If You Were God/Goddess | Transit & Infrastructure Sandbox

JeffDowntown said:
If you are not stopping in Philly, the powers that be won't let you tunnel through. That is how politicians, for millennia, have played ball.
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Oh I see, my bad. I was reading what you said exactly backwards. Nevermind
 
bigeman312 said:
I’ve really enjoyed this thought experiment, but I have a demographic aside and question: where would these people come from? What would cause this region’s population to double in a century?

Possibilities:
  • They are mostly born here, primarily descendants of people who already live here:
    • For that to happen, a population to double in roughly three generations through natural growth, the fertility rate would have to average about 2.5 over the next century, mathematically speaking. The United States hasn’t had a fertility rate that high since 1942-‘67. It’s currently 1.6, while the northeast is even lower (DC is 1.2, VT/RI/NH/MA are 1.4, etc). Would this growth be spurred by a baby boom the likes of which most living Americans haven’t seen in their lifetime?
  • They are mostly domestic migrants:
    • This possibility would really affect some of our answers. High speed trains to Atlanta and Chicago are less relevant if those regions have depopulated. We’ve been seeing an outflow from many of the Northeast states in recent years. Massachusetts and New York have lost about a million people in net domestic migration this decade. Would this growth be spurred by a reversal of this domestic migration trend? Florida and Texas have gained about 1.5 million residents from net migration alone this decade. Is this a scenario where climate change has driven millions or even tens of millions of domestic migrants from California, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona over the next century?
  • They are mostly immigrants:
    • There are obviously billions of people who live in other countries. There are 46 million foreign-born residents in the United States. Would this growth be driven by an increase in immigration?
  • Decreased mortality:
    • Life expectancy in the US has increased from 60 to 79 in the last century. It’s even higher than that in the Northeast, with MA, NY, CT, and NJ all at about 81. Hong Kong, Japan, and Macau have the highest life expectancies in the world at 85. All else equal, a long term increase in US life expectancy to 85 would increase our population by 8%. An increase to 90 would increase our population by 14%.
Interesting to think about which of these scenarios are most at play in this thought experiment, as it would effect what transit system would be most appropriate.
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Don't know how far out the technology is or how ethical it would be but, maybe in the somewhat near future they find a way to make babies outside of the womb. (exogenesis for all 9 months) Maybe people will want to have more kids if they don't have to go through the effort of labor, or something. Who knows, maybe we end up in the boring timeline where no sci-fi dystopian inventions really happen and end up like South Korea.
 
One less concrete idea I have for the megalopolis transit system:

Since this is effectively one giant city, an argument could be made for free regional trains, similar to how some metro systems are free (or have a nominal ticket cost). I would imagine the higher speed lines would still charge ‘normal’ fares - perhaps their fares would subsidize the regional fare revenue foregone. And this would mean that the highway system would be spared much of the congestion that would go along with a megalopolis of these proportions.
 
22marc said:
Don't know how far out the technology is or how ethical it would be but, maybe in the somewhat near future they find a way to make babies outside of the womb. (exogenesis for all 9 months) Maybe people will want to have more kids if they don't have to go through the effort of labor, or something. Who knows, maybe we end up in the boring timeline where no sci-fi dystopian inventions really happen and end up like South Korea.
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South Korea’s fertility rate dropped from 2.4 to 1.6 in four years (1982-‘86). The US fertility took 54 years to drop from 2.4 to 1.6 (1970-2024). Over that same time period, South Korea’s fertility rate dropped from 4.5 to 0.7. Our country’s demographic transition should be much more gentle and gradual than South Korea’s insane plummet!

I think a more apt comparison would be Japan, but (probably) with immigration. Japan’s fertility rate decrease happened more gradually, similar to the United States. They took 34 years to drop from 2.4 to 1.6 (1955-‘89). We are just 35 years behind them in terms of this demographic transition. Japan didn’t start shrinking until 2009.

If the United States follows Japan’s trajectory, we’ll start shrinking in about 20 years. This checks out, as the CBO projects all growth in the US to be driven by immigration, by about 2040, with no more natural growth occurring after next decade.

