If You Were God/Goddess | Transit & Infrastructure Sandbox

ritchiew said:
I'm not sure what this part of the plan means. You mean reopening the abandoned train tunnel in Providence? Is this something that's been proposed before?
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The NEC FUTURE commission proposed it about 8 years ago in one of their acid fever dreams of a bypass-filled NEC. It didn't make the first cut in scoping because the time savings weren't enormous.
 
This will probably be one of the most low-quality maps I'll ever post. As you can see, I was literally just drawing straight line segments.

Its main goal is solely to showcase ideas, as I combined and consolidated several exchanges on this board, as well as other ideas that I'd been thinking of for a while.

Disclaimer: This is not a full system map. Some other extensions that I'm considering were not drawn.

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The Brown Line (Braintree-Everett) is HRT, and all other lines are LRT that use Green Line rolling stock.

Here are the key components.

Recent ideas that had been mentioned on this forum:
Now, here are some new themes (which may have been discussed by others elsewhere):
  1. The "Kenmore model"applied to Nubian-Warren St and Chelsea
    • The "Kenmore model" means grade-separated "Metro-Lite" LRT to a main transfer hub, from which multiple streetcar branches diverge
    • TL;DR: Nubian is probably the most suitable for replicating the Kenmore model, followed somewhat distantly by Chelsea
    • Coincidentally, this is exactly the two terminals paired up in my "spoiler"
    • (Alternatively, you can have the "Pink Line" be HRT from Grove Hall to Revere Broadway / Northgate / Linden Sq)
  2. The cross-Charlestown Urban Ring (Sullivan - Charlestown - East Boston Sq - Airport BL - Airport Terminals)
    • Expensive, sure, but I believe this is the only way for an Urban Ring to do what everyone feels it should do (as opposed to Sullivan-Chelsea-Airport)
  3. The Sullivan-Union-Harvard Urban Ring, with new tunneling limited between Union Sq and Harvard
    • Even though I've never been convinced about its value proposition, it's only a 1-mile tunnel from Union Sq to Harvard
    • Uses GLX Union Sq branch and the East Somerville alignment east of Union Sq
    • Closing off the ring is nice, but not crucial
    • The alternative alignment via Central is shown, because I'm wondering if I've been underestimating Central
  4. The Seaport Wye
    • Primarily to allow all 3 patterns:
      • Airport - Seaport (- South Station - Back Bay): The most attractive airport subway ever?
      • Southie - Seaport (- South Station): OSR from Southie to downtown
      • Southie - Airport: The "proper" Urban Ring (although I haven't been convinced about its value)
    • I'm debating whether to put the wye near WTC or Design Center
      • Design Center is the hot topic recently, for sure, and it has good TOD potential
      • But it's still somewhat underwhelming today, and I'm not sure if height restrictions are at play that limit future developments
      • It allows for a better Southie station, though
  5. The Parkway Line: Revere Beach Pkwy - Mystic Valley Pkwy - Alewife Brook Pkwy
    • Intended as an El over all the Parkways
    • Beachmont is chosen over Wonderland, primarily for its TOD potential
    • A surprisingly decent way to serve Revere: 7-min walk to Revere Center
      • Perhaps even a "cheap" Chelsea radial line can do Route 1 - RBP - Wonderland/Beachmont?
  6. Using the Saugus Branch for a Malden-Everett-Chelsea Crosstown
    • Somewhat like converting the 104 bus to rail
    • Dedicated ROW, and frade separation seems feasible; but less ideal in serving Everett

Aside: Urban Ring headways, capacity needs, and demand

Making a continuous Urban Ring was not my actual intention, just a byproduct. That's the reason for various interlines, which limit capacity. In fact, I'd expect the circular "Cyan Line" to be limited to 16 TPH.

However, this gave me a chance to think more thoroughly about demand at each quadrant of the Urban Ring:
For this part, I'm using "32 TPH" loosely as "maximum capacity". That could mean 4 bullets for Green Line-like LRT, or 3-min headways for HRT (ala Red Line Transformation). Likewise, "16 TPH" means a line that can get by with "half capacity", or more generally, a line that doesn't require squeezing all available capacity out of it.

Keep in mind, "16 TPH" is still very usable for connections that are less popular (not anybody's lifeline) but still valuable. That's every 3.75 min for LRT, or every 6 min for HRT.

