Reasonable Transit Pitches

A "Sunnel" makes sense because of the arrow-straight LIRR Main Line: a potential HSR route. Still think that's less likely than simple upgrades to the existing line, but it does have some intriguing possibility.

I still don't understand why you are so down on connections through ALB. So what if you have to go under 80 mph through the Berkshires? If NY State builds HSR from ALB-MTL and ALB-BUF, do you really think a section of slow speeds is going to deter connections through ALB from BOS?
 
Matthew said:
A "Sunnel" makes sense because of the arrow-straight LIRR Main Line: a potential HSR route. Still think that's less likely than simple upgrades to the existing line, but it does have some intriguing possibility.

I still don't understand why you are so down on connections through ALB. So what if you have to go under 80 mph through the Berkshires? If NY State builds HSR from ALB-MTL and ALB-BUF, do you really think a section of slow speeds is going to deter connections through ALB from BOS?
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BOS-MTL by rail is probably best done (as far as Mass and its $ are concerned) by BOS-WOR-SPG-CollegeTowns-Vermont, and enduring only a slow stretch WOR-SPG, but having reached SPG, not grinding one's way over the Berkshires to Albany. Same goes if you're going south: please go via New Haven, not Albany.

The Berkshires might as well be the Long Island Sound, and many natural rail routes run along the divide rather than cross it.

But if you're going to cross one, cross the Sound. It has 6m people on the NE side and 20m on the L.I.NY-NJ-PHL side, all very accessible by rail. Build a Sunnel and none of those 26m people will ever fly intra-region again.

Cross the Berkshires? Its far. It'll never be fast, and there's, at best, 5m people easily accessed by rail on the other side. So probably 4x the people and 20x the travel dollars want a faster way from Westerly RI to the East River than want to cross the Berkshires.
 
I never said it would be fast. But if you want to talk about markets ... NYP-MTL is a much bigger one. And if Boston can piggyback on that line, for the time being, by enduring a slow section (which already exists) through the mountains, why wouldn't you do that?

Someday, I would love to see BOS-MTL direct by HSR. Someday I would also love to see BOS-NY direct by HSR. But we make do pretty well for now, even enduring the slow section in western CT.

High speed trains do not have to spend their entire running time solely on HSR tracks. BOS-ALB is passenger service that already exists, and with a few incremental upgrades, can easily be used to hook into whatever NY state does. That's a lot different from a BOS-MTL corridor which -- while ideal -- does not exist.
 
Matthew said:
I never said it would be fast. But if you want to talk about markets ... NYP-MTL is a much bigger one. And if Boston can piggyback on that line, for the time being, by enduring a slow section (which already exists) through the mountains, why wouldn't you do that?
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Montreal has 1.6m metro pop. NYP-MTL can go via either ALB (today) or SPG (if Vermont trains are extended). Mass and VT can/should/will invest to make the BOS-SPG-VT-MTL route work.

You say, "cross the Berkshires and I'll give you a connection at ALB to MTL?"

I say "cross the Sunnel and I'll give you 10x to 20x the people along the same hours of journey (as my train goes down the NEC)" and "turn north at SPG if you want to get to MTL from BOS"
 
Except that the "Sunnel" does not exist. And passenger service across the Berkshires does exist, and is in use today. In fact, the Lake Shore Limited is probably about to traverse it right at this moment, since it departs Boston at noon.

Am I being totally clear? I am not proposing a new right-of-way across the Berkshires. I am proposing that we use existing tracks, in the existing right-of-way, as a compromise connection until something better can be built, like the Vermont route.
 
You guys weren't talking about slow upgrades to existing track a few pages back though, you were talking about blasting an arrow straight and level HSR route through the berkshires. Sure it would be nice, but that money will always be better spent elsewhere.

Upgrading the B&A to reasonable speeds and double track is fine, and should be done. Anything beyond that is a waste of money.
 
Matthew said:
BOS-ALB is passenger service that already exists, and with a few incremental upgrades, can easily be used to hook into whatever NY state does. That's a lot different from a BOS-MTL corridor which -- while ideal -- does not exist.
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BOS-ALB by rail does not exist in any commercial sense. A 5:40 minute trip by rail, vs 3:40 by bus. Double the speed, halve the trip time and congrats, you just spent $1b to duplicate a bus route that we get today "for free". (the Lake Shore LImited has revenues of $35m/yr vs costs of $70m/year...it would be better killed and replaced by bonding authoritiy to spend $300m someplace else)
 
davem said:
You guys weren't talking about slow upgrades to existing track a few pages back though, you were talking about blasting an arrow straight and level HSR route through the berkshires. Sure it would be nice, but that money will always be better spent elsewhere.

