Missing HSR Corridor Designations

[Commuting Boston Student]

Ditto all of this.

Once you're down the Cape, there's just no good way to get around without a car. That's not gonna change. There's lots of nice little town centers, but the train wouldn't go to most of them. The type of people who go to the Cape wouldn't be the type to transfer to a bus from a train. And since it's ripe for high-speed ferry service, and ferrys are quite cheap to operate, why bother with a train?

A high speed ferry gets you to Boston, MAYBE Newport, and the South Coast. That's about it. Trains - even slow trains - get you to Providence, T.F. Green, New York and New London (read: Casino), plus a host of other places.

I appreciate your argument. It's the same argument that you could make against Kingston Station, which isn't even walkable to its main attraction - URI is 2 miles away and the horrendously poorly-drawn out 66 & 64 bus schedules don't even come close to lining up with arriving Regionals, nor does the 66 bring you anywhere other than URI that is both walkable and not reachable by the train you just got off (its other endpoint is Kennedy Plaza in Providence).

Yet, Kingston station sees a comparatively stunning level of ridership and those ridership numbers keep going up.

The takeaway is that not every train station has to be in the epicenter of a walkable urban community or failure is guaranteed. "The type of people" who would ride the train ANYWHERE are the type of people I consider the most likely to transfer to some other form of mass transit, even a shitty bus. And the train station doesn't have to be the punctuation mark on an end of decades of work building a comprehensive local transit network, either. It can, in fact, be the start of the conversation.

The Cape wants this train, if F-Line is to be believed, and the Cape has the population to be worth connecting to. I see no reason not to go forward if and when we can.

(PS: It doesn't HAVE to be buses. It could be streetcars, Cambridge-style trackless trolley, or even something exotic like a local 'fast ferry' from P-Town to Hyannisport or Woods Hole via the rest of the Cape's waterfront.)

 

[massmotorist]

A high speed ferry gets you to Boston, MAYBE Newport, and the South Coast. That's about it. Trains - even slow trains - get you to Providence, T.F. Green, New York and New London (read: Casino), plus a host of other places.

I appreciate your argument. It's the same argument that you could make against Kingston Station, which isn't even walkable to its main attraction - URI is 2 miles away and the horrendously poorly-drawn out 66 & 64 bus schedules don't even come close to lining up with arriving Regionals, nor does the 66 bring you anywhere other than URI that is both walkable and not reachable by the train you just got off (its other endpoint is Kennedy Plaza in Providence).

Yet, Kingston station sees a comparatively stunning level of ridership and those ridership numbers keep going up.

The takeaway is that not every train station has to be in the epicenter of a walkable urban community or failure is guaranteed. "The type of people" who would ride the train ANYWHERE are the type of people I consider the most likely to transfer to some other form of mass transit, even a shitty bus. And the train station doesn't have to be the punctuation mark on an end of decades of work building a comprehensive local transit network, either. It can, in fact, be the start of the conversation.

The Cape wants this train, if F-Line is to be believed, and the Cape has the population to be worth connecting to. I see no reason not to go forward if and when we can.

(PS: It doesn't HAVE to be buses. It could be streetcars, Cambridge-style trackless trolley, or even something exotic like a local 'fast ferry' from P-Town to Hyannisport or Woods Hole via the rest of the Cape's waterfront.)

I wasn't making an anti-train argument, just an anti-train-to-the-Cape one.

If the idea is to get people to take the train to vacation there, I think that's unrealistic. If the idea is to lure Boston commuters or if there's demand for a train for other reasons, that deserves study.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Southeastern Region MPO 2012 Transportation Plan: http://www.srpedd.org/transportation/2012-documents/TPLANFINAL/chapter-10.pdf

Per their 2007 study of a Buzzards Bay extension of the Middleboro Line: 2750 daily boardings at BB by 2020, capital cost of $82M-$104M for the build, $2-$6M annual operating cost depending on size of the schedule. Build cost is dependent on whether they add 1 or 2 Wareham stations (downtown and/or West Wareham near 495/195). Buzzards Bay of course is already there with up-to-spec ADA mini-highs. They could either upgrade to full-high or leave as-is.

Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority is undertaking an on-Cape commuter rail study right now. Not sure how long till it publishes. They've got a seasonal passenger rail survey on their website right now.


Boardings on the MPO study sound a little overly optimistic...those are Providence Line-like levels if it's Buzzards Bay alone, and that certainly doesn't wash with the schedule. But I'm not sure if that wasn't taking into account Buzzards Bay + 2 Wareham intermediate stops. That's much more in line with how the Middleboro Line intermediate stop boardings are currently distributed (500-800 per), with the BB terminus being pegged at a modest increase over current Middleboro ridership. Say, matching Kingston's 1200 daily boardings vs. the 900 at M'boro today. That jibes with the state's 2003 PMT estimates (http://www.bostonmpo.org/bostonmpo/pmt-old/PMT-4.pdf) of 1300 boardings for the extension with *only* a BB stop. If that's truly how the numbers distribute between terminus and intermediate stops, then we're looking at quite good bang-for-buck for doing that BB extension.