Now, my best guesses at where "32 TPH" is needed:
  • LMA - Ruggles - Nubian
    • LMA-Ruggles would be the primary means for OL South and Northeast Corridor riders to LMA
    • While Ruggles-Nubian is debatable in itself, LMA-Nubian will likely draw high demand from Roxbury/Dorchester riders, which will be merged with LMA-Ruggles. If an "extra 16 TPH" from the north needs to terminate somewhere, doing it at Nubian sounds better than Ruggles.
  • Cambridge - LMA
    • Can be split with 16 TPH to Harvard and 16 TPH to Kendall
    • However, it's possible that Kendall-LMA may warrant 32 TPH if there are really so many Allston/Brighton/Brookline residents working in Kendall; likewise for Harvard to a smaller degree (?)
  • Sullivan - Kendall
    • Urban Ring has insane advantage here -- any halfway reasonable alignment brings huge time savings compared to a Park/DTX transfer
    • I'd guess the demand for Harvard from the north is lower (unlike Harvard-Allston)
I argue that everything else is fine with "16 TPH": nowhere near useless, just not with insane demand. In particular:
  • Old Colony - LMA
    • Decent distance advantage over a South Station transfer
    • I'm not sure if demand from RL South and Old Colony lines is sufficient
    • If you can somehow force Fairmount Line riders to take this route, that would change the calculus a lot; but I'd expect them to continue to prefer Nubian, due to bus connections
  • Nubian - Old Colony - Seaport
    • I've never been truly convinced about its need: Does Seaport have that strong of a draw?
    • Also not the most geographically advantageous: Radial lines here already point NE-SW, so a route via South Station / Bay Village is almost as short
    • Seaport's demand in this quadrant probably stops at Nubian: anyone from Ruggles is better off
  • Airport (BL & Terminals) - Seaport - Old Colony - Nubian
    • For Airport cross-harbor service, I continue to prefer sending them to BBY-South Station-Courthouse, rather than Nubian-Old Colony-Southie
    • Factors against Nubian-Seaport above are still at play here: geography (ease of transfer near South Station) & influence stopping at Nubian
    • In addition, depending on where the Seaport station is, the ring would probably miss out where most action is at
  • Airport - Sullivan
    • Heavily depends on alignment
    • Going via Charlestown truly lives up Urban Ring's expectations, but even then, I don't think either Sullivan or Airport have insanely strong draws
    • Going via Everett-Chelsea makes it a radial wannabe
  • Sullivan - Harvard
    • Mentioned above; it might even be that most demand comes from intra-Camberville
    • Note that a Harvard-Sullivan-Charlestown-Airport line would bring Airport's influence all the way to Harvard; but even then, I don't think Airport is such a strong node
The 32 TPH segments had direct influences on this map. In particular:
  • The strongest segment, Nubian-LMA-Cambridge, is served by overlapping Cyan and Lime lines (16 TPH each)
  • Sullivan-Kendall is the only one not satisfied by the "ring system" alone -- but conveniently, our Kendall-BBY subway fills the gap
    • This also helps with Allston/Brighton/Brookline - Kendall, to some extent
  • The cross-harbor tunnel -- where quad-tracking is virtually impossible -- is split between the downtown/BBY oriented Magenta and the more "picture perfect" Cyan ring
  • Everything else is fine with 16 TPH (Cyan alone), mostly for filling new connections
With all that said... If we do want the full "32 TPH" on everything, or "64 TPH" for Cambridge-LMA-Nubian, there's always the $$ option to build two ROWs through LMA.
 
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No one has touched this thread in almost a year?! Fixing that:

There's been a bunch of discussion here lately about Compass Rail and East-West Rail. It's all fixing up existing infrastructure, which is obviously the right thing to do.

But I have been thinking about what it would look like if we were willing to build new main lines dedicated to high(er) speed passenger rail. They would serve same Compass Rail cities, but take shortcuts and skip the many, many speed-limiting curves Has anyone else considered this? What are the big new lines you'd build? What are the small, cost-effective shortcuts? What's your criteria for what's best? Serves most people? Cost? Time savings? Least destruction?

I'll throw out one half-thought through example. the Boston to Springfield segment will be the busiest part (in Massachusetts), and so speed-ups there will help the most people. And Route 9 between Wellesley and Worcester is really remarkably straight. The proposal then is a new route that branches off the Worcester Line where it intersects Route 9 between Wellesley Farms and Wellesley Hills Stations. It would go west, running under Route 9 until probably the Natick Mall. There it would rise up to a viaduct that runs all the way to Worcester. It would rejoin the Worcester Line in Worcester near Shrewsbury Street. This would be 26 miles of new track, which is about 4 miles shorter than the existing track from Worcester to Wellesley. It would also allow much higher speeds. There are curves, but lots of them can be made wider by taking bits of parking lot and undeveloped land. I wish I had better tools for measuring this, but I think if you used something like the tilting Acelas, it could run 130mph for basically the whole route, and go the max of 160mph for a lot of it. The big caveat there is all the curves around Framingham, which.... I don't really know. How to best get through there depends if you want keep Framingham as a stop, which maybe not. Either way, I have no elegant solution to get around Framingham and the Foss Reservoir. For the whole thing, there are sections where the viaduct could run in the median (plus take out one lane), and long stretches where the viaduct could just run on the north or south side of Route 9 and not hit anything but a bit of parking lot.

