Reasonable Transit Pitches

Arlington said:
Completely Reasonable:

Gold Line: A free bus from Logan Airport Silver Line stops to North Station and Haymarket Station and back, continuously, all day.

Since Haymarket and North Stations are mostly transit destinations, you can pretty much assume that either people walked to the Gold Line or they, in fact, already paid the T for the first leg of their trip (by CR, bus, or subway)
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Why both Haymarket and North Station? They serve the same lines (Green and Orange). Or am I missing something.
 
Well North Station has commuter rail and Haymarket has a lot of buses, although I think only the Charlestown buses might see people connecting.
 
cozzyd said:
Well North Station has commuter rail and Haymarket has a lot of buses, although I think only the Charlestown buses might see people connecting.
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True, I wasn't thinking about the Haymarket bus hub. And if the "Gold Line" would have to pass Haymarket on its route anyway, it makes sense to stop there.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
True, I wasn't thinking about the Haymarket bus hub. And if the "Gold Line" would have to pass Haymarket on its route anyway, it makes sense to stop there.
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Eh...NS is so closeby that's going to be the far better node. I'm actually surprised some of the Haymarket terminees weren't decades ago--like, BERy-era ago--re-shaped down Causeway and Canal to hit both stations. Might've had something to do with NS (ex-Boston & Maine owned) and the Garden (Jerry Jacobs) always being privately-owned at one part of the facility or another. Still wouldn't be a bad idea, especially since both stops have direct shots on the street grid.
 
Haymarket has the advantage of a larger, more-walkable catchment, including parts of the Financial District not otherwise served well by transit.

North Station has the commuter rail, but is very undense (for now) on 3 sides (Greenway, Charles, Storrow). Once the West End bubble-garage and the old Garden site have their skyscrapers, it will be better at generating its own "local" demand.

Somehow, these two nodes need to work as one. Either the Gold Line should serve both, or all the Haymarket buses should serve both, (or both at both, or a moving sidewalk between them).

So I'd start with the Gold Line NS-Haymarket-(Rent A Car)-Terminals and see what we get.
 
Arlington said:
Haymarket has the advantage of a larger, more-walkable catchment, including parts of the Financial District not otherwise served well by transit.

North Station has the commuter rail, but is very undense (for now) on 3 sides (Greenway, Charles, Storrow). Once the West End bubble-garage and the old Garden site have their skyscrapers, it will be better at generating its own "local" demand.

Somehow, these two nodes need to work as one. Either the Gold Line should serve both, or all the Haymarket buses should serve both, (or both at both, or a moving sidewalk between them).

So I'd start with the Gold Line NS-Haymarket-(Rent A Car)-Terminals and see what we get.
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Why not both, though? Right turn on Causeway...bus stop at front...left turn on Friend...straight into the Haymarket busway. Return trip takes Canal, likewise straight out of the Haymarket busway.

Is that really so hard? It's like +3 minutes to the schedule at a difference of opening up the entire northside commuter rail. There's no rationale for passing that up. Like I said, it's puzzling that every Haymarket-terminating bus didn't do this 50 years ago.
 
Quick question: I'm having a brainfart and can't recall: is the Kenmore Loop flying or at level? That is, if we start having a bunch of services turn there, will it screw up through-running service, too?

I mean, it must be flying, right? Since the B Line (inner tracks) were supposed to be converted to heavy rail, and the loop was supposed to short-turn multiple streetcar lines, right?
 
It's flying, and then the outbound tracks again fly. The whole station was designed perfectly, with the possible exception of the C/D branching junction.
 
^ Thank you! That's what I thought. God, that is a beautiful design...

So, if the outbound tracks fly, though, that'll be the challenge of reworking the loop to allow Commonwealth-originating service to turn there, right?
 
The plan - which only really existed for a short time around 1932 when Kenmore was constructed - was for the Commonwealth Avenue line to be converted to a heavy rail subway at least to Packards Corner. If my memory serves, it probably would have followed the Watertown Line past Packards, and the Comm Ave line past there would have been bustituted.
 
