” None of these people quoted in the article should ever be allowed near a media forum again. Banned for life. What a joke.
 
“It was designed for the typical male breadwinner to take the train to the office and then come back – that 1950s lifestyle.”
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Tell me you have an anti-rail bias without telling me you have an anti-rail bias.

We all know that railroads, and specifically their local passenger operations, weren't invented until the 1950's. We also know that the demographics of the working classes has changed since then, and that neither males nor females need to commute from their home to a downtown office anymore. As a daily rider of the commuter rail, I can attest to this. My AM and PM trains are full of leisure riders who have nothing better to do than to ride trains all day.

It's also pretty telling that the quoted individual is the head of the MIT Mobility Initiative (MMI). The MMI's global advisory board are almost all affiliated with automakers or concerns owned by them (Ford, GM, Hyundai), EV and/or autonomous vehicle transportation related concerns (Schneider Electric, Cintra, Motional). Even more telling is the number of occurrences of terms like EV, autonomous, vehicle, and rail in the Initiative's annual report. (hint, it's zero for rail).

tl;dr: This individual has an agenda, which they try to strengthen by somehow making trains sexist and patriarchal. Of course, when one has to resort to those types of statements, it only highlights the weakness of their position, otherwise they'd come out with something a bit more objective and factual.
 
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