The 2003 PMT (http://www.bostonmpo.org/bostonmpo/pmt-old/PMT-6.pdf) pegs the additional past-BB extension to Hyannis at +1800 per day and +1000 all-new transit riders on top of the BB numbers. That's not backed by a full-on study, though, so we'll know more after the CCRTA study publishes. If those numbers are real, all those past-BB running miles to Hyannis still draw more ridership than the incredible shrinking Fall River and New Bedford branches.

Yeah...not sure we want to be thinking Hyannis too-too early. Buzzards Bay is a solidly-grounded first step. No need to be thinking of state-run Hyannis service in a monolith. Not when Cape Cod Central RR and the feeder buses are leverageable to route-prime it. But there's your daily South Coast FAIL sanity check. Any way you slice it, Cape is a better bet than sinking one graft-tainted penny into Taunton-south.


Interim proposal is sitting on the table for Cape Cod Central RR to connect at Middleboro coordinated with 6 daily MBCR trains at existing speeds + state-of-good-repair money. T of course hasn't even responded to them for a conversation. Plan B/concurrent interim proposal for better coordination of feeder buses with the Middleboro schedule. T hasn't responded to the MPO for a conversation.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

I wasn't making an anti-train argument, just an anti-train-to-the-Cape one.

If the idea is to get people to take the train to vacation there, I think that's unrealistic. If the idea is to lure Boston commuters or if there's demand for a train for other reasons, that deserves study.

I wasn't accusing you of being anti-train, and in fact the population line was thrown in as an afterthought lest my pro-Cape-rail argument get co-opted or misinterpreted into a defense of pure garbage like Wickford Junction or the other half (two-thirds?) of South Coast.

If anyone is using that train to take a vacation, it's probably Cape Cod residents heading off to vacation somewhere else. I'm not coming at this from the vacation angle, I'm coming at it from the accessibility/commuting angle.

(And frankly, I see the Cape as more of a day-trip/saturday run-down/'come-to-my-place-I'll-pick-you-up' thing anyway. The Cape does not at all strike me as a place you 'vacation' to so much as somewhere you visit for 1-8 hours and then turn around and leave.)

 

[Lrfox]

What about the people inland like along the 195 corridor or south of Boston? A Train is a better option for them

The vast majority of people along the 195 corridor would be served by South Coast Rail which is completely separate from the Cape Cod Rail proposal. Now, there are people here who feel pretty strongly that SCR is a bad idea as well (I'm going to bow out of that argument), but the point is, Cape Rail wouldn't do all that much for the I-195 corridor outside of the town of Wareham.

....put bike lanes on your streets , add sidewalks to all roads.. We did it along the Jersey Shore , as well as added more Rail services and people took full advantage of the bike lanes and sidewalks...

Have you been to Cape Cod? It's already pretty friendly towards bicyclists (link to a good resource of maps and info). More so than many areas I've ever been. There are tons and tons of bike trails and lanes throughout the region. But some of this has come at the expensive of potential rail travelers because old railbeds and ROWs were converted to bike paths. Good luck convincing locals that you're going to reclaim their bike trails to convert them back into rail. So you have the issue of where to put the rail?

Theres no reason the Cape Can't follow suit...

Cape Cod and the Jersey Shore are entirely different animals.

There are a number of reasons the Cape can't follow suit. For starters, The Jersey Shore is within an hour to 2 hour's drive from 2 of the biggest metro areas in the country (NYC and Philadelphia). Whereas Cape Cod is on average an hour and a half from Boston (more or less depending where on the Cape you're going) and Providence. The result is fewer day-trippers and more long weekenders and week long stays. It's easy to get the family on the train for a day trip or even an overnight, but once you start going away for a week, it's hard to do with a family and all of that gear. I can't fathom the average family of four packing all of their bags, bikes and kids onto a train to have to either transfer to a bus, or pedal with all of their gear to their destination. No way.

Then there's the density and layout of it. You mentioned Long Beach. Long beach is a narrow, dense stretch of very highly developed land. There's nothing on Cape Cod that comes remotely close to that. While Cape Cod's population density is technically fairly high, it's spread in a very low-density suburban fashion.

The road layouts in places like Long Beach are in a grid pattern. Many of them are fairly wide and almost all of them (main roads and secondary roads) are through streets. Cape Cod's through roads are few and far between. Furthermore, they're mostly very narrow and windy and would have a very difficult time accommodating bike lanes as there's simply no room for them. Even sidewalks are hard to come by on Cape Cod. You posted a picture of "Ocean Avenue." Nothing on Cape Cod looks like that. Cape Cod's roadways resemble spaghetti thrown on a map. They're narrow, crowded and only a few of them are actual through ways.