The EGE said:
The plan - which only really existed for a short time around 1932 when Kenmore was constructed - was for the Commonwealth Avenue line to be converted to a heavy rail subway at least to Packards Corner. If my memory serves, it probably would have followed the Watertown Line past Packards, and the Comm Ave line past there would have been bustituted.
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Yeah, that sounds familiar.
 
Not sure if this belongs here or in a new thread, but here we go:
http://www.telegram.com/article/20141121/NEWS/311219695/0/SEARCH
Worcester-Providence 'JetBlue of rail commuting' envisioned

WORCESTER — Already practically sister cities, Worcester and Providence may soon have a new connection — this time over the rails.

Boston Surface Railroad Co. has been formed for the specific purpose of creating a commuter rail service between the two New England cities. Vincent Bono, the largest stockholder and general manager of the new company, said plans are in the first stages of developing what he hopes will eventually be three trains per day traveling between the two cities.

"We are here today to celebrate getting funded for an engineering study to see what improvements are needed on the line for a 70-minute trip time," Mr. Bono said, as he waited at Union Station with friends and business associates to take a symbolic trip to Providence on a Providence and Worcester Railroad train.
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Saw this yesterday and meant to post. I imagine that the tracks between Worcester and Providence don't have a very high speed rating, and it would be pricey to upgrade them. If a private company wants to make a go of it be my guest. Although I always figured if this happened it would be a joint venture between MBCR and RIDOT.
 
^ That's all how I felt, too. I have a hard time imagining how this will break even, but if a private investor wants to sink money into it, I'm happy to let 'em. The rails don't care whether they're being repaired by public monies or private monies. Worst case– they do some infrastructure upgrades and fold after a year, paving the way for a public project.

Private rail (or privately funded projects, at least) is something I've rolled around in the back of my head for a while now. Seems like it can only work very, very occasionally.
 
Riverside said:
The return of private intercity rail to New England? Intriguing, though, given the history of it, not necessarily encouraging.
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Crazy or not, Worcester-to-Providence has a deeply resonant, historical appeal to it. After all, the 42-mile-route (as best I can judge its length) route would hug the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor for its entire length--the "Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution" per the NPS, and I do not think that's hyperbole. To be sure, the Merrimack Valley has a pretty big claim to the status/title as well, but I bet NPS has numbers to back up the assertion that the Blackstone was the most intense site of transformation.

Also, from an ethnographic standpoint, Worcester-to-Providence has a meaningful legacy as one of the great byways of the great Franco-Canadian migration into New England from Quebec during the 1800s and up through the Depression (hey, Jack Kerouac). Speaking as the son-in-law of a native of Woon-sock-et...
 
DBM said:
Crazy or not, Worcester-to-Providence has a deeply resonant, historical appeal to it.
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Thanks for the ethno-historical perspective, but the idea behind reasonable transit pitches is that they should serve pent-up or proven travel demand with a cheap, simple implementation.

"Deeply resonant, historical appeal," while deeply resonant and historically appealing, is not evidence for actual trip-making demand.

A reasonable transit pitch has to start with things like "X00,000 daily trips by car are made between...." or "X00 travelers per day from the Worcester area drive to PVD and board Amtrak NEC service..."

If the business plan for WOR-PVD commuter rail is based on the Blackstone's water-powered legacy (an awe for which I share) or French Canadian migration patterns then it belongs in Crazy Transit Pitches.

The trains would be owned by Boston Surface Railroad Co., which would offer commuter service between the two cities. It projects only one other stop, in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, 15 miles outside Providence.

The service, which would be on a level with Amtrak's regular business class, would address what is already a significant flow of commuters now using roadways to get between the cities on the route. There are an estimated 32,800 daily commuters between Worcester and Providence and 10,000 between Woonsocket and Providence.
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If we guess they could capture 1% of that market, that's 328 WOR-PVD riders and 100 Woonsocket-PVD. 428. Getting these 428 to all agree on when to go and when to return sounds like a tough task for just 1 or 2 trainsets. Buses, however, could give frequent, useful service.

I suspect, however, that the reality is that few of the 32,800 or 10,000 are going to *Downtown* PVD. Metro PVD, sure. But walkable from PVD station? (or an easy bus connection?) Probably not.
 
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