Pros: Assuming other track upgrades the rest of the way into South Station, then Boston to Worcester in maybe 30 minutes. It would save time for Inland Route and East-West trains. And it would be maybe the least destructive high(er) speed rail lines to build in eastern Mass. It would take a lot of parking lot space, but buildings to be demolished would be in the dozens, not hundreds.

Cons: Tens of billions of dollars. Taking a lane from Route 9 in a lot of places. And I don't really know how loud it is to live near a HSR viaduct. I know there have been lots of improvements in construction and design to mitigate the noise, but I really don't know how good it gets.

Anyways, that just an example of what I've been thinking about. Criticize it. Improve it. But also, what other routes would be best, anywhere in Compass Rail? What abandoned ROWs are out there that I'm forgetting about?
 
ritchiew said:
No one has touched this thread in almost a year?! Fixing that:

There's been a bunch of discussion here lately about Compass Rail and East-West Rail. It's all fixing up existing infrastructure, which is obviously the right thing to do.

But I have been thinking about what it would look like if we were willing to build new main lines dedicated to high(er) speed passenger rail. They would serve same Compass Rail cities, but take shortcuts and skip the many, many speed-limiting curves Has anyone else considered this? What are the big new lines you'd build? What are the small, cost-effective shortcuts? What's your criteria for what's best? Serves most people? Cost? Time savings? Least destruction?

I'll throw out one half-thought through example. the Boston to Springfield segment will be the busiest part (in Massachusetts), and so speed-ups there will help the most people. And Route 9 between Wellesley and Worcester is really remarkably straight. The proposal then is a new route that branches off the Worcester Line where it intersects Route 9 between Wellesley Farms and Wellesley Hills Stations. It would go west, running under Route 9 until probably the Natick Mall. There it would rise up to a viaduct that runs all the way to Worcester. It would rejoin the Worcester Line in Worcester near Shrewsbury Street. This would be 26 miles of new track, which is about 4 miles shorter than the existing track from Worcester to Wellesley. It would also allow much higher speeds. There are curves, but lots of them can be made wider by taking bits of parking lot and undeveloped land. I wish I had better tools for measuring this, but I think if you used something like the tilting Acelas, it could run 130mph for basically the whole route, and go the max of 160mph for a lot of it. The big caveat there is all the curves around Framingham, which.... I don't really know. How to best get through there depends if you want keep Framingham as a stop, which maybe not. Either way, I have no elegant solution to get around Framingham and the Foss Reservoir. For the whole thing, there are sections where the viaduct could run in the median (plus take out one lane), and long stretches where the viaduct could just run on the north or south side of Route 9 and not hit anything but a bit of parking lot.

Pros: Assuming other track upgrades the rest of the way into South Station, then Boston to Worcester in maybe 30 minutes. It would save time for Inland Route and East-West trains. And it would be maybe the least destructive high(er) speed rail lines to build in eastern Mass. It would take a lot of parking lot space, but buildings to be demolished would be in the dozens, not hundreds.

Cons: Tens of billions of dollars. Taking a lane from Route 9 in a lot of places. And I don't really know how loud it is to live near a HSR viaduct. I know there have been lots of improvements in construction and design to mitigate the noise, but I really don't know how good it gets.

Anyways, that just an example of what I've been thinking about. Criticize it. Improve it. But also, what other routes would be best, anywhere in Compass Rail? What abandoned ROWs are out there that I'm forgetting about?
Click to expand...
NEC FUTURE's Tier 1 Draft EIS, Alternatives D14 and D15, considered new HSR alignments through Worcester. Most of the MetroWest alignment went along the Sudbury Acqueduct ROW, and D14 did I-84 and the Mass Pike to Sudbury Acqueduct. They didn't live long in scoping because Worcester < Providence in ridership (and D15 even skipped New Haven for much smaller cities) and the cost (political and capital) of land acquisition to straighten the alignment was completely LOL-worthy.

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Charlie_mta said:
Amtrak already has the Vermonter line running up through Greenfield MA from Springfield. Why doesn't the map show that as an "Existing Connecting Rail Corridor"?
Click to expand...
The DEIS was published before the Vermonter's 2014 official line relocation from the Central Vermont Line to the Conn River Line (although the move was well under construction by then, so they should've marked it anyway).

It was not a well-researched report. Wild crayoning guesses all around with thin demographic sourcing for destination pairs, and every time they came up against a geological blocker or built-up community blocker they just went MOAR TUNNEL! to complete and total absurdity. Most of the FRA's study product on this came out during the Obama Admin's lame-duck period 2014-2016, and it was a very odd foray by that agency from its purely regulatory bread-and-butter to wistful empire-building so it ultimately was a lot of consultants cashing checks for absolute garbage, afterthought deliverables under little (or completely out-of-their-element) top-down oversight. It's largely been consigned to the dustbin of history there's so little in it to plausibly build further upon with follow-up study.
 
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