Then you're talking about the investment side of it. There are parts of the New Jersey Shore that are struggling mightily. The potential for economic development and revitalization are a major catalyst for rail extension and investment. Cape Cod is a different scenario. It's booming in terms of tourism. Many (most) year-round residents are retirees or involved in the service/hospitality industry. Many will complain that there are too many people visiting the Cape as it is. The demand for economic development and increased tourism on Cape Cod is minimal which is why it's very hard to justify a big rail connection.

Now, if you were to suggest a commuter rial connection to the Sandwich or Falmouth areas (Upper Cape), that would be more reasonable. There is a market for people who want to commute to Boston for work from the parts of the Cape closest to the mainland. But extending it out to Mid or Lower Cape is unrealistic. You simply will not get the tourists taking the train for their week in the Cape.

(And frankly, I see the Cape as more of a day-trip/saturday run-down/'come-to-my-place-I'll-pick-you-up' thing anyway. The Cape does not at all strike me as a place you 'vacation' to so much as somewhere you visit for 1-8 hours and then turn around and leave.)

I don't see this being the case for most visitors which is why the bridges are often chalk-full of cars with MA, CT, NY, and NJ plates with bikes on the back and filled so full of luggage and beach accessories that the kids in the back seat don't even look like they have room to breathe. Cape Cod is a weekend destination for most, and a week long destination for many.

 

[Nexis4jersey]

Southeastern Region MPO 2012 Transportation Plan: http://www.srpedd.org/transportation/2012-documents/TPLANFINAL/chapter-10.pdf

Per their 2007 study of a Buzzards Bay extension of the Middleboro Line: 2750 daily boardings at BB by 2020, capital cost of $82M-$104M for the build, $2-$6M annual operating cost depending on size of the schedule. Build cost is dependent on whether they add 1 or 2 Wareham stations (downtown and/or West Wareham near 495/195). Buzzards Bay of course is already there with up-to-spec ADA mini-highs. They could either upgrade to full-high or leave as-is.

Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority is undertaking an on-Cape commuter rail study right now. Not sure how long till it publishes. They've got a seasonal passenger rail survey on their website right now.


Boardings on the MPO study sound a little overly optimistic...those are Providence Line-like levels if it's Buzzards Bay alone, and that certainly doesn't wash with the schedule. But I'm not sure if that wasn't taking into account Buzzards Bay + 2 Wareham intermediate stops. That's much more in line with how the Middleboro Line intermediate stop boardings are currently distributed (500-800 per), with the BB terminus being pegged at a modest increase over current Middleboro ridership. Say, matching Kingston's 1200 daily boardings vs. the 900 at M'boro today. That jibes with the state's 2003 PMT estimates (http://www.bostonmpo.org/bostonmpo/pmt-old/PMT-4.pdf) of 1300 boardings for the extension with *only* a BB stop. If that's truly how the numbers distribute between terminus and intermediate stops, then we're looking at quite good bang-for-buck for doing that BB extension.


The 2003 PMT (http://www.bostonmpo.org/bostonmpo/pmt-old/PMT-6.pdf) pegs the additional past-BB extension to Hyannis at +1800 per day and +1000 all-new transit riders on top of the BB numbers. That's not backed by a full-on study, though, so we'll know more after the CCRTA study publishes. If those numbers are real, all those past-BB running miles to Hyannis still draw more ridership than the incredible shrinking Fall River and New Bedford branches.

Yeah...not sure we want to be thinking Hyannis too-too early. Buzzards Bay is a solidly-grounded first step. No need to be thinking of state-run Hyannis service in a monolith. Not when Cape Cod Central RR and the feeder buses are leverageable to route-prime it. But there's your daily South Coast FAIL sanity check. Any way you slice it, Cape is a better bet than sinking one graft-tainted penny into Taunton-south.


Interim proposal is sitting on the table for Cape Cod Central RR to connect at Middleboro coordinated with 6 daily MBCR trains at existing speeds + state-of-good-repair money. T of course hasn't even responded to them for a conversation. Plan B/concurrent interim proposal for better coordination of feeder buses with the Middleboro schedule. T hasn't responded to the MPO for a conversation.

It should be in phases , Buzzards Bay , then Sandwich , then Hyannis.... But the South Coast Network has higher ridership and bigger economic development returns then the cape ...but both would be good. Southern Mass needs more Rail lines , the population is aging and investment is non existent young people aren't attracting to towns and cities without Rail. You could easily invest at least 5 billion into the towns and cities along the South Coast Network , throw in the 195 Rail and add another 2 billion... Neglected areas of New England ripe for massive developments....there's no excuse not do it , costs can be returned over time with developments and economic growth...

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

It should be in phases , Buzzards Bay , then Sandwich , then Hyannis.... But the South Coast Network has higher ridership and bigger economic development returns then the cape ...but both would be good. Southern Mass needs more Rail lines , the population is aging and investment is non existent young people aren't attracting to towns and cities without Rail. You could easily invest at least 5 billion into the towns and cities along the South Coast Network , throw in the 195 Rail and add another 2 billion... Neglected areas of New England ripe for massive developments....there's no excuse not do it , costs can be returned over time with developments and economic growth...

