Cool map, though I'm interested in the radial-route gap between Lawrence and Lowell. I feel like the twin population centers of Lawrence and Haverhill would be great draws on the north end of that route.
I'd also consider adding in some sort of Fall River - Providence connection. There's a few different ways you can get from here to there, from latching onto 195 to reactivating whatever ROW that is that got turned into a bike path. But there's probably a good bit more good a connection there would do than connecting Newport to Boston. I prefer the politically-infeasible Path option, as it hits way more population centers.
- Get across the Taunton River somehow. Ideally this would be north of the currently planned Fall River station. The old ROWs that crossed the river have all been blown to bits, unfortunately, so no real good options here.
- Latch onto one of the existing power line ROWs. This gets you up and around what Google Maps is calling Oceans Grove.
- Continue south of that ROW, leaving around the Touisset Country Club to cross over 103 and attach to the path ROW.
- Follow the ROW all the way into East Providence.
- From here things get more complicated. Ideally we could reuse the existing rail tunnels, but they don't connect to anything anymore. I think the best approach here is to cannibalize some of the 195 and 95 ROW to get us close to Providence station and then just kind of start waving our hands around to describe how you actually get to Providence station itself. Alternatively you can follow the ROW up through Rumford, reconnect to the NEC and then somehow figure out a scheme to double-back on yourself, but the obvious service-level inhibitors there mean I'd rather just invoke God.
Stations at: Fall River, Oceans Grove/103, Warren, Barrington, Riverside, East Providence, Providence
