If you designed a metro/subway for Worcester, MA how would it look?

[EastCambridgeDreamer]

Yeah unfortunately I would have to agree that "there is no there there" right now, on creating a metro system for Worcester. Technically, yes, Worcester is the second-largest city in New England. However, what's more important is that the population of the Worcester metro area is around 0.9M. Compare this to Providence, which has a metro population nearly twice that of Worcester at 1.6M.

However, Worcester is changing - and mostly for the better. I went to college in the city in the 2000s, and it's amazing to see how it's improved since then. The Hanover Theatre has opened. The public library main branch was rebuilt. The old mall downtown has finally fallen, and the street grid has been restored. Polar Park has brought more vibrancy to the downtown area.

There are also many important projects planned that would improve transit access for Worcester residents:
---
1. A second platform is under construction for Worcester Union Station, which would add capacity for the station.
2. Regional East-West Rail service is in the works, which would add 2 or 3 additional daily express trips to Boston, and Springfield at least.
3. The inland route for the Northeast Corridor is expected to be restored within the next 10yrs or so, which would add 4 daily trips to Boston / NYC / Philly / DC.
4. Work to begin electrifying the commuter rail system is finally planned in the most recent capital plan. Once the Worcester line is electrified, it would speed up Worcester - Boston trips to under an hour and could also double the number of daily trips to Boston.
5. This one is not in progress, but for the sake of argument, if the North-South Rail Link is ever built, it means that Worcester - Boston trips could connect directly to both South Station and North Station, and potentially destinations beyond like Salem.

Make no mistake, the sum of those 5 projects would be transformative for intercity transit serving the Worcester area. However, these improvements alone would still not make building local rail transit in Worcester. There would need to be much more development and residential density in the area to justify such an expensive outlay.

So where does that leave us? Is the state of public transit in Worcester area acceptable? No. Living in the city for 7 years showed me what a car-dependent area it is. As a college student, I did not have a car. I visited my parents on the South Shore several times a year by walking from the WPI area to Union Station, took the commuter rail to South Station, and then transferred to either the red or greenbush line to be picked up by my parents. I was thankful for the service, but it was a half-day journey. In my everyday life living on Highland St, I was able to reach many things on foot - groceries, restaurants, bank, etc. And I actually rode my bike all over. I guess I was a bit fearless at the time, using vehicular driving tactics to power my way up the hills, through traffic, and weaving around potholes. I took the bus occasionally, but since it mostly ran only hourly I didn't find it to be very useful.

If all 5 of the projects above were completed, my count that would give Worcester Union Station the following daily weekday trips to major destinations:
- 56 trips to Boston (48 on regional rail, assuming 4tph, 1 on lake shore limited, 4 on ne corridor, 3 on east-west rail)
- 8 trips to Springfield (1 on lake shore limited, 4 on ne corridor, 3 on east-west rail)
- 4 trips to NYC
- 4 trips to Philadelphia
- 4 trips to DC
- 1 trip to Albany
- 1 trip to Chicago

That's pretty significant. But instead of building a metro system in that scenario, I would do two things.

First, add more regional rail stations. Good candidates include:
- Millbury / Rt 20 (could be a good park and ride location)
- Worcester Shrewbury St (would serve UMASS Medical Center, a large employer, and restaurants on the eastern end of Shrewsbury St)
- Auburn Mall

Second, create / reactivate a Worcester - Uxbridge branch line, with stops at Millbury Center and Northbridge. This 20-mile service would have 3 benefits:

1. The primary benefit would be connecting people living in the completely car-dependant towns of Millbury, Northbridge, and Uxbridge with Worcester Union Station, thereby allowing them to get to Boston, NYC, and DC, among other places, without driving.
2. Secondarily, you may get some takers from these suburbs to take the train to go out for a night in Worcester. The downtown area is reasonably walkable, and it's got many good restaurants, minor league baseball at Polar Park, concerts at the DCU Center and Mechanics Hall, plays and other events at the Hanover Theatre, and maybe people would take an uber from Union Station to Holy Cross for Crusaders football.
3. This corridor continues past Uxbridge to Providence, making it easier to extend service to Providence later.