If I was the MBTA, I could also easily invest 5 billion into creating a brand new ROW from scratch to connect Worcester to Lowell to Haverhill to Rockport. What would that accomplish? Pretty much nothing, certainly nothing worth the price tag, but I could do it.

Can != Should.

See, South Coast Rail isn't so much a 'boondoggle' as it is a cesspit. It's a corrupt bargain born of a deadly combination of two parts false flag activism, three parts NIMBY, two parts misplaced advocacy and one part general failure. It's one of the best arguments I can make for violent sweeping take no prisoners reform of the MBTA, and that's not a good thing.

There is so much potential benefit tied up in South Coast, and it's really a damn shame that I have to sit here and argue against it. I do, though, because until you take a blowtorch to the MBTA's operating charter, tell half the people "affected" by South Coast Rail to piss off, fire the South Coast Cheer Squad and tell Fall River's politicians that negotiations are concluded and you can now choose to buy in on our terms or tell your constituents why everyone else is getting rail and they aren't, South Coast Rail is never going to be a good project. It's never even going to be a mildly bad project - it's going to make the Greenbush Line, Wickford Junction, and every other questionable rail expansion look like a great buy by comparison.

 

[massmotorist]

Why all the opposition to South Coast Rail? I'm not a fan of it either, just wondering why so many here who are normally pro-rail are so opposed.

 

[jass]

Why all the opposition to South Coast Rail? I'm not a fan of it either, just wondering why so many here who are normally pro-rail are so opposed.

Per passenger cost.

Im sure people on the forum would be all for the project....but it should wait in line.

Extend the blue to lynn and kenmore, green to porter and winchester, orange to 128 on both end, finish the silver line etc...

And once all that is done, then southcoast might make sense vs other projects it would be competing with (like rail to cape)

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Why all the opposition to South Coast Rail? I'm not a fan of it either, just wondering why so many here who are normally pro-rail are so opposed.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I like to think I'm not a super dogmatic 'one mode over all' type of person - so, while I am fully pro-rail, I'm not so much so that "pro-rail" trumps "anti-bad project."

In fact, that's more relevant to South Coast FAIL than might be immediately apparent! You see, according to this article I just found here, "Travel times from Fall River to Boston are estimated at 73 minutes by electric train and 83 minutes by diesel train. From New Bedford, estimated run times are at 76 minutes and 85 minutes, respectively." Now, obviously, the trains are going to be diesel. Even if they electrify the entire corridor, the MBTA isn't going to buy special trains for use only on South Coast (and maybe Providence trains that skip any stops not electrified.)

Of course, driving (via car or even an express bus service just to demonstrate demand) is guaranteed to be faster - according to Google Maps, upwards of 20 minutes faster. (Even with the 10 minute time savings on the electric, it's faster.) So, already, people looking at which mode of operation is best for them will discard South Coast Rail. The only people getting on the train to begin with are extremely dogmatic rail-above-all types. How many of those can possibly exist in Fall River or New Bedford? Not many, I'd wager, so the ridership isn't there.

There's lots of other commuter rail extensions we can make where the ridership is there, where the demand is provable right now. One of them is, in fact, Springfield (based on the ridership of buses like Peter Pan to Springfield from Boston.) Those extensions aren't being advocated for. The demand for those projects is being ignored. It's the same for GLX (which is only still going forward because of STEP and some legal obligations the MBTA probably never expected to be held to), Red-Blue Connector (which MassDOT, MassDEP and the MBTA are hard at work trying to put together a kill plan for), and any number of other good projects that would streamline the core of the system, improve service, and bring us a long way towards a better and brighter transit system. We're not going to be getting any of those projects, because of South Coast Rail.

And all of that? That's before you factor in the local climate. I have a sneaking suspicion that the politicians of Fall River don't want the project to begin with, and all their 'concerns' are ways to hold South Coast up indefinitely without having to own up to their opposition (and thereby face the consequences of saying 'We Don't Want Rail'). Raynham and Easton, at least, are far more honest in their NIMBYist objections to rail running through their backyards. New Bedford's been quiet, mostly because I'm sure they understand that everyone else taking the heat means they don't have to speak out, but once Fall River gets paid off you can bet we'll be hearing about the gilded palaces New Bedford wants for their half of the line.

I said the entire affair was a corrupt bargain, and I said that South Coast Rail was one of the best arguments for reforming the MBTA - the kind of reform that means 'the only thing shared between before and after is the name'. I wasn't exaggerating, or being dramatic to make a point.

Contained within South Coast Rail is a microcosm of just about everything that's wrong with the MBTA as we know it.

 

[Matthew]

Why all the opposition to South Coast Rail? I'm not a fan of it either, just wondering why so many here who are normally pro-rail are so opposed.

Being pro-rail and/or pro-transit should mean having some care for the value proposition and feasibility of the line, and South Coast Rail does not have that feasibility or value.

