North Station, Charles River Draw, & Tower A

stefal said:
The contract built in 32 months of design, following the bid in November/December 2019 (and that's fast-tracked). Construction to be completed by 2026.
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Thanks for the background. It still seems odd to me that a project of this magnitude wouldn't get a project page on the MBTA site. Also, necessary as a 32-month design duration may be, it's odd that there wouldn't be at least some public-facing design documentation now that we're almost 2 years in (though I hope some may be forthcoming). In fairness, I can imagine that this project uniquely has fewer external and community stakeholders compared to most MBTA projects, so maybe that's why it's so quiet. But how hard is it to post a website with a timeline, etc?

Full disclosure: part of why I inquired is that I am a bit paranoid that the Baker admin would look to kill a project like this given the pandemic's/remote work's impact on commuter rail ridership, and I profoundly hope that's not the case. Moreover, as the TransitMatters folks so aptly point out, it's time to stop thinking of this rail network as being all about commuting. It's a fundamental 21st century infrastructure project, pure & simple. I get that it likely wouldn't be killed outright, given the need to replace the existing draws for maintenance/sustainment reasons, but I was worried about a delay due to re-scoping/de-scoping/cost-cutting. I hope I am being overly paranoid and that we'll soon get 6 tracks into North Station to carry our rail network forward.
 
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<Pulls pin, drops explosive statement>
In my world, the right answer is "Since we're building the NSRL, they're reconsidering this bridge replacement proposal because all the trains will be entering North of the Charles and going through the 4 lane tunnel to South Station without parking at North Station. No crossing needed."
<walks away>
 
BeyondRevenue said:
<Pulls pin, drops explosive statement>
In my world, the right answer is "Since we're building the NSRL, they're reconsidering this bridge replacement proposal because all the trains will be entering North of the Charles and going through the 4 lane tunnel to South Station without parking at North Station. No crossing needed."
<walks away>
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From your lips to God's ears.........
 
BeyondRevenue said:
<Pulls pin, drops explosive statement>
In my world, the right answer is "Since we're building the NSRL, they're reconsidering this bridge replacement proposal because all the trains will be entering North of the Charles and going through the 4 lane tunnel to South Station without parking at North Station. No crossing needed."
<walks away>
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So, since NSRL alternatives (at least the ones I've seen) still include/need to include a North Station pull-off/parking component, why on earth would we want to cancel an already-funded/commissioned project that's 2-years underway? Not to mention, even if NSRL got fully authorized tomorrow, it's a 15-20 year project at best. So, again, we should cancel this already-funded/underway (and NSRL-supportive) project....why?

I think your explosive statement was just an irrational eff-you to politicians you don't like (which is totally fine, I'm just calling it what it is).
 
BeyondRevenue said:
In my world, the right answer is "Since we're building the NSRL, they're reconsidering this bridge replacement proposal because all the trains will be entering North of the Charles and going through the 4 lane tunnel to South Station without parking at North Station. No crossing needed."
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bigpicture7 said:
So, since NSRL alternatives (at least the ones I've seen) still include/need to include a North Station pull-off/parking component, why on earth would we want to cancel an already-funded/commissioned project that's 2-years underway? Not to mention, even if NSRL got fully authorized tomorrow, it's a 15-20 year project at best. So, again, we should cancel this already-funded/underway (and NSRL-supportive) project....why?
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The recurring twin fallacies that NSRL will both eliminate the surface terminals and somehow obviate any need to expand them (particularly South Station) in and for the at-minimum 15-20 (and likely more) years until the NSRL would be built and fully operational are annoyingly persistent and detrimental to the discourse about what we actually need in terms of infrastructure (particularly the zero-sum sniping between NSRL and SSX advocates).

Expressions of frustration at the far-from-ideal nature of transportation planning in these parts and the politicians whose indifference perpetuates that are all well and good, but this is a real-world discussion, and unfortunately we have to live with the less-than-ideal circumstances we're stuck with and need to work to change rather than just wishing it so. (It'd be nice if that worked, but, regrettably, it doesn't, at least outside the God Mode thread.)
 
Brattle Loop said:
The recurring twin fallacies that NSRL will both eliminate the surface terminals and somehow obviate any need to expand them (particularly South Station) in and for the at-minimum 15-20 (and likely more) years until the NSRL would be built and fully operational are annoyingly persistent and detrimental to the discourse about what we actually need in terms of infrastructure (particularly the zero-sum sniping between NSRL and SSX advocates).

Expressions of frustration at the far-from-ideal nature of transportation planning in these parts and the politicians whose indifference perpetuates that are all well and good, but this is a real-world discussion, and unfortunately we have to live with the less-than-ideal circumstances we're stuck with and need to work to change rather than just wishing it so. (It'd be nice if that worked, but, regrettably, it doesn't, at least outside the God Mode thread.)
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You know I don't go for wonk on wonk violence. It's ruining our communities.

I'm just frustrated. I'm sure your bridges will be very nice and I hope they show up soon.
<sigh>
I'm going to my room.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
You know I don't go for wonk on wonk violence. It's ruining our communities.

I'm just frustrated. I'm sure your bridges will be very nice and I hope they show up soon.
<sigh>
I'm going to my room.
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NSRL WOULD obviate the need for 6 tracks to NS. 2 would be more than enough
 
And shame on us for just accepting a 20 yr minimum for a gov project.
 
There is likely substantive economies of scale, if one is going to replace the bridges anyway (due to age), to building in more than 2 track capacity.
And no matter how miraculously speedy and efficient NSRL is, it's not happening soon. The present bridges are a hundred years old. I don't get why this is even controversial.
 
