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I dunno, I'd say it's a reasonable transit pitch if it's actually in the newspaper... they don't tend to give serious press to crazy pitches...
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.
??? Hyperliop? Washington-Baltimore Maglev? Portland-Motreal sleeper train? Newspaper reporters have no crazy/reasonable filter. To them, it is all just "news."I dunno, I'd say it's a reasonable transit pitch if it's actually in the newspaper... they don't tend to give serious press to crazy pitches...
??? Hyperliop? Washington-Baltimore Maglev? Portland-Motreal sleeper train? Newspaper reporters have no crazy/reasonable filter. To them, it is all just "news."
Providence-Worcester commuter rail gathers momentum
By Aaron Nicodemus TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
Aaron.Nicodemus@telegram.com
WORCESTER — A proposal to build a private passenger rail service from Worcester to Providence bucks more than 100 years of history.
At the moment, private commuter rail in the United States is extinct. The last one to run with any regularity — the Rio Grande Zephyr, which shuttled through the Rockies between Denver and Ogden, Utah — ceased operating as a private enterprise 31 years ago, when the route was folded into Amtrak's California Zephyr line.
A short-lived private venture called the Florida Fun Train operated between Fort Lauderdale and Tampa in the late 1990s, but it folded in less than a year, according to a recent story on private commuter rail in The Atlantic magazine.
And that's it.
Amtrak now runs most passenger rail service in the United States. While the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C. is profitable, Amtrak is supported by nearly $1 billion a year in public subsidies. Most major cities have their own public commuter rail, subway and bus services.
But Vincent Bono, general manager and largest shareholder of the Boston Surface Railroad Co., based in Arlington, Mass., is convinced there is enough demand to bring private commuter service to large cities in the Northeast. He said the Worcester-to-Providence connection is the most feasible of several city pairings that he has studied.
Track negotiations
His company has proposed investing $3 million to launch private commuter rail service between Worcester's Union Station and Providence's Station Building, starting in 2016. The service would run over an existing freight rail line owned and operated by the Providence & Worcester Railroad Co. of Worcester. It would have three round trips a day, during peak commuter hours.
Boston Surface Railroad and P&W will spend the next 12 to 18 months hammering out an agreement that will allow Boston Surface to rent the use of P&W's existing rail line. The proposed cost of a ticket is $16 one way, with a discount for commuters, he said.
Mr. Bono said his company would buy five commuter trains, lease five others, and hire P&W engineers to operate them. The passengers would have assigned seating and be able to purchase their tickets online. Boston Surface Railroad employees would act as ushers, as well as serve food and drinks. The proposal calls for alcoholic drinks to be sold on the train.
In a recent test run, the trip between Worcester and Providence along the P&W line took an hour and 42 minutes. Driving distance between the two cities along Route 146 is approximately 45 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic. Mr. Bono said the goal is to get the train trip reduced to about 70 minutes when the service is launched.
"It's got to be competitive with a typical commuter's drive time," he said.
Projected use, growth
Mr. Bono said he estimates that 32,800 people commute between Worcester and Providence every day, and another 10,000 people commute between Woonsocket and Providence. Woonsocket would be the only proposed station along the way.
Mr. Bono said Boston Surface Railroad Co. would need to capture 3 percent of the Route 146 commuters — 360,000 annual passengers in its first year of operation — to be viable. Then he projected that the service will grow as much as 8 percent per year.
The service's only competition are cars, he said. Ninety-nine percent of the commuters traveling between Worcester and Providence currently drive in a car, he said.
Other than cars, there are two options.
The Peter Pan Bus Service offers one or two buses a day between Worcester and Providence, but not at commuter-friendly times. A one way ticket on Peter Pan for this trip costs $17.
Theoretically, a commuter could hop on an MBTA train at Union Station and go to Boston, then transfer to another train that would go to Providence. That trip would cost $21 and take more than two hours, one way. Mr. Bono said the MBTA had provided him with some ridership numbers on this implausible commuter trip, but the MBTA could not confirm them.
Upgrades study
Mr. Bono also promised that Boston Surface Railroad Co. would not take any government money.
"Government money means they can dictate where stations should be built," he said. The proposed rail line would only serve Worcester, Woonsocket, and Providence.
Charles D. Rennick, secretary and general counsel for the P&W, said a study is underway that will examine improvements and upgrades that could shorten the trip time considerably.
"Freight doesn't need to move as fast as passengers," he said. "The line has 35 to 40 at-grade crossings, which are usually street crossings. You may need to make enhancements for passenger cars to go through those crossings." And the passenger train will have to navigate four separate freight yards, he said.
In addition, as a Class 3 track, the P&W line has certain federally mandated speed limits: 40 miles per hour for freight and 60 miles per hour for passenger service.
Federal OK needed
Perhaps one of the most daunting challenges the service faces is approval from the Federal Railroad Administration. The new service will also have to adhere to regulations imposed by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. That act requires, among other things, that trains have positive train control technology, which limits collisions and slows trains down. The act is the result of a 2008 train accident in California, in which Metrolink passenger train and a Union Pacific freight train collided, killing 25 people and injuring 135.
Mr. Rennick said the P&W and Boston Surface will work together to receive approval for the service from the Federal Railroad Administration.
Most trains in the U.S. are supposed to be equipped with positive train control technology by next year — including all trains that carry passengers, and most freight trains. P&W's freight trains have positive train control technology, and can communicate with passenger trains when they are on the same rail lines, Mr. Rennick said.
Boston Surface's proposal is not the only private commuter rail proposal in the country, nor is it the largest.
That prize belongs to All Aboard Florida, a $2.5 billion proposal to link Miami with Orlando along an existing freight rail line. That proposal includes 4.2 million square feet of new real estate, including a 70-story residential building in Miami and state-of-the-art train stations in the downtowns of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando.
Last month, Mr. Bono took the first step toward creating a private passenger rail connection between Worcester and Providence. He invited dozens of friends, family, P&W Railroad executives and railroad aficionados for a test run. Starting at Union Station, the crowd was treated to a champagne brunch as the train made its way along the 45-mile route.
After a brief layover, the train returned, and guests "enjoyed a five-star catered lunch and full bar during the two-hour return trip from Providence to Worcester."
The train belonged to P&W: It was the railroad's Fall Foliage excursion fleet of six refurbished former Amtrak passenger cars, pulled by a P&W engine. Usually, the excursion fleet runs only once a year, in October. This year, it ran twice.
The railroad passengers concluded their trip at an after-party at the Middle Eastern restaurant Byblos Lounge in Union Station.
"It was a great day," Mr. Bono declared.
The mistake first time transportation entrepreneurs make is that they assume there will be no competitive response. If they had any experience operating anything (or even remember their micro econ 101) the ONLY rational response by Peter Pan to the train's entry will be to (try to) crush it with superior schedule and pricing, something which buses are freer to do.Quote from article: "The Peter Pan Bus Service offers one or two buses a day between Worcester and Providence, but not at commuter-friendly times. A one way ticket on Peter Pan for this trip costs $17. "
They seem to use "commuter" where they mean "intercity".
Ironic thing about "private commuter rail" is that "commuter" comes from the term "commuted fare", which is a discounted fare with little to no profit margin.