 

[Lrfox]

A few counterpoints:

1) An 86 minute trip is a conservative estimate and still beats the travel time for most South Coast residents to Boston with traffic as a consideration. My parents commute from Freetown to Boston every day for work and give themselves 2 hours. Sometimes even that isn't enough. while there are a boatload of issues with the current proposal/price tag, the proposed commute time doesn't worry me. It's still better than the alternatives for most South Coast commuters. Especially when you factor in the fact that on the CR, you're not driving and you have free wifi. You can actually be productive (or nap). That's why many South Coast residents drive 1/2 hour more to Lakeville and take the train from there.

2) MassDOT is currently looking into DMUs for South Coast Rail (at least for the start of the project) as well as other lines (I think the Fairmont line would be a good candidate). It's a real possiblity on more than one route.

3) There has been consideration given to doing the project in phases starting with Taunton service. While it is "FR/NB" commuter rail, Taunton stands to gain the most. For one, it's closer to Boston (Much closer). Second, it will have twice the number of trains as Fall River and New Bedford (the route splits after Taunton so Taunton gets both trains). I think Taunton will see the highest ridership by far.

4) Fall River and New Bedford completely support the rail project. The problem with Fall River is not that they're opposed to it, it's that they're too dumb to back off their stance on the layover station to realize that they may lose it by grandstanding. Neither city has been quiet. Both have been very actively pursuing the rail project. New Bedford's current (Mitchel) and former (Lang) mayors as well as local reps and other elected officials are constantly battling for South Coast Rail. I'd go so far as to say that they're the primary reason it's not dead in the water yet.

 

[Matthew]

1) So the gist of the article I linked is that the diesel alternative would take 85 minutes and the Rapid Bus alternative 103 minutes, at peak, from New Bedford. Current buses take 75-110 minutes as scheduled. But the peak headway of the train is planned at 40 minutes, and the peak headway of the Rapid Bus at 15 minutes. So, on average the train only saves about 5-10 minutes on the bus, overall. The worst case peak travel time is on the train, at 125 minutes, opposed to 118 minutes for the bus, if you miss it.

Off-peak is atrocious. The planned headway appears to be 130 minutes for the train, and 20 minutes for the bus.

So SCR appears to be $2 billion for 5 minutes saving at peak hours. Does not make sense.

2) The FRA has made use of DMUs basically impossible -- too heavy, the power-weight ratio is awful. The last good FRA-compliant DMU was the Budd RDC. Nobody is making one now (Colorado Railcar is dead). Until the FRA is reformed, this is not an option. Might be able to get a waiver, if they start working on it now. Maybe.

3) The only consideration I've heard about phasing the project is from F-line writing online here. The website instead has grandiose plans for the stations.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

A few counterpoints:

1) An 86 minute trip is a conservative estimate and still beats the travel time for most South Coast residents to Boston with traffic as a consideration. My parents commute from Freetown to Boston every day for work and give themselves 2 hours. Sometimes even that isn't enough. while there are a boatload of issues with the current proposal/price tag, the proposed commute time doesn't worry me. It's still better than the alternatives for most South Coast commuters. Especially when you factor in the fact that on the CR, you're not driving and you have free wifi. You can actually be productive (or nap). That's why many South Coast residents drive 1/2 hour more to Lakeville and take the train from there.

2) MassDOT is currently looking into DMUs for South Coast Rail (at least for the start of the project) as well as other lines (I think the Fairmont line would be a good candidate). It's a real possiblity on more than one route.

3) There has been consideration given to doing the project in phases starting with Taunton service. While it is "FR/NB" commuter rail, Taunton stands to gain the most. For one, it's closer to Boston (Much closer). Second, it will have twice the number of trains as Fall River and New Bedford (the route splits after Taunton so Taunton gets both trains). I think Taunton will see the highest ridership by far.

4) Fall River and New Bedford completely support the rail project. The problem with Fall River is not that they're opposed to it, it's that they're too dumb to back off their stance on the layover station to realize that they may lose it by grandstanding. Neither city has been quiet. Both have been very actively pursuing the rail project. New Bedford's current (Mitchel) and former (Lang) mayors as well as local reps and other elected officials are constantly battling for South Coast Rail. I'd go so far as to say that they're the primary reason it's not dead in the water yet.

Alright, I'll address these points then.

1) I disagree that 86 minutes is that conservative of an estimate since we know how long it takes to make the trip from Stoughton (28~31 minutes assuming zero stops except BBY/BOS, varies depending on number of stops made up to 44 minutes for all stops - average train takes roughly 38 minutes) and we can safely assume that all of the new stations will be stopped at by all trains traveling on the remaining ~40 miles (give or take) of the trip to New Bedford. (Even assuming every train would be cleared for top speed 100% of the time on 100% of the line, that's 26 minutes at 93 mph. More likely, the majority of those trains are going to end up with at least one single level car in the consist, dropping the top speed to 80 mph for a 30 minute trip, and then acceleration penalties and schedule padding is going to add 5 minutes to the total time.)

Assuming 3 minute stops, that's 18 minutes in station dwell time. 31 more minutes just moving to Stoughton, and 28 minutes for the best possible times into South Station, that's 77 minutes - nine minutes better than the given time. With the average train times out of Stoughton, we're up to 87 minutes - one minute worse than the given time.

