MBTA Commuter Rail (Operations, Keolis, & Short Term)

Cause for optimism?

www.bostonglobe.com

As MBTA’s subway struggles, commuter rail gains riders: ‘It’s way more consistent and faster’ - The Boston Globe

As the subway network has been dogged by cuts, anemic ridership, and an array of safety incidents, the commuter rail has emerged as something of a bright spot in the MBTA’s portfolio.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

".......Chris Friend, a member of the board of directors for TransitMatters, a transportation advocacy organization, said in an e-mail that the commuter rail is now offering more trips than it did before the pandemic and that’s brought more riders onto its trains.

A third of the lines are offering more weekday trips than they did before the pandemic and another three lines offer the same level of service, according to TransitMatters data.

On the Fairmount Line, which runs exclusively in Boston, the number of weekday trips has nearly doubled since the pandemic began, TransitMatters’ figures show. Last month, its ridership reached a new all-time record, exceeding its pre-pandemic figures by 30 percent, according to the T and Keolis......" (bolds mine)
 
I'd say that's bad news if people are turning to Fairmount because they are unhappy with Red/Orange right now.
 
jklo said:
I'd say that's bad news if people are turning to Fairmount because they are unhappy with Red/Orange right now.
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I bet most of the Fairmount Line riders’ 2nd choice of transit is buses, not the Red/Orange Line. I’d also bet that most of the ridership increase in the Fairmount Line is due to Fairmount Line improvements to headways than due to Red/Orange Line slow zones. Also, the Orange Line slow zones are mostly rectified on this side of the line. The Red Line is a different story, of course.
 
jklo said:
I'd say that's bad news if people are turning to Fairmount because they are unhappy with Red/Orange right now.
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Not sure I agree with that take. People might well be better served by Farimount than they are by even well functioning Red/Orange options. Much of the problem with Fairmount is that people aren't accustomed to using it, so many who might do well to make that choice have not done so previously. Now that they are taking it, perhaps they find it preferable and will continue to do so, even when the slow zones are gone.

As a reminder, the natural ridership catchment for Fairmount is people who have to take a bus first, if they want the Orange or Red Lines.
 
Something that should have been done last year: Lynn is getting a temporary Commuter Rail station built. It looks very barebones, but that's fine for a temporary station and still looks more of a station than many currently in service. It'd be located by the municipal lot, just east of the existing station.

Construction apparently starts *next month* through April 2024, allegedly for a March (?) Opening. ~6 months from announcement to opening is something I never would have expected from the MBTA, even if a Google suggests it's been quietly worked on for about a year to firm up the access and leases. Either way... This could have been done much sooner and better, but I'm glad something is being done now, so long as this interim solution doesn't last a decade. Hopefully this is just the first sign of a more engaged leadership at the T.

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https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/HD4555

Rep. Dylan Fernandes (an up-and-commer, plus the Islands' rep) and the two state reps who cover Sagamore, Sandwich, Barnstable and Hyannis are trying to raise the issue of launching commuter service to the Cape. Some key bits:

MBTA, shall conduct a feasibility study, hereinafter referred to as the study, relative to establishing year-round, daily rail service between the towns of Falmouth, Bourne, Barnstable, Yarmouth and Sandwich and the city of Boston via the Cape Cod line, Hyannis Branch line and the Woods Hole Branch line.
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The study shall determine the feasibility, benefits, opportunities and costs of assuming ownership of the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge from the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The study shall also determine the feasibility, benefits, opportunities and costs of replacing the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge with a stationary bridge.
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Not later than 12 months after the effective date of this act, the MBTA shall begin commuter passenger train service between Buzzards Bay station and South station via the Cape Cod line. Train service shall occur year-round and, insofar as is feasible as determined by the MBTA, schedules shall be aligned with the commuting patterns of the service areas. The MBTA shall operate not less than 3 AM Peak trips and 3 PM Peak trips on this route each weekday.
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We'll see if it even gets assigned to a committee, and whether it gets consigned "to study" as so many good ideas do when they don't please leadership or key folks in the state bureaucracy, but at least someone's talking about it in a place that matters.
 