Tallguy said:
NSRL WOULD obviate the need for 6 tracks to NS. 2 would be more than enough
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Even if NSRL was happening anytime soon, it wouldn't make sense to limit North Station surface to a 2 track bridge just because of the NSRL.

Considering the NSRL when it comes to this bridge replacement seems irrational.
 
It doesn't make sense to spend 100s of millions of dollars on obsolescent drawbridges
 
Tallguy said:
It doesn't make sense to spend 100s of millions of dollars on obsolescent drawbridges
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They're not "obsolescent" in any way, even if the NSRL was happening anytime in the foreseeable future (it's not) there is still going to be loads of trains going to and from North Station surface.

How do you expect trains to reach North Station without these bridges if NSRL is still at least 15-20 years away?
 
Tallguy said:
It doesn't make sense to spend 100s of millions of dollars on obsolescent drawbridges
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If we're not going to allow ourselves to invest in any "obsolete" technology, we'd basically have to shut down the entire MBTA effectively tomorrow.

For instance (sarcasm): boy am I glad they shut down the entire Green Line for 20 years waiting for the Type 10s, rather than to spend millions refurbing the Type 7s to get us there.
 
themissinglink said:
They're not "obsolescent" in any way, even if the NSRL was happening anytime in the foreseeable future (it's not) there is still going to be loads of trains going to and from North Station surface.

How do you expect trains to reach North Station without these bridges if NSRL is still at least 15-20 years away?
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Even in a max built RR world. 4 tracks should more than handle 23 tph I would argue two could. How few of those would use NSRL?
And the Big Dig took 16 yrs, and NSRL is nowhere near as complex as that.
 
Tallguy said:
Even in a max built RR world. 4 tracks should more than handle 23 tph I would argue two could. How few of those would use NSRL?
And the Big Dig took 16 yrs, and NSRL is nowhere near as complex as that.
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NSRL has no funding, no commitments, no timeline... I would be very, very surprised to see it happen within the next 15 years. A hypothetical rail tunnel isn't a good justification for maintaining the current track configuration at North Station. Any increase in capacity should be encouraged.

Besides, do you seriously think that bunching all of the tracks at North Station into a 2-track bridge is a good idea? You really want to see a capacity reduction at North Station?
 
Tallguy said:
And the Big Dig took 16 yrs, and NSRL is nowhere near as complex as that.
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The Big Dig took something like 15-16 years of construction with another near-decade's worth of planning and politicking to get funding before construction started, and that was before Congress devolved completely into the partisan viper pit that it is now. (Raise your hands if you think a Republican Congress or administration wouldn't try and starve/kill a Massachusetts-centric project out of spite if they got the chance.)

We have, right now, another year and a bit of the Baker administration, which has clearly demonstrated a virulent aversion to doing anything to advance the NSRL (see the NSRL thread's eviscerations of the blatantly-sandbagged NSRL studies). By the time that we even have the chance of a state administration that favors the NSRL, there's a very real (and quite likely) prospect that Republicans will have taken control of Congress, or at least enough of it to make the snowball have a better chance of surviving hell than the NSRL getting through the much-worse hell that is Capitol Hill. It could easily be ten years before there's even the opportunity to get the money, at which point even if the state did a bunch of prep work in planning you'd still be talking about at least the best part of the decade to get anything done, and that's optimistic. Easily could be worse than that, and that best-case version has the NSRL at least twenty-odd years out. It could easily be twice that, if it's ever even built at all (look at when what's now the GLX was first proposed for an idea of how bloody long it can take even the fairly-obvious projects to come to fruition here)

The degree of uncertainty makes it completely irresponsible (even more than usual) to make design decisions about current projects based on future projects that are completely ephemeral at the present time. It will be annoying if we build bridges with sufficient capacity and redundancy to serve current and future-expansion North Station capacity demands and then subsequently don't need all of that capacity if and when NSRL comes online, especially if it's sooner than expected, and the same is true for South Station Expansion. On the other hand, if NSRL remains in purgatory for another forty years and the surface terminals choke on unnecessary capacity constraints, that directly harms the existing system for no reason other than God Mode thread perfectionism.

We don't get to make today's decisions based on what we wish tomorrow's going to look like, the best we can do is base them on what we expect tomorrow is going to look like. The NS bridges need replacing well before any reasonable chance of the NSRL impacting the system if it gets built at all, so we have to deal with the bridges and can't condition how we do that on an NSRL that cannot reasonably be promised to be there when NS would need it to be. That's, unfortunately, the cynical reality of it. I don't like it, I don't accept that it has to stay that way forever, but I also know it's not likely to change overnight and that we do have to live with.
 
Again, four separate arguments
I. That IF THE POLITICAL WILL WAS THERE, NSRL shouldn't take 15-20 yrs
2. IN A NSRL WORLD, NS would be a barely used sideshow. MAYBE 2-3 tph
3. That, with efficient operations, a four track bridge is more than adequate WITHOUT NSRL
4. tThat we will spend nearly enough to pay for NSRL on these bridges and SS upgrades.
 
And to think: I started this thread bump concerned about the basic aliveness and well-being of the commuter rail.

Funny how two people can truly want the same thing (NSRL) and yet live in such different realities.
 
bigpicture7 said:
And to think: I started this thread bump concerned about the basic aliveness and well-being of the commuter rail.

Funny how two people can truly want the same thing (NSRL) and yet live in such different realities.
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Reality sucks, man! I'm want to stay in my bubble! Keep your sharp edges away!

I think the one thing we can all agree on is sluggish or inactive government agencies are making us miserable, and their forced inefficiencies/fiscal starvation make for ugly forum fodder.
 
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