Of course, these are times into South Station from New Bedford. Assuming potential riders work anywhere other than right there, additional time needs to be factored into the trip. (By the same token, additional time needs to be factored in if you are driving to anywhere that's not South Station. So let's ignore those commuters for now.)

You're also not driving if you're taking an express bus, and we do have the technology to deliver free wifi to express bus riders. (It couldn't possibly be worse than the Commuter Rail's wifi, which I found to be slow and inconsistent when I was using it.)

2) As far as I can tell, the MBCR doesn't operate 'trainsets' so much as they take a locomotive and throw the first X cars available in the yard onto the back with no rhyme or reason, then send it on its way. This is why you can go to South Station and find, more often than not, a train that's any number of bi-levels and one single, and another train that's one bi-level and many singles. I would genuinely expect a DMU car to end up in one or more of those trainsets within a week if we got them and they weren't permanently fused together. What would be surprising is if that didn't happen, frankly.

3) To Taunton is the only useful portion of the project, and probably would have happened already if FR/NB were jettisoned. I don't oppose a Stoughton-Taunton extension. It's the other parts I oppose.

4) New Bedford may well genuinely support the project. I'm willing to believe based on what you've told me that they do. Fall River's behavior, by contrast, reeks of false-flag activism - in particular the demand for two palatial stations and 'concerns' over having the layover yard in their backyard.

 

[Lrfox]

1) So the gist of the article I linked is that the diesel alternative would take 85 minutes and the Rapid Bus alternative 103 minutes, at peak, from New Bedford. Current buses take 75-110 minutes as scheduled. But the peak headway of the train is planned at 40 minutes, and the peak headway of the Rapid Bus at 15 minutes. So, on average the train only saves about 5-10 minutes on the bus, overall. The worst case peak travel time is on the train, at 125 minutes, opposed to 118 minutes for the bus, if you miss it.

Off-peak is atrocious. The planned headway appears to be 130 minutes for the train, and 20 minutes for the bus.

So SCR appears to be $2 billion for 5 minutes saving at peak hours. Does not make sense.

2) The FRA has made use of DMUs basically impossible -- too heavy, the power-weight ratio is awful. The last good FRA-compliant DMU was the Budd RDC. Nobody is making one now (Colorado Railcar is dead). Until the FRA is reformed, this is not an option. Might be able to get a waiver, if they start working on it now. Maybe.

3) The only consideration I've heard about phasing the project is from F-line writing online here. The website instead has grandiose plans for the stations.

At the end of the day, you're right. The commute times are an issue given the budget. The BRT alternative should be tossed out the window in my opinion. It's not as expensive, but it's a bigger waste of money since it's providing a service that already exists. I'd imagine cost overruns are a major inevitability as there's really no precedent for that type of project in MA. I'd rather see nothing than a BRT connection.

I also wouldn't put any stock in proposed headways. The project is so far from actually being completed, you'll see proposed headways change 2 or 3 times before trains start rolling. I agree though, that the proposed off-peak times are absurd.

 

[massmotorist]

1) So the gist of the article I linked is that the diesel alternative would take 85 minutes and the Rapid Bus alternative 103 minutes, at peak, from New Bedford. Current buses take 75-110 minutes as scheduled. But the peak headway of the train is planned at 40 minutes, and the peak headway of the Rapid Bus at 15 minutes. So, on average the train only saves about 5-10 minutes on the bus, overall. The worst case peak travel time is on the train, at 125 minutes, opposed to 118 minutes for the bus, if you miss it.

Off-peak is atrocious. The planned headway appears to be 130 minutes for the train, and 20 minutes for the bus.

So SCR appears to be $2 billion for 5 minutes saving at peak hours. Does not make sense.

2) The FRA has made use of DMUs basically impossible -- too heavy, the power-weight ratio is awful. The last good FRA-compliant DMU was the Budd RDC. Nobody is making one now (Colorado Railcar is dead). Until the FRA is reformed, this is not an option. Might be able to get a waiver, if they start working on it now. Maybe.

3) The only consideration I've heard about phasing the project is from F-line writing online here. The website instead has grandiose plans for the stations.

I don't disagree with your conclusions (South Coast Rail = bad), but the headway thing is absolute nonsense. It assumes people don't know how to look at a train schedule, which is silly.

It would be like saying if a plane from Boston to Atlanta only leaves four times a day, and the trip time is two hours, you have to factor in the assumption that people will show up at the airport at random times rather than at their scheduled departure time, so a trip to Atlanta actually on average actually takes 5 hours rather than 2, and could take as much as 8 hours.

 

[Matthew]

I don't disagree with your conclusions (South Coast Rail = bad), but the headway thing is absolute nonsense. It assumes people don't know how to look at a train schedule, which is silly.