 

[EastCambridgeDreamer]

But whenever talking about Worcester transit, it must be repeated that Providence should get it first. Not only does Providence have a metro population nearby twice that of Worcester, but it also has 20 NE Corridor trains. Even if we assume Providence would not get any more trains than Worcester with electrified regional rail (even though Providence would likely get more than Worcester), and that it loses 4 NE Corridor trains to the Inland Route, that still leaves Providence with like 4x as many trips to NYC/Philly/DC. So if any branch line is to be built in New England, Providence should get one first. Amusingly, this could be done on the same line as the Uxbridge route I suggested above. But for Providence, of course, the branch line would begin from the other end - at Providence. And there are various propsals in RI for their own regional rail, as well as local service via light rail. But given how little RIDOT seems to care about rail, I'm not holding my breath that any of those actually come to pass.

 

[stick n move]

Providence would definitely make more sense than worcester and actually had a short lived street car proposal a while ago that would have opened in 2019. Would have been cool if it had ever been completed, but the planned route really was probably no better than a bus. Maybe some day if the city can grow a decent amount it could be revisited.

https://www.wpri.com/news/providence-moving-forward-with-streetcar-plan/

 

[#bancars]

If I were Worcester, the first thing I would do is implement a sort of regional rail on the existing track structure, including upgrading all of this area to be electrified and/or use BEMU's.

Worcester Rail - Google My Maps

Worcester Rail

www.google.com

Beyond that I would guess that BRT would be the other low-hanging fruit.

If you could somehow incorporate the Miss Worcester into a station where the three southern lines converge...that would be marvelous

 

[lainpimicaja]

I definitely don't disagree with Providence deserving a light rail / streetcar system, but I don't think that means that Worcester isn't worth a comparable investment. Across state lines, it's not necessarily a zero sum game. If local and state leaders in Worcester were serious about advocating for light rail or street car and did the groundwork to put together a planning study and line up some capital funding for match, they could get New Starts funding to launch at least one line to get the ball going (def possible under a Democratic administration given the amount of clout the MA delegation has in Congress). Would be good to look at an east-west service that parallels the 19 or another high ridership bus route and connect riders with Union Station given all the service investments being pumped into it that @EastCambridgeDreamer listed above.

The same goes for Providence / Rhode Island. Given the federal funding that's available thanks to the BIL and the IRA, right now is the opportunity to elevate a city's economic development competitiveness (not to mention political malpractice for electeds who aren't savvy enough to seize opportunities when presented with them).

 

[Stlin]

Providence would definitely make more sense than worcester and actually had a short lived street car proposal a while ago that would have opened in 2019. Would have been cool if it had ever been completed, but the planned route really was probably no better than a bus. Maybe some day if the city can grow a decent amount it could be revisited.

https://www.wpri.com/news/providence-moving-forward-with-streetcar-plan/

View attachment 55914
View attachment 55915

RIPTA is currently looking at a high capacity corridor(s) again, (I posted about it in the PVD forum here) which is looking at LRT or BRT to connect Cranston/Warwick through Central Falls. They're currently calling it Metro Connector, but it would be more axially focused than that 2019 plan.

Connecting Rhode Island: RIPTA Launches Metro Connector Study to Explore Faster, Expanded Transit Access - RIPTA

Public Invited to Share Feedback Through Online Survey and Public Meetings The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) is pleased to announce the launch of the Metro Connector Study, a major initiative to explore options for providing fast, frequent and reliable service that connects major...

www.ripta.com

 

[TheRatmeister]

Step 0 that I haven't see in this thread yet is to identify key nodes. So here's my starting list:

• Downtown (duh) but specifically Union Station, St Vincent Hospital, and Main St between roughly City Hall and the Palladium
• Universities: WPI, Clark, Worcester State, and Holy Cross
• Polar Park
• UMass Memorial/Worcester Recovery Center
• ORH
• Dense residential areas in Oak Hill/Vernon Hill/Union Hill

If we're just crayoning, these nodes actually lend themselves quite well to a cross of two lines, either a cross or an 'air bladder' arrangement.