Aprehensive_Words said:
https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/HD4555

Rep. Dylan Fernandes (an up-and-commer, plus the Islands' rep) and the two state reps who cover Sagamore, Sandwich, Barnstable and Hyannis are trying to raise the issue of launching commuter service to the Cape. Some key bits:







We'll see if it even gets assigned to a committee, and whether it gets consigned "to study" as so many good ideas do when they don't please leadership or key folks in the state bureaucracy, but at least someone's talking about it in a place that matters.
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I don't see how they can possibly mount this until some serious double-tracking of the Dorchester-Quincy mainline happens. All of the Middleboro Line slots are getting siphoned to South Coast Rail Phase I, and there are no other slots to be had because of the mainline pinch. It would perhaps be more useful to mount this as a rider to funding that double-tracking "megaproject"...or at least some easier kickstarter projects within the "megaproject" like a doubling-up of the JFK and Quincy platforms so you can at least pry a little something like a few Cape commuter extras loose. But unless there's some other dominoes to fall on those action items, this unfortunately looks like a show vote and not something that's going to result in anything substantive.

It's a start, but the sponsors need to take their aim on the right project sequence for this to have a chance of happening.


Taking immediate ownership of the bridge, however, is something that should DEFINITELY be fast-tracked in the Legislature. Because that can have an immediate impact on Cape Flyer, which sought an extra slot for this year's season and got cockblocked by the Army Corps. Maybe break that one out into its own bill.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
I don't see how they can possibly mount this until some serious double-tracking of the Dorchester-Quincy mainline happens. All of the Middleboro Line slots are getting siphoned to South Coast Rail Phase I, and there are no other slots to be had because of the mainline pinch.
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The plans from a couple of years ago focus mostly or entirely on running trains just to Middleborough, so this doesn't require sending more trains through the bottleneck. Passengers from the Cape would just transfer to already-scheduled SCR trains.

I read somewhere that the new Middleborough Station under construction was designed with those cross-platform transfers in mind. But I can't remember where, so, citation needed.
 
ritchiew said:
The plans from a couple of years ago focus mostly or entirely on running trains just to Middleborough, so this doesn't require sending more trains through the bottleneck. Passengers from the Cape would just transfer to already-scheduled SCR trains.

I read somewhere that the new Middleborough Station under construction was designed with those cross-platform transfers in mind. But I can't remember where, so, citation needed.
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There's no transfer capability at the new South Coast Rail M'boro station. The platform is far out on the wye track to the Middleboro Secondary. They'd have to build a completely separate platform on the opposite end of the parking lot, and it would be a very less-than-ideal 800 ft. walk across the parking lot. Given that the frequencies are capped at current levels, and the transfer penalty is somewhat significant...that doesn't have a very good chance at all of working. It really needs to be a one-seat. The 2007 Buzzards Bay CR feasibility study that extended all M'boro trains to BB pretty much got it right. But then Baker shoved the crippled SCR Phase I down everyone's throat and created a big mess that'll cost billions to get out from under.
 
Stlin said:
Something that should have been done last year: Lynn is getting a temporary Commuter Rail station built. It looks very barebones, but that's fine for a temporary station and still looks more of a station than many currently in service. It'd be located by the municipal lot, just east of the existing station.

Construction apparently starts *next month* through April 2024, allegedly for a March (?) Opening. ~6 months from announcement to opening is something I never would have expected from the MBTA, even if a Google suggests it's been quietly worked on for about a year to firm up the access and leases. Either way... This could have been done much sooner and better, but I'm glad something is being done now, so long as this interim solution doesn't last a decade. Hopefully this is just the first sign of a more engaged leadership at the T.

