General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Random questions: The Blue Line runs dual-mode (catenary and third rail) because of how close it runs to the ocean. Is this an actual issue that can't be overcome? What are the costs (operation and capital) to this? Could we switch to single-mode if we make some changes to the tracks? Has climate change affected how often icing is an issue?
 
I thought the MBTA had programmed some money to evaluate running full third rail.
 

Public Meeting | Red Line Hi-Rail Access Tunnel Project (Virtual)​

Join the MBTA and project design team for a discussion on the Red Line Hi-Rail Tunnel Project.

We're building a hi-rail access tunnel for work vehicles along the Red Line. A hi-rail vehicle is a work truck equipped with a hydraulic set of train wheels and rubber tires, allowing it to operate on railways and surface streets. Right now, the only access tunnel for these vehicles is at Charles/MGH station. The new tunnel will enable shorter and less frequent Red Line shutdowns, faster commutes, and bring the MBTA closer to a state of good repair.

Details and registration
 
TheRatmeister said:

Public Meeting | Red Line Hi-Rail Access Tunnel Project (Virtual)​

Join the MBTA and project design team for a discussion on the Red Line Hi-Rail Tunnel Project.

We're building a hi-rail access tunnel for work vehicles along the Red Line. A hi-rail vehicle is a work truck equipped with a hydraulic set of train wheels and rubber tires, allowing it to operate on railways and surface streets. Right now, the only access tunnel for these vehicles is at Charles/MGH station. The new tunnel will enable shorter and less frequent Red Line shutdowns, faster commutes, and bring the MBTA closer to a state of good repair.

Details and registration
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I don't understand why they are saying the only access is at Charles/MGH (it is actually at the north end of the Longfellow Bridge https://maps.app.goo.gl/fQHUpNBZVVSV1FYCA) , when there is a truck pad at 95 Von Hillern St in Boston near JFK/UMASS. https://maps.app.goo.gl/FjBCxSgN46agfnSy9
 
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reno said:
I don't understand why they are saying the only access is at Charles/MGH (it is actually at the north end of the Longfellow Bridge https://maps.app.goo.gl/fQHUpNBZVVSV1FYCA) , when there is a truck pad at 95 Von Hillern St in Boston near JFK/UMASS. https://maps.app.goo.gl/FjBCxSgN46agfnSy9
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I suspect the missing words are "on the north side of the system." There's clearly multiple on the south side, including at JFK; Wollaston, Quincy Adams, and presumably Codman/Caddigan yards. Granted, most of those are mostly so they can get snow clearing machines onto the tracks, but I believe the rationale is operational flexibility - the need to get hi-rails and stuff into the tunnels has forced a lot of the service break-points in the current round of diversions.

For example, if you need the 1st Street Gate on the Longfellow bridge to fix the Alewife crossover, your only option is to shut the red line all the way from Alewife to Park, even if the Harvard-Park segment isn't being touched. We saw this in the latest Alewife-Kendall closures - the evening/weekend extensions of the diversion to Park were driven by the need to use the 1st gate even though that track segment wasn't being worked on.

Frankly, given Eng is from NYC where they run a more switch heavy operation, I'm hopeful that he's envisioned a scenario where in the future we could turn trains at almost every rapid transit station. That crossover density would probably be a prerequisite for single track running anyways.
 
HenryAlan said:
But the MBTA doesn't make these decisions in a vacuum (or at all, as in the case of South Coast Rail). These aren't spending problems, they are funding problems. Beacon Hill mandates that the 'T provide certain services, but doesn't follow through with adequate resources for those services. That's not something the MBTA can control, you are pointing your finger at the wrong problem.
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I didn’t point to the T as the decision maker. I said they should not increase costs and lower revenues when they are facing a massive operational deficit whether the T or the state makes the bad decision is irrelevant. When your have a massive mismatch between revenues and expenses the first thing you do is not to make it worse!
 
HenryAlan said:
agree, this is the way to do it. I visited Prague back in the 90s and was really impressed by the night tram service, which was based on completely different routes from the day time service. The night trams hit every stop, but followed much less direct routes in doing so. Something similar with bus routes should be quite feasible to design. The wandering paths the buses take wouldn't be too much of a time suck, as traffic would be light and most stops would typically not have any passengers.
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This is an insteresting contrast with the Toronto Blue Night Network, which is a lower-resolution version of the daytime bus grid (so you're never far from a route). I wonder which works better (obviously Toronto has an advantage for transit with a street grid).
Delvin4519 said:
North of the city, a route into Malden must serve Everett, not Wellington.
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TheRatmeister said:
It's definitely possible, at least mostly...The only section that would be really difficult would be the northern Orange Line, but thanks to the third track this also the easiest section to operate 24 hours a day, connecting to a bus at Community College.
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Agreed with Ratmeister. Also Rutherford Ave, Assembly, Fellsway, River's Edge Dr, Center St, and Main St could work for the northern OL (though good point that this can run 24hrs). These don't have to exactly replicate the subway network (and Toronto's doesn't).