It would be like saying if a plane from Boston to Atlanta only leaves four times a day, and the trip time is two hours, you have to factor in the assumption that people will show up at the airport at random times rather than at their scheduled departure time, so a trip to Atlanta actually on average actually takes 5 hours rather than 2, and could take as much as 8 hours.

You're right that people will treat a service differently when it runs every 40 to 130 minutes, instead of when it runs every 15 to 20 minutes. The former requires you to schedule your life around it, the latter is at the cusp of show-up-and-go transit. The latter is far preferable in general.

And that's just part of it. Even if you haven't left your house, it doesn't mean you aren't "travelling" yet. If you're sitting around waiting until 15 minutes before the next scheduled departure to head to the station, that's time that should essentially factored into the trip. The reason is that if you were driving, you'd already be on your way. And when people are making the decision to drive vs commuter rail, those long headways are a big problem.

Same goes for infrequent plane trips. I had to deal with this when going to Austin; there's only one non-stop per day. I couldn't schedule around it going out, so it may as well have been worst-case travel time. Coming back, I opted to spend an extra half-day in Austin to take the non-stop back. Sure, I got to see some extra stuff there, but I also ended up waiting a bunch more.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

1) So the gist of the article I linked is that the diesel alternative would take 85 minutes and the Rapid Bus alternative 103 minutes, at peak, from New Bedford. Current buses take 75-110 minutes as scheduled. But the peak headway of the train is planned at 40 minutes, and the peak headway of the Rapid Bus at 15 minutes. So, on average the train only saves about 5-10 minutes on the bus, overall. The worst case peak travel time is on the train, at 125 minutes, opposed to 118 minutes for the bus, if you miss it.

Off-peak is atrocious. The planned headway appears to be 130 minutes for the train, and 20 minutes for the bus.

So SCR appears to be $2 billion for 5 minutes saving at peak hours. Does not make sense.

2) The FRA has made use of DMUs basically impossible -- too heavy, the power-weight ratio is awful. The last good FRA-compliant DMU was the Budd RDC. Nobody is making one now (Colorado Railcar is dead). Until the FRA is reformed, this is not an option. Might be able to get a waiver, if they start working on it now. Maybe.

3) The only consideration I've heard about phasing the project is from F-line writing online here. The website instead has grandiose plans for the stations.

Correct. They aren't phasing it. Because phasing it would mean, by laws of physics, that FR/NB has to take the back seat while Stoughton-Taunton gets built. Which is the only way it could actually get funded. That, of course, defeats all the fun of rank political graft to a swing-vote region. This has about as much to do with providing real service as the service cuts and fare enforcement have to do with finances: none. It's all about political agendas and lining pockets with favors. Nobody--pol or consultant chewing up study money--is going to be in office or in their current jobs when it comes time to do actionable progress. So it's all snouts-in-trough, and somebody else's problem when the next study adjustment spikes the costs again and reduces the revenue and service projections.

...and then on to the next generation of pols and Task Force hangers-on. We're in our second decade and second or third generation of SCR hangers-on in power. Why change behavior that's proved to be a dynamite career-builder? It's only another $100M in sunk-cost thumb twiddling.


I don't think it's a bad idea on spec, but this has gone so beyond full-retard that the only way to fumigate the insider ball that's bloating it beyond recognition is to outright kill it, shelve it for 10 years, and get back to the drawing board with a tight and self-restrained mission statement. Sort of like Nashua and the Cape are pushing thrift, public-private partnerships, and series of baby steps to a full-blown goal for their respective commuter rail advocacies. This can't continue like this. It's Big Dig syndrome and the very worst tendencies of provincial Masshole politics at a time when we've got to bust the exhausted returns of that kind of behavior.

 

[Lrfox]

Alright, I'll address these points then.

1) I disagree that 86 minutes is that conservative of an estimate since we know how long it takes to make the trip from Stoughton (28~31 minutes assuming zero stops except BBY/BOS, varies depending on number of stops made up to 44 minutes for all stops - average train takes roughly 38 minutes) and we can safely assume that all of the new stations will be stopped at by all trains traveling on the remaining ~40 miles (give or take) of the trip to New Bedford. (Even assuming every train would be cleared for top speed 100% of the time on 100% of the line, that's 26 minutes at 93 mph. More likely, the majority of those trains are going to end up with at least one single level car in the consist, dropping the top speed to 80 mph for a 30 minute trip, and then acceleration penalties and schedule padding is going to add 5 minutes to the total time.) Assuming 3 minute stops, that's 18 minutes in station dwell time. 31 more minutes just moving to Stoughton, and 28 minutes for the best possible times into South Station, that's 77 minutes - nine minutes better than the given time. With the average train times out of Stoughton, we're up to 87 minutes - one minute worse than the given time.

So according to your calculations, the commute times would be on par with the estimates which, again, aren't much of a deterrent considering the hassle of other methods of commuting to Boston from the South Coast. Having grown up in the Fall River area, I'd kill for an 80 minute commute to Boston during rush hour. People already drive almost 40 minutes from Fall River to get to Middleborough to sit on a train for 65 minutes to South Station. There would be many more willing to do it if they could walk/drive 5 minutes to the station.