Immigration will be a huge variable in where our population is headed. Our natural increase is rapidly approaching zero. Under a low immigration scenario, our population will peak within 20 years. Under a medium immigration scenario, our population will continue growing for decades to come, even with the expected continued low fertility.
 
WarpedReality said:
Would bypassing Philadelphia on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River be wise?
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That sounds significantly more complicated than just following I-95 and/or I-495 to PHL, then joining the Airport line for the final trip into new platforms at 30th St, and then following the Trenton Line until it meets I-95 again. We already have an amazing intercity network of extremely wide straight corridors, that will be by far the easiest path to HSR.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Concept is cool, but you really cannot skip the 3rd largest metro on the East Coast, Philadelphia, in your super express mode. Making Philadelphia a connector city would make the proposal DOA (since you have to track through Philadelphia).
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Very true. This would highlight a difference between an "idealized"/"simplified" theoretical version, and one that would actually be practical/pragmatic. Although see below (and further below that).
JeffDowntown said:
If you are not stopping in Philly, the powers that be won't let you tunnel through. That is how politicians, for millennia, have played ball.
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Well, one thing worth clarifying is that this cross-Philly tunnel would have plenty of trains stopping there -- just (theoretically) the super-expresses would fly through. Remember, conceptually this is a 6 track corridor, in part so that the connector cities still benefit from this large project going through their area.

But yes, realistically Philadelphia would doubtless sit on the same tier as New York and Washington.
DominusNovus said:
What would your main concern about such a cadence [stopping every 30 minutes/100 miles] be? Technological or logistic?
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I drafted this piece several years ago, so I admit I don't actually remember my reasoning. I have a vague recollection of trying to do some math based on acceleration rates, and looking askance at how long it would take to reasonably accelerate and decelerate, and in turn how much time the train would actually travel at its top speed.

On the other hand, it looks like China's Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway, from which I drew loose inspiration, has stop spacing on the order of 30 miles, so perhaps the time savings of a "super express" would not be significant.
DominusNovus said:
I'd propose that one solution, in either case, would be to start with service that goes to every stop for a major '100 mile' city at whatever the maximum reasonable speed for that leg is. At the same time, you can also do more express lines that go at a faster speed, and just leap frog different cities.

So, you might have the following for higher speed:
A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H
And then genuine high speed could have the following:
A-C-E-G
B-D-F-H
And even
A-D-G
B-E-H
(and yes, you'd have to work out the specifics and make sure the service levels match demand, which is why I used letters instead of actual cities)

On top of that, you don't always have a 'pure' spine if you look at a map of the population density of the current Megalopolis. For example, Boston-New York could go:
Boston - Hartford - New York (with possible stops at Springfield and/or New Haven)
Boston - Providence - New Haven - New York
Boston - Providence - Long Island (remember, 2121!) - New York
Boston - Springfield - Albany - New York (less likely, admittedly)

And then you have a string of cities to the south, further inland from the typical NYC-Philly-DC corridor, like Allentown and Harrisburg. I could see the rail system looking less like a single spine and more like a stretched out bowtie, figure 8, or hourglass. Especially if the overall growth is not just in the 'core' of the Megalopolis, but is also in outlying cities that can more easily grow larger as the region grows.
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Yeah I think this is a more realistic approach.

The point about the bowtie shape is intriguing. Would all routes need to hit New York? (And by "New York", I include hypothetical bypass services, i.e. hop over the Hudson in Tarrytown and run down to to Newark.) And I think the answer is "mostly yes." The only candidates I see would be something like Albany <> Allentown or Albany <> Scranton <> Allentown. I can imagine those services existing, but I have to think it'd be a small fraction.

On a related note:

If you draw a line from Boston's Post Office Square straight to the White House in Washington, DC, your line will pass:
  • directly through New Haven Union Station
  • straight through the heart of Williamsburg
  • less than 2 miles from Wall St
  • one mile from the Trenton Transit Center and even closer to downtown
  • just a few blocks northeast of North Philadelphia station
  • 2.4 miles from Philadelphia City Hall
  • 2 miles from downtown Wilmington
(Even Baltimore is pretty closely aligned, just under 10 miles away.)