Upgrading the B&A to reasonable speeds and double track is fine, and should be done.
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Here's what I said (I don't speak for CBS):

I don't know what will ultimately be possible in the Berkshires, but incremental upgrades will be the way. So what if that means many years of slower running in the mountains?
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I don't expect it any time soon, and it may not ever reach true HSR speeds through the Berkshires, but it will probably be corridor #2 some day. NYS is planning on making ALB a key junction in their state's HSR network, so if that ever comes to fruition then MA will be very motivated to get something through to there.
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Eventually it will be part of ALB-BOS, which can be ramped up over time as conditions improve. I know out west it's much rougher but I don't have any better ideas and it's a key intercity corridor. My understanding is that ALB-BOS will be our second HSR corridor in the distant future.
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Maybe I wasn't quite clear on that last one, but I don't hold the view that a HSR corridor has to be HSR all the way, every last foot. You do what you can, and you make use of existing infrastructure where appropriate. Much like was was done in France and Germany.
 
Matthew said:
Here's what I said (I don't speak for CBS):

Maybe I wasn't quite clear on that last one, but I don't hold the view that a HSR corridor has to be HSR all the way, every last foot. You do what you can, and you make use of existing infrastructure where appropriate. Much like was was done in France and Germany.
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Yeah, I misunderstood you.


The thing is, when all is said and done and you have true HSR running BOS-NYP and NYP-ALB as well as BOS-ALB as upgraded as it can be over the current route, it might STILL be faster to run everything down to NY and back up again.
 
Arlington said:
BOS-ALB by rail does not exist in any commercial sense. A 5:40 minute trip by rail, vs 3:40 by bus. Double the speed, halve the trip time and congrats, you just spent $1b to duplicate a bus route that we get today "for free"
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Some of that is because of Amtrak's insane padding due to its inability to keep within hours of any kind of schedule. But a lot of that is because WOR-BOS sucks, and so does SPG-WOR. Both of those routes are going to see upgrades in the future regardless of what happens in ALB.

It will be vastly cheaper to do some double tracking and track upgrades in the mountains, even if that doesn't boost speeds much, than to build a whole new right-of-way in Vermont or under the LI Sound.
 
Matthew said:
Maybe I wasn't quite clear on that last one, but I don't hold the view that a HSR corridor has to be HSR all the way, every last foot. You do what you can, and you make use of existing infrastructure where appropriate. Much like was was done in France and Germany.
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I totally get you. HSR can have gaps, and works great as a trunk line (the NEC) with feeders (like Amtrak Virginia).

But so far, all the feeders that actually work (in Virginia, or as the Pennsylvanian, or to Vermont, or indeed "beyond" the LGVs in France) still tend to be easy runs over flat territories.

It is noteworthy, for example, that Amtrak Virginia is all flat routes and very profitable, but that there is no business case for an Amtrak West Virginia. ( Too slow, too expensive, not enough people).

Your HSR's moderate-speed tendrils need to follow bottomland and valleys, not cross the mountains.

Plenty of good "flatland" routes (like NYP-Harrisburg PA today or BOS-SPG of the future), as good as they are, just fail when they confront the mountains. Ergo, no Harrisburg-Pittsburg and ergo no Springfield-Albany (but great turnpikes over the mountains).
 
Arlington said:
Montreal has 1.6m metro pop. NYP-MTL can go via either ALB (today) or SPG (if Vermont trains are extended). Mass and VT can/should/will invest to make the BOS-SPG-VT-MTL route work.

You say, "cross the Berkshires and I'll give you a connection at ALB to MTL?"

I say "cross the Sunnel and I'll give you 10x to 20x the people along the same hours of journey (as my train goes down the NEC)" and "turn north at SPG if you want to get to MTL from BOS"
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Mass and VT won't invest in HSR along that route, because absolutely no federal support is coming for it ahead of the route that NYC wants to build.

The "Knowledge Corridor" is never going to be HSR for the same reasons that Chicago is never going to get separate HSR routes to Detroit and Toledo. It's an awful lot of replicated infrastructure for not much gain. MTL can't support three separate HSR routes and one of its two routes has to be the Quebec-Windsor Corridor.

So we're left with a situation where either MA and VT need to make an extremely compelling argument for why NY needs to divert its North-South trunkline to hit SPG and a bunch of small-time college towns in central CT and western MA (most of which are at distances where going to 220 is of negligible value versus going to 110), or we need to settle for 110 and not having HSR to Montreal.

Or, we can grind through the Berkshires. Even if we can't blast an arrow-straight line through them, we can carve through the worst mountains and fix the worst curves and the steepest grades (not all at once), electrify it, get us up to 135 MPH (probably only 90 on trainsets that don't have the benefit of very high tilt) and have something good enough to run HSR on through here. It doesn't have to be 220; 220 is aiming for the moon with the goal of landing somewhere in the stars.