For Step 1, identifying useful routes, For some surface alignments that could be used for either BRT or some form of rail transit:

• The Worcester and Nashua line actually goes under St Vincent
• The B&A gets close-ish to Clark and UMass Memorial
• Shrewsbury St
• Foster St/McGrath Blvd
• Major Taylor Blvd/Salisbury St
• Under I-290

 

[okin15]

I scrolled around and realized thats a full transit map with all the major cities on it. Where would I go to find the original map you used without the worcester additions that has all of the transit maps on it?

Interesting, I didn't find that when I scrolled to Boston. However, maybe you already know you can turn on a Transit layer on Google Maps? Same place as switching between map and satellite view.

 

[stick n move]

Interesting, I didn't find that when I scrolled to Boston. However, maybe you already know you can turn on a Transit layer on Google Maps? Same place as switching between map and satellite view.

Lol I’m an idiot, thats what it was. I never use google maps so to me it just looked like another one of those transit maps people make and since it had a hypothetical worcester rail map on it I figured the other ones were more add ons ppl had made. It doesnt help that it looks like a drawn on map. I use apple maps for transit maps and google earth for 3d maps, I guess Ill have to check out google maps more..

 

[Aprehensive_Words]

The funny thing about Providence is it *already* has a heavy rail spine -- the NEC.

In an electrified regional rail world, assuming you could make RIPTA and the MBTA work together, couldn't you rearrange the RIPTA bus network to feed into the commuter rail at a series of new stations made possible by the switch to EMUs? And to plus up frequencies between, like Warwick and Attleboro have RIPTA buy a few additional trainsets to get down to 10-minute service?

RIPTA is currently looking at a high capacity corridor(s) again, (I posted about it in the PVD forum here) which is looking at LRT or BRT to connect Cranston/Warwick through Central Falls. They're currently calling it Metro Connector, but it would be more axially focused than that 2019 plan.

 

[Stlin]

The funny thing about Providence is it *already* has a heavy rail spine -- the NEC.

In an electrified regional rail world, assuming you could make RIPTA and the MBTA work together, couldn't you rearrange the RIPTA bus network to feed into the commuter rail at a series of new stations made possible by the switch to EMUs? And to plus up frequencies between, like Warwick and Attleboro have RIPTA buy a few additional trainsets to get down to 10-minute service?

I think the issue is basically the fact that RI basically has uninterrupted density from Central Falls to Cranston that drives a ton of local transit demand that wouldn't be well met by the CR. The straight line distance from the Pawtucket station to Providence's is 3.5 miles - on mainline rail, I don't think it's reasonable to shiv another intermediate stop in there. At the same time, that corridor, which can be thought of as the northern half of the R-Line, accounts for something like 3k of its 5.5k total daily riders, which in turn is something like 8% of Ripta's total ridership. We consider Pawtucket a very successful CR station on 700 daily boardings.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Here's my quick try at both a god-mode subway and a more modest stadtbahn system.

I'd actually consider the stadtbahn version fairly reasonable. Build with street-running now, build tunnels and eliminate grade-crossings over time and eventually end up with a full metro. A starter line might be a couple modest underground stations at City Hall and Union Station, with street-running for the rest.

 

[kdmc]

Here's my quick try at both a god-mode subway and a more modest stadtbahn system.

I'd actually consider the stadtbahn version fairly reasonable. Build with street-running now, build tunnels and eliminate grade-crossings over time and eventually end up with a full metro. A starter line might be a couple modest underground stations at City Hall and Union Station, with street-running for the rest.