That line is just under 400 miles long, and the cores almost all of the northeast cities line up almost perfect, with a variance of 0.06%. (If we include Baltimore, that variance rises to 2.4%, which still seems remarkable.)

But there's more. If you draw a line from Boston's Post Office Square straight to Five Points in downtown Atlanta, your line will pass:
  • Less than 5 miles from New Haven Union Station
  • A bit over 8 miles from Downtown New York
  • A less less than 8 miles from Philadelphia City Hall
  • 15 miles from the White House
On a line 935 miles long, this variance comes out to 1.6%.

To put it another way, the East Coast's three largest metropolitan areas (NYC, DC, Philadelphia, ranking 1st, 7th, and 8th nationally) create an axis that accurately predicts the locations of two out of three of the remaining Eastern Seaboard metropoli: Atlanta (6th nationally) and Boston (11th). (Miami is the odd one out.) This even at hundreds of miles of distance.

I realize that it's easy to find patterns anywhere you look, but you gotta admit this is really striking. Of the top 12 MSAs in the country, 6 of them are east of Chicago and 5 of them line up almost perfectly with each other (with less than 2.5% of variance).
 
Riverside said:
I don’t understand the reference, but I’m also really mindful of my poor math skills so hopefully I haven’t grossly miscalculated. 😄
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It's a joke about the proposed linear city (The Line/NEOM) that got way too much hype and will never be realized.
 
Another question that I can’t really decide where it fits, but since it could be relevant to the megalopolis discussion, I’ll stick it here:

Are there any studies (or information in general) about how important aesthetics are when considering elevated rail lines? For example, consider the Canton Viaduct. It’s a genuinely pretty piece of infrastructure and is appreciated as such. When designing elevated rail lines, is there consideration of making the viaducts similarly aesthetically pleasing? Any sort of architectural style would work just fine, as long as it’s something the locals would appreciate.

I know that elevated rail tends to be unpopular and unsightly in many situations, but they, generally, are pretty utilitarian in their design. I’m quite curious how much that plays a part.
 
DominusNovus said:
Another question that I can’t really decide where it fits, but since it could be relevant to the megalopolis discussion, I’ll stick it here:

Are there any studies (or information in general) about how important aesthetics are when considering elevated rail lines? For example, consider the Canton Viaduct. It’s a genuinely pretty piece of infrastructure and is appreciated as such. When designing elevated rail lines, is there consideration of making the viaducts similarly aesthetically pleasing? Any sort of architectural style would work just fine, as long as it’s something the locals would appreciate.

I know that elevated rail tends to be unpopular and unsightly in many situations, but they, generally, are pretty utilitarian in their design. I’m quite curious how much that plays a part.
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I'm also curious about this. I kind of doubt this has been specifically studied, though, just because it's about a lot of squishier things like aesthetics and public opinion, and that'd be hard to measure.
Along those lines, though, does anyone have some examples of modern, aesthetically pleasing rail viaducts? Not just pretty from afar, but pleasant up close so you'd want them in an urban setting? I mainly think of older ones, like the Canton Viaduct you mentioned. I've also brought up the S-Bahn in Berlin before. Who's got examples from the past 30 years?

Also, there are other possible bad aspects of these viaducts that aren't specifically just aesthetics. I grew up around Chicago, and I think a lot of the old els are pretty. But they're also bone-rattlingly loud, they shoot sparks down on the street, and they drip grime in the rain. I think those aspects also really play into the resistance to viaducts you're interested in. (It may be politically useful to have a local example like the new Lechmere to point to. I don't think it's especially pretty, but it's an example that els can be basically pleasant and quiet. That might blunt future resistance to rail viaducts.)
 