Should a FR/NB commuter rail project have shorter commute times? Absolutely. But for anyone on the South Coast, the estimates are not a deterrent.

Of course, these are times into South Station from New Bedford. Assuming potential riders work anywhere other than right there, additional time needs to be factored into the trip. (By the same token, additional time needs to be factored in if you are driving to anywhere that's not South Station. So let's ignore those commuters for now.)

Not sure how this is relevant. It pertains to any commuter using any method of transportation. Not everyone is going to South Station. Current bus riders have to get to the bus station and get from South Station to wherever they work. Drivers have to sit in traffic on the highway and surface roads to get to the garage nearest to work. This logic applies to everyone.

You're also not driving if you're taking an express bus, and we do have the technology to deliver free wifi to express bus riders. (It couldn't possibly be worse than the Commuter Rail's wifi, which I found to be slow and inconsistent when I was using it.)

Speculation about Wifi quality aside, buses (even the "express" bus) are subject to the same traffic as motorists. They're also not nearly as comfortable to ride on as a train, nor do they have the capacity a train does.

2) As far as I can tell, the MBCR doesn't operate 'trainsets' so much as they take a locomotive and throw the first X cars available in the yard onto the back with no rhyme or reason, then send it on its way. This is why you can go to South Station and find, more often than not, a train that's any number of bi-levels and one single, and another train that's one bi-level and many singles. I would genuinely expect a DMU car to end up in one or more of those trainsets within a week if we got them and they weren't permanently fused together. What would be surprising is if that didn't happen, frankly.

Seeing as many of the DMUs would be stored in local layover stations specific to each line (the layover station is hot button in Fall River right now), I highly doubt they'd be mixed into a train set like that.

3) To Taunton is the only useful portion of the project, and probably would have happened already if FR/NB were jettisoned. I don't oppose a Stoughton-Taunton extension. It's the other parts I oppose.

I completely support rail connection to Fall River and New Bedford. I think it's something that needs to happen. I don't believe that the solution should be a $2 billion project that spans decades. I also don't believe that Taunton should miss out on service on account of Fall River and New Bedford holdups. It's part of the reason why I believe the project should be phased. Taunton could at least get service while we continue to quibble about FR/NB.

4) New Bedford may well genuinely support the project. I'm willing to believe based on what you've told me that they do. Fall River's behavior, by contrast, reeks of false-flag activism - in particular the demand for two palatial stations and 'concerns' over having the layover yard in their backyard.

You're entitled to your opinion and I don't expect you to take the word of some random guy on the internet, but Fall River absolutely supports South Coast Rail. Citizens of both FR and NB are almost apathetic regarding meetings and news updates because they have been promised rail for 3+ decades with nothing to show for it. But leaders in Fall River are behind South Coast Rail 100%. Politics are divisive, but in Fall River (and NB), there is almost unanimous support for the project.

Regarding the stations- the project specifies that all communities with stops are getting platforms. That is all the project will be committing. However, the SCR project has worked with each community to develop station "plans." There are great renderings of what Fall River's station and New Bedford's station (and even Freetown's) will look like, but apart from the platform itself, the South Coast Rail project doesn't and has never included "palatial" stations. Fall River is down to a single station anyway (Davol St.). The Battleship stop is off the drawing board and the Freetown station essentially serves as a second Fall River station (it's right on the line).

And with that, I'm bowing out of the debate. I've done my best to avoid SCR debates and managed to slide right into this one. Feel free to pick this apart as you please.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

If we're to have South Coast Rail, I believe it needs to happen - it can ONLY happen - in one of the following ways.

The Phased Roll-Out: Yes, I know buses aren't the best thing in the world. I don't like riding the bus. Even so, this isn't a zero-to-100 thing. Someone's going to have to get on a bus - a whole lot of someones, actually. Stoughton extension to Taunton as a max-pain, highly accelerated build out. Get it built in 20 months, not 20 years. Extend every Stoughton train to Taunton, add four new inbounds and three new outbounds (one each way express). Don't screw around with electrification, DMUs or any sort of 'South Coast exclusive' equipment, but DO start running express buses from Fall River and New Bedford to downtown... via Taunton Station, so that people can transfer to a train. Let that service go for ten, five, or even three years - then push the three branches of South Coast with five new round trip trains dedicated just to them - the Fall River branch, the New Bedford branch, and the Hyannis branch.

As an Intercity Hanger-on: Amtrak, or RIDOT, or someone else decides they want to restore rail to Newport or the Cape. The good news is, no matter how you slice it (via East Providence-Seekonk-Swansea-Braga Bridge is the best option), rail to Newport's got to go through Fall River. Even better, the best option for rail to the cape is through Taunton. If Fall River really wants that rail connection, there should be no problem filling in a station stop. If they don't want the rail connection... trains expressing through their town might get them to change their tune.

There's just no other way to get this done in a way that benefits everyone.

Anyway, you've stepped out of the debate, so I won't pursue this anymore.