Nice! I think I'd move the Lincoln Sq yellow stop a block or two to the south, closer to the Abbey and other downtown goodness.

Maybe, one day, Lincoln Sq could be a place worth walking around (esp if they do something creative with the Aud) but at the moment it's just an autombile wasteland with some pretty buildings.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Nice! I think I'd move the Lincoln Sq yellow stop a block or two to the south, closer to the Abbey and other downtown goodness.

Maybe, one day, Lincoln Sq could be a place worth walking around (esp if they do something creative with the Aud) but at the moment it's just an autombile wasteland with some pretty buildings.

If I ever go back and make this a mildly more serious proposal then I'll be sure to change that. But I'm mostly just spitballing for now so I don't actually care that much.

 

[Arenacale]

Here's my quick try at both a god-mode subway and a more modest stadtbahn system.

I'd actually consider the stadtbahn version fairly reasonable. Build with street-running now, build tunnels and eliminate grade-crossings over time and eventually end up with a full metro. A starter line might be a couple modest underground stations at City Hall and Union Station, with street-running for the rest.

So my gut feeling at looking at these, specifically the light rail, is that while it hits the main landmarks, it also misses vast areas where people actually live. I think a good (idealistic) compromise is 4 lines:

Line 1 (Rt. 12 parallel)

• Mountain
• QCC
• Higgins
• Gold Star/Indian Lake
• Salisbury/WPI
• Highland
• Chandler/Park
• Clark
• Main South

Line 2 (Salisbury-Major Taylor-Hamilton St)

• Assumption
• Salisbury/WPI
• Grove St./Gateway
• MCPHS
• St. Vincent/DCU Center
• Union Station
• Canal
• Billings Circle
• Pilgrim
• Harrington/EcoTarium
• Lake

Line 3 (Belmont-Shrewsbury-McGrath)

• Regatta (the bridge)
• UMass Chan
• Adams
• E Central
• Union Station
• Polar Park
• Southbridge
• Holy Cross

Line 4 (Chandler-Grafton St)

• Tatnuck
• Worcester State
• Chandler/Park
• Federal Square
• Front St
• Union Station
• Canal
• Billings Circle
• Massasoit
• Jennings
• Sunderland
• Cutoff

This is probably Too Much, but it both hits the landmarks and manages to reach more of the population as well. You could probably cut some of the stops out as well. I wish there was some way to logically connect the colleges, but Worcester State messes that up. I'd have ventured to the other schools more often during my time at WPI if they were easier to get to.

 

[TheRatmeister]

This is probably Too Much, but it both hits the landmarks and manages to reach more of the population as well. You could probably cut some of the stops out as well. I wish there was some way to logically connect the colleges, but Worcester State messes that up. I'd have ventured to the other schools more often during my time at WPI if they were easier to get to.

If you had to narrow it down, what are the key residential areas of Worcester that are also relatively dense? I'm not particularly familiar with the area to be honest.

 

[Koopzilla24]

Yeah unfortunately I would have to agree that "there is no there there" right now, on creating a metro system for Worcester. Technically, yes, Worcester is the second-largest city in New England. However, what's more important is that the population of the Worcester metro area is around 0.9M. Compare this to Providence, which has a metro population nearly twice that of Worcester at 1.6M.

FWIW Providence's official metro area is just the state of RI plus Bristol County, MA whilst Worcester's metro area is just Worcester County. Neither of which I believe properly represents the core urbanized extent of each which would be a better measure of the impact and feasibility of a metro system. Population around a point kinda shows the disparity between the two but it doesn't account for the asymmetry in urban areas leaving some urbanized parts out and including other less urban areas.