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I try not to swear too much on here, but on this topic I’ll just say: fucking finally.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
There's no transfer capability at the new South Coast Rail M'boro station. The platform is far out on the wye track to the Middleboro Secondary. They'd have to build a completely separate platform on the opposite end of the parking lot, and it would be a very less-than-ideal 800 ft. walk across the parking lot.
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In the 2021 plan the layout looks like this (p 12), which seems fine:
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F-Line to Dudley said:
The 2007 Buzzards Bay CR feasibility study that extended all M'boro trains to BB pretty much got it right.
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Oooh, I didn't know about that one. Some fun beach reading this weekend :)
 
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ritchiew said:
In the 2021 plan the layout looks like this (p 12), which seems fine:
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That layout is incompatible with having any Cape Flyer presence (or any future Boston-Cape presence) there because the shuttle platform isn't on the mainline, it's on the other wye leg. Boston-Cape runs still have to use current Middleboro/Lakeville station to have any presence in the town, and have coordinated shuttle buses between the two sites. It's still a completely crippled setup that severely inhibits utilization, and can't be treated as a serious proposal.

ritchiew said:
Oooh, I didn't know about that one. Some fun beach reading this weekend :)
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Linky here: https://archive.org/details/buzzards-bay-commuter-rail-extension-feasibility-study.
 
It's too bad the new station in Middleborough is located at Pilgrim Junction instead of downtown at Station Street. I vaguely remember the downtown site being considered but rejected during the planning process, but I don't remember why. (parking concerns?)
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
That layout is incompatible with having any Cape Flyer presence (or any future Boston-Cape presence) there because the shuttle platform isn't on the mainline, it's on the other wye leg. Boston-Cape runs still have to use current Middleboro/Lakeville station to have any presence in the town, and have coordinated shuttle buses between the two sites. It's still a completely crippled setup that severely inhibits utilization, and can't be treated as a serious proposal.


Linky here: https://archive.org/details/buzzards-bay-commuter-rail-extension-feasibility-study.
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On second thought, I guess I don't understand. What's the problem here?

They're already building the new M'boro station in the wye for SCR, and they're still keeping the old station just for the Cape Flyer. And I think they're planning on running busses between them to use all the extra parking. That's not a great system, but that's what they're doing. So what new problems are caused by adding a shuttle from the cape to the new M'boro station?

The vast majority of people going any direction are just passing through M'boro. People on the Flyer would ride right through. People on the shuttle would get a timed, cross-platform transfer to SCR trains in the wye. Transfers from the Flyer to anything else seems rare, and there are other stations people could do it at. I'm struggling to think of which passengers would be inconvenienced.
 
There is no shuttle bus service planned between the new Middleborough and existing Middleborough/Lakeville stations.

And I understand that while room is reserved for a possible Buzzards Bay/Cape platform at the new Middleborough station (in the area of the "400' Platform" depicted above), it is not currently being built for SCR phase 1.
 
OldColony said:
There is no shuttle bus service planned between the new Middleborough and existing Middleborough/Lakeville stations.
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My bad.

But even without a bus between the two stations, the proposed train shuttle between M'boro and the cape seems totally fine. It doesn't seem to create new problems, and I can't come up with a passenger for whom this is a bad solution.
 
I suspect House bill HD4555 is an attempt by State Reps. Fernandes, Diggs and Xiarhos to dull the effort by Bourne bike path proponents to abandon the remaining Woods Hole branch to North Falmouth and Joint Base Cape Cod, while jump-starting plans for commuter rail service to Buzzards Bay. Hence the scatter shot nature of the bill.

To their credit, they push the Buzzards Bay commuter rail extension first, by setting a deadline of one year for implementation. I expect this service would be a shuttle between Buzzard Bay and a Cape platform at the new Middleborough station, as discussed in the Cape Cod Commission's 2021 Cape Rail Study. Hardly a "totally fine" solution, but it's the best Wareham and Bourne residents can expect until the Dorchester-Quincy Old Colony main bottleneck is fixed.

It will be interesting to see how Mattapoisett State Rep. William Straus, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation, handles this bill. As I posted here, seven years ago, he presented a dog and pony show in Buzzards Bay village and Wareham Town Hall to advocate for SCR phase 1, claiming it would help Wareham and Bourne's effort to restore commuter rail service to the canal. To the (likely naive) credit of Wareham and Bourne officials, they in turn provided their support for SCR phase 1. I think he's a gaslighter; I hope I'm proven wrong, and he helps promote the intent of the bill in some form.
 
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