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ritchiew said:
I'd also curious about this. I kind of doubt this has been specifically studied, though, just because it's about a lot of squishier things like aesthetics and public opinion, and that'd be hard to measure.
Along those lines, though, does anyone have some examples of modern, aesthetically pleasing rail viaducts? Not just pretty from afar, but pleasant up close so you'd want them in an urban setting? I mainly think of older ones, like the Canton Viaduct you mentioned. I've also brought up the S-Bahn in Berlin before. Who's got examples from the past 30 years?

Also, there are other possible bad aspects of these viaducts that aren't specifically just aesthetics. I grew up around Chicago, and I think a lot of the old els are pretty. But they're also bone-rattlingly loud, they shoot sparks down on the street, and they drip grime in the rain. I think those aspects also really play into the resistance to viaducts you're interested in. (It may be politically useful to have a local example like the new Lechmere to point to. I don't think it's especially pretty, but it's an example that els can be basically pleasant and quiet. That might blunt future resistance to rail viaducts.)
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The sound would seem to be easily mitigated by keeping curved sections away from people.

As for aesthetics, I had some fun playing with an AI art generator and plugging in variations of <insert architectural style> viaduct in <insert environment>.
 
fatnoah said:
It's crazy transit pitch material, but I always felt Woburn Center or even continuing further to Route 128 would be the best terminus. It has similar density to Winchester and worse access to downtown. While it has some express buses and the 134 (and I've taken them all) they're not convenient and the walkshed of the bus stops serves far fewer people than the driveshed of a real transit terminal w/parking in North Woburn/Burlington.


Selfishly, I would love to see the GL make it to Winchester Center for a much more convenient trip to downtown. West Medford feels more realistic, though. It would catch the already decent CR traffic, serve as a transfer point for GL, and mesh well with buses along the RT 60 corridor.
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The problem here is that the ROW is destroyed at least south of the city center. If that was no object, my ideal would be to follow the 1945 plan, moving WM and Wedgemere off of regional rail, making Winchester Center a transfer station, head up into Woburn stopping at Cross Street, Woburn Highlands, and Woburn Center. I would actually want to go further, like you. Going north on the row and getting over to Anderson/Woburn as a terminus along with an Orange line terminus would make that a real regional and local node for connectivity. Portland, ME, at least Nashua, NH, Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill, local connections to Reading and beyond as well as Woburn and beyond. That's endgame transit. Anything beyond that isn't going to be Boston-facing but rather connections into the Boston-facing network (bus redesigns, streetcar, bike lanes). I took West Medford off because there's already two node connections and having three is way too much for current density.
 
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Thinking about improving commuter rail service frequency and availability, especially with SCR's clogging on the horizon - are there any other lines where double-tracking would open up more frequencies or even extensions? But this question is asked in bad-faith, god-mode context: where tunneling tracks, burying adjacent subway tracks, purchasing adjacent lands, bridges, and cost are not factors.

One that is most likely god mode would be tunneling/elevating as much of the Braintree red line branch where it occludes the commuter rail from being double tracked from the Greenbush Junction, all the way to Neponset Bridge - which might mean at least a deep-underground Quincy Ctr stop - maybe tunnel-bored under CR $$$? Maybe surfacing after and going to one track til Wollaston, to not have to change the bridges where the rails cross above the roads, and then under to North Quincy until the Neponset Bridge (widened to fit four tracks?). After that, who knows? Maybe more of a deep tunnel (or elevated) to allow double tracking alongside 93, fixing the chokehold on the CR's 3 Old Colony lines using 1 track. Switching the split from JFK to Savin Hill could help more, or if removing RL from the surface was being done, it just wouldn't matter.

In some far stretch of the imaginatio,n is this engineering-ly possible?

And are there any lines where more tracks will completely enhance the frequency and length? I think this is part of regional rail objectives and discussion - but I am speaking more in the realm of God-mode ideas!

* If this wasn't God Mode, then the demand wouldn't be there, the costs and construction sound wacky, and there are so much other complications...

* I am not an expert on how 2 tracks exactly alleviates, but from what I've read on here it's a major part of a lot of solutions.
 