Adding up the populations of towns in Worcester's continuous truly urban area is only ~300k (Worcester + Shrewsbury + Aurburn and parts of West Boylston, Holden, and Millbury), compared to over 700k around Providence and that's leaving out anything in MA and not stretching up to Woonsocket or down to Newport. Towns beyond that are really spread out or disconnected by forest. This along with the lack of density outside Worcester's city core isn't really conducive to a full metro but it could very much support a U-Shaped tram spine on Main-Lincoln-Burncoat to Quinsig, then on Park Ave to Indian Lake, with frequent buses feeding it via the east-west streets across the city. Combine that with a simple S-Bahn regional system to capture out to Fitchburg, Webster, Blackstone, Spencer, and Westborough kinda like what @okin15 proposes would be transformative for regional mobility in and around the city.

 

[Delvin4519]

Technically, yes, Worcester is the second-largest city in New England. However, what's more important is that the population of the Worcester metro area is around 0.9M. Compare this to Providence, which has a metro population nearly twice that of Worcester at 1.6M.

Where are these "0.9M Worcester" and "1.6M Providence" population figures coming from? Because I can absolutely assure here that those values are not what the US Census Bureau has for these cities in the latest, up to date, 2020 census 4 years ago. The official government figures for Worcester MA-CT is 482,085* and for Providence RI-MA it is 1,285,806* as of the year 2020.

If the response is that "the 0.9M Worcester and 1.6M Providence figures came from the Census Bureau", then that is just not true at all, because those aren't the Census Bureau figures. These are the Census Bureau figures.

If you're too lazy to click the links, here's a compiled list combined with CANZUK cities, showing Providence near to #50 in the rankings. Worcester's like twice as far down in the rankings, at about #110 (If considering the US solo then it's #39 and #87 as per Wikipedia)

*(Though, like many southern New England cities, the US Census Bureau artificially inflates these figures due to the unnecessary and dumb merging of the completely independent and standalone cities of Fall River, Newport, Narraganset, Woonsocket, Attleboro-N Attleboro, and Foxboro-Mansfield; with Providence; plus the silly merging of Uxbridge, Milford, and Clinton; with Worcester. This is despite miles of forests and wooded areas separating these urban cores that haven't been filled with actual, legit urban development yet, except for just enough McMansions in between them to trigger the Census Bureau's "urban" thresholds. Boston has it the worst with its population artifically almost doubled due to this fact. See below for the map for clarification)

FWIW Providence's official metro area is just the state of RI plus Bristol County, MA whilst Worcester's metro area is just Worcester County.

I can assure you that officially, Providence doesn't cover all of RI+Bristol to begin with, nor does Worcester cover all of Worcester County either, per the Census Bureau.

But still, why are we using metropolitian areas to measure demand for subways, trams, and buses? We don't run full-on subways to serve demand from and to golf courses and farmland. Metropolitian areas always include miles and miles of farmland, forests, swamps, and mountains and generally measure the entire "commuter market" of a city. County borders are also completely meaningless in southern New England in the context of city sizes; and should never be used to measure the size of a city in good faith. We're trying to use population to measure demand for subways, trams, and buses, which is not (≠) the same as a metropolitian area. In this case, we need to use population figures of people that actually live in the actual cities.

Yeah unfortunately I would have to agree that "there is no there there" right now, on creating a metro system for Worcester.

Measuring the actual populations of Worcester and Providence, it's more like 320k for Worcester and 760k for Providence.

Given how meaningless the Census Bureau's figures for cities in southern New England are, one really ought to consult the map of human settlement in SNE directly, which looks like this:

 

[kdmc]

Where are these "0.9M Worcester" and "1.6M Providence" population figures coming from? Because I can absolutely assure here that those values are not what the US Census Bureau has for these cities in the latest, up to date, 2020 census 4 years ago. The official government figures for Worcester MA-CT is 482,085* and for Providence RI-MA it is 1,285,806* as of the year 2020.

If the response is that "the 0.9M Worcester and 1.6M Providence figures came from the Census Bureau", then that is just not true at all, because those aren't the Census Bureau figures. These are the Census Bureau figures.