It would also be interesting if extensions of the subway network could be tested as night buses (red-blue, GLX porter and Rt. 16, etc. Might not work operationally for every one though).
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TheRatmeister said:

Public Meeting | Red Line Hi-Rail Access Tunnel Project (Virtual)​

Join the MBTA and project design team for a discussion on the Red Line Hi-Rail Tunnel Project.

We're building a hi-rail access tunnel for work vehicles along the Red Line. A hi-rail vehicle is a work truck equipped with a hydraulic set of train wheels and rubber tires, allowing it to operate on railways and surface streets. Right now, the only access tunnel for these vehicles is at Charles/MGH station. The new tunnel will enable shorter and less frequent Red Line shutdowns, faster commutes, and bring the MBTA closer to a state of good repair.

Details and registration
Click to expand...
I know this is highly unlikely, but: What if we use this opportunity to build an egress north of Alewife?

This kills several birds in one stone:
  • It serves as an access tunnel for hi-rail vehicles, as described in the meeting description above.
  • If you build a crossover north of Alewife as part of this egress, it greatly improves Alewife's turnaround capacity. This is currently limited by the inefficient crossover east of Alewife, which was never intended for terminal operations, and thus becomes a bottleneck for the entire Red Line.
  • It hopefully makes future extensions to Arlington a bit easier by having some initial work built.
If you're feeling really ambitious, you might even be able to add another station between Alewife and the future Arlington Center, likely in East Arlington around Lake St.
 
Teban54 said:
  • If you build a crossover north of Alewife as part of this egress, it greatly improves Alewife's turnaround capacity. This is currently limited by the inefficient crossover east of Alewife, which was never intended for terminal operations, and thus becomes a bottleneck for the entire Red Line.
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According to the track map there already is one.

Potential problems with adding a new headhouse:
  1. An access point could just be a hole in the ground with a crane to lift things in/out, pretty basic and not really something that leads into a bigger project
  2. Assuming the access point is somewhere in the rough vicinity of the yard, that's not really even that close to the platform. Given that such an entrance would mainly be serving cyclists on the minuteman who could cycle for maybe an extra minute, and just park where they do now, the added value seems pretty minimal.
Teban54 said:
If you're feeling really ambitious, you might even be able to add another station between Alewife and the future Arlington Center, likely in East Arlington around Lake St.
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Wouldn't be a bad idea on any RLX, but that's over a half-mile of tunnel right there. There's really no reason whatsoever to do that as part of this rather than an actual extension.
 
I assume they are going to build an incline accessed from the end of the parking lot at the playing fields. If they do it correctly, it will be a tangent to a potential RLX.
 
Delvin4519 said:
MBTA to spend 193 million on shuttle buses in order to fix systemwide slowzones (link to article, same link that was posted on reddit):

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I get it, the shuttle buses need to run, it costs a lot. But think about if we didn't have this maintenance backlog. This could be a decent down payment for an OLX+1 to Roslindale (or insert low hanging project of your choice).
 
Brattle Loop said:
The CRRC cars are a particularly bad example for all the reasons @HenryAlan and others have mentioned. The Patrick administration's insistence on them being assembled in Massachusetts (i.e. Springfield) immediately made the project less attractive to all of the potential bidders who had pre-existing final assembly plants elsewhere in the US. And the T correctly understood that one of the Chinese bidders (CSR) was not acceptable on technical grounds and rejected their bid, only for the Chinese state to merge them with the winning CNR, something the T had absolutely no control over and which undoubtedly contributed to that program's misfortunes. None of that was the T's own choices, it was either outside their control entirely or forced upon them by the whims of their political masters.
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Mittens Romney did the same thing with the Scheidt & Bachmann fare vending machines and turnstiles. That German co. placed their U.S. ops in Burlingtonn Mass at the time as part of the contract and in exchange for them hiring Mass. Folks.
 
It doesn't look like the past studies they link to mention anything meaningful about the commuter rail at all, so I would lean towards "no" and that it's just studying what to do about the supercollider.

EDIT: Amusingly, the 2006 study goes as far as to completely remove the tracks from the studied area:

1726500612044.png
 
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