AndrewOnTheMBTA said:
are there any other lines where double-tracking would open up more frequencies or even extensions?
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The only big one that I can think of apart from OC through Dorchester/Quincy would the Haverhill Line through Malden, but even that one isn't that bad, with EMUs the only infrastructure improvements needed for 15 minute service would be a bit of quad-tracking between Wellington and Malden Center on the existing alignment (no widening needed), and potentially the conversion of the 3rd OL track between Sullivan and Wellington and moving the 2->1 merge closer to Oak Grove.

Waltham is another very minor one, that could be solved by just moving the station west of Moody St and plowing a second track through the current inbound platform.
AndrewOnTheMBTA said:
* I am not an expert on how 2 tracks exactly alleviates, but from what I've read on here it's a major part of a lot of solutions.
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On a single track railway, minimum headways between trains are (generally) limited to double (plus wiggle room) how long it takes a train to travel the longest single track segment. So if you have a section of single track that's 5 miles long with an average speed of 30 MPH, that line cannot support headways lower than 20 minutes, more like 25. On double tracked lines however, you're limited by things like how closely you can space trains and how long it takes to turn trains around at the terminals/how much space the terminals have.
 
jbray said:
The problem here is that the ROW is destroyed at least south of the city center. If that was no object, my ideal would be to follow the 1945 plan, moving WM and Wedgemere off of regional rail, making Winchester Center a transfer station, head up into Woburn stopping at Cross Street, Woburn Highlands, and Woburn Center. I would actually want to go further, like you. Going north on the row and getting over to Anderson/Woburn as a terminus along with an Orange line terminus would make that a real regional and local node for connectivity. Portland, ME, at least Nashua, NH, Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill, local connections to Reading and beyond as well as Woburn and beyond. That's endgame transit. Anything beyond that isn't going to be Boston-facing but rather connections into the Boston-facing network (bus redesigns, streetcar, bike lanes). I took West Medford off because there's already two node connections and having three is way too much for current density.
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And don't forget the potential to build out some form of transit connectivity for all the jobs and potential large multifamily sites along 128 in Woburn, Burlington and maybe northern Lexington.
 
Let's draw some lines on some maps.

Let's assume that Boston has five "downtowns": Downtown/Financial District, Back Bay, Longwood Medical Area, Kendall, and the Seaport. (This is a somewhat arbitrary assumption, I grant.)

Let's further assume that there are five "BERY-style" bus transfer hubs, each located very roughly 2 miles away from the center of Downtown, at which commuters transfer from their local bus route to an express rapid transit OSR directly to Downtown: Nubian/Ruggles, Kenmore, Harvard, Sullivan, and Maverick.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it: create transit paths that provide an OSR from each bus transfer hub to each of the five downtowns. (List to fill in copied in spoiler box below.)

Some additional notes:
  • Lines may curve and bend, within reason; making every path a dog leg would not be in the spirit of the challenge
  • Lines can run in parallel between downtown nodes
  • Lines may branch on the outside of the 2 mile circle, but may not branch within the circle; if you need to branch, you must build a second trunk in parallel
    • (4 track subways would be okay though)
  • The definitions of each downtown area are up for interpretation, within reason
  • Paths can serve the transfer hubs without actually serving the tranfer hub directly if you are able to intersect all bus routes feeding in to that hub at a reasonably close distance
    • For example, you could serve the Maverick hub using dual transfers at Airport station and (say) Meridian & Bennington
  • "Nubian/Ruggles" is nebulously defined for any number of reasons, so make of that what you will
Nubian/Ruggles to:
  • Downtown:
  • Back Bay:
  • Longwood:
  • Kendall:
  • Seaport:
Kenmore to:
  • Downtown:
  • Back Bay:
  • Longwood:
  • Kendall:
  • Seaport:
Harvard to:
  • Downtown:
  • Back Bay:
  • Longwood:
  • Kendall:
  • Seaport:
Sullivan to:
  • Downtown:
  • Back Bay:
  • Longwood:
  • Kendall:
  • Seaport:
Maverick to:
  • Downtown:
  • Back Bay:
  • Longwood:
  • Kendall:
  • Seaport:
 
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