If you're too lazy to click the links, here's a compiled list combined with CANZUK cities, showing Providence near to #50 in the rankings. Worcester's like twice as far down in the rankings, at about #110 (If considering the US solo then it's #39 and #87 as per Wikipedia)
View attachment 56011
View attachment 56012

*(Though, like many southern New England cities, the US Census Bureau artificially inflates these figures due to the unnecessary and dumb merging of the completely independent and standalone cities of Fall River, Newport, Narraganset, Woonsocket, Attleboro-N Attleboro, and Foxboro-Mansfield; with Providence; plus the silly merging of Uxbridge, Milford, and Clinton; with Worcester. This is despite miles of forests and wooded areas separating these urban cores that haven't been filled with actual, legit urban development yet, except for just enough McMansions in between them to trigger the Census Bureau's "urban" thresholds. Boston has it the worst with its population artifically almost doubled due to this fact. See below for the map for clarification)


I can assure you that officially, Providence doesn't cover all of RI+Bristol to begin with, nor does Worcester cover all of Worcester County either, per the Census Bureau.
View attachment 56010

But still, why are we using metropolitian areas to measure demand for subways, trams, and buses? We don't run full-on subways to serve demand from and to golf courses and farmland. Metropolitian areas always include miles and miles of farmland, forests, swamps, and mountains and generally measure the entire "commuter market" of a city. County borders are also completely meaningless in southern New England in the context of city sizes; and should never be used to measure the size of a city in good faith. We're trying to use population to measure demand for subways, trams, and buses, which is not (≠) the same as a metropolitian area. In this case, we need to use population figures of people that actually live in the actual cities.


Measuring the actual populations of Worcester and Providence, it's more like 320k for Worcester and 760k for Providence.
View attachment 56008
Given how meaningless the Census Bureau's figures for cities in southern New England are, one really ought to consult the map of human settlement in SNE directly, which looks like this:
View attachment 56009

Just for nerdy reasons I really really wish there was an objective way to measure "urban population size". Basically what you're doing here (manually drawing polygons based around areas dense-enough to warrant trams, I assume) but with an objective formula. I'd love to be able to compare and contrast the size of Worcester vs Prov, or Boston vs Houston vs SF vs ...., without resorting to political boundaries (unsurprisingly abitrary), census areas (surprisingly arbitrary), or local opinion of what a city is (totally subjective). Does anyone know of such a statistic?

 

[Delvin4519]

Just for nerdy reasons I really really wish there was an objective way to measure "urban population size". Basically what you're doing here (manually drawing polygons based around areas dense-enough to warrant trams, I assume) but with an objective formula. I'd love to be able to compare and contrast the size of Worcester vs Prov, or Boston vs Houston vs SF vs ...., without resorting to political boundaries (unsurprisingly abitrary), census areas (surprisingly arbitrary), or local opinion of what a city is (totally subjective). Does anyone know of such a statistic?

This is only really an issue for southern New England, and to a lesser extent Philly/NYC/Atlanta to a much lesser degree. I was able to use the existing US census data outside of New England as-is for the most part, and Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and England already compiled this kind of data directly, hence I was able to just merge them into a single list in the screencap above (though the UK is taking forever to publish its updated 2021 urban area conglomerations).

It's just that development patterns in the US differ east of the Great Plains vs. west of the Great Plains, and north of the Sunbelt vs. south of the Sunbelt. What may be good criteria west of the Plains, doesn't necessarily mean its good criteria to separate and merge cities in New England. New England really just gets shafted in the Census Bureau's criteria that allows US cities in the southeast and the western half of the US to be properly merged. Criteria that properly separates and breaks apart independent cities in SNE may inadvertently result in unnecessary splitting of cities such as Atlanta, Houston, etc. This is why a single definition of urban areas worldwide isn't feasible, though it's possible to combine the Anglosphere's cities into a single list.

I simply drew the polygon based on where it is orange in the GHSL map, and where the road network is notably dense (there's a handy tool with a map highlighting every single road, and it captures urban areas pretty well (outside of Canada), so I just drew around it).