ALB-MTL then becomes a trunk line, with half its service running to BOS over the Berkshires and the other half running straight south to NYC. That doesn't run mutually exclusive with the 110 MPH Knowledge Corridor, or any other corridor - in fact, there's absolutely no chance this thing gets done before BOS-NYP has been up and running for 15 years and it probably doesn't get done until we've already had to work through our issues with running through mountains in order to serve PHL-PGH or any number of the other corridors (hello, mid-west region!) facing this same type of challenge but with volumes of people far greater than the Berkshires will ever have.

We're going to have to solve this problem anyway. Might as well apply the solution to as many places as we can find for it.
 
Boston to Springfield should be a HSR route. It provides a great inland route to NYC, allows for transfers to an extended vermonter to montreal, and is a great economic boon for MA (IMHO). Hopefully this gets done, and then you can boost frequency and ridership. Only then does doing anything to the Berkshires make sense. There isn't big BOS-ALB ridership and it would get destroyed by bus if there were. It is striking that Megabus hasn't launched a Bos-ALB direct given the straight Pike shot.
 
There won't be a big draw for BOS-ALB until New York builds a HSR network which will indubitably center around Albany (because Albany). That's still several decades away, most likely.
 
Re HSR Albany-Buffalo:

State study eyes high-speed rail proposals for New York

By Chris Carola
Associated Press
Published: 10:25 AM - 02/17/14
Last updated: 10:26 AM - 02/17/14
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York transportation officials are setting up public hearings to discuss options for an idea that has been kicked around for years but has yet to leave the station: high-speed passenger rail service.

Boosting the speeds of trains traveling Amtrak's Empire Corridor between New York City and Niagara Falls has been the goal of industry leaders, elected officials and transit advocates for two decades. Progress may be coming down the line now that the state Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration have scheduled hearings next month in six upstate cities along the 463-mile corridor.

New York was required to conduct the environmental review to be eligible for any new federal funding for high-speed rail, according to DOT spokesman Beau Duffy.

"It has taken longer than anyone had wanted, but we're happy this draft is out and the hearings are scheduled," said Bruce Becker of East Amherst, president of the Empire State Passengers Association, a passenger rail advocacy group.

The public meetings will be held between March 4 and March 14, starting in Albany and followed by Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester, Utica and Poughkeepsie. The public will have the opportunity to view displays and question experts about the plans.

The environmental review analyzes the five most viable higher-speed options for trains with top operating speeds of 79, 90, 110 and 125 mph. The current top speed allowed west of Schenectady is 79 mph, although the study said the current average speed for Amtrak trains traveling between Buffalo and Albany barely tops 50 mph. Trains traveling between Albany and Manhattan can go as fast as 110 mph along some stretches.

The costs of the plans range from $1.7 billion to $6.2 billion, with the most expensive calling for construction of a third track dedicated to passenger trains traveling the 273 miles between Schenectady and the Amtrak station in Depew, just east of Buffalo. That plan, favored by Beck's group, would also add a fourth passenger track over a combined distance of nearly 40 miles in five separate locations.

Once the state selects its option, the FRA must sign off on the plan, which isn't expected to happen for an additional six months to a year, Duffy said.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140217/NEWS/140219751
 
This is a proposal for when Assembly Station opens.

They may do this anyways, but I propose for the MBTA to alter the 90 and 92 bus routes.

Cut the 90 bus back to Sullivan, as the Sullivan to Wellington stretch would be less useful:

90 Bus Route Map

Cut the 92 bus back to Sullivan as the Sullivan to Assembly stretch (which is used on midday and early afternoon rush runs only) would be less useful:

92 Bus Route Map

This would allow for shorter headways by cutting the 90 trip time down from 27 to 15 minutes, and the 92 trip time from 25 minutes to 15 minutes.

By assigning the same fleet to cover these routes:
  • The 90 would have:
    • 22-28 minute (currently 40-50 minute) morning headways
    • 39 minute (currently 70 minute) midday headways
    • 22-31 (currently 40-55 minute) minute afternoon/evening headways
  • The 92 would have:
    • 18-27 minute (currently 30-45 minute) midday headways
    • 6-12 minute (currently 10-20 minute) early afternoon rush headways
 
^Extremely reasonable, and nice job on the headway math. We should be justifiably afraid, though, that the fleet would simply be slashed and reassigned rather than used for increased headways. Especially where diesels (these are both diesel routes, right?) are in such short supply with all of the replacement service for the TTs out of Harvard, which will probably be needed on the 72 and 73 for at least a year after Assembly opens.
 
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