Reasonable Transit Pitches

[fattony]

Access to equipment means that anything that enters the GJ is going to be tethered to the Boston Engine Terminal train supply as a rule, and thus they're going to be running to the foot of North Station anyway as an ops necessity. It doesn't matter if Kendall>>NS on ridership and NS smells like a loss leader; they're going to stop at the terminal regardless because that's where home base is. Especially if this Worcester demand is primarily on-peak and replicates the WOR-NS study for running strictly peak-direction with no reverse-commuting slots.

Could that morning Worcester train, after arriving at NS, collect a few passengers and head back to Kendall, essentially doing the job of the EZ-ride? That seems like a valuable trip, though proceeding all the way to Worcester doesn't (remember it is still AM rush). Can the train ping back and forth Kendall-NS a few times? Does that even make sense?

Same concept can be repeated in reverse in the evening.

 

[jklo]

F-Line to Dudley;341456]Access to equipment means that anything that enters the GJ is going to be tethered to the Boston Engine Terminal train supply as a rule, and thus they're going to be running to the foot of North Station anyway as an ops necessity.

Isn't capacity an issue at North Station? That would make it a non-starter.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Isn't capacity an issue at North Station? That would make it a non-starter.

No. The WOR-NS peak-only study was predicated on ops to existing North Station. With the drawbridge rebuilds adding 2 more lead tracks into the station the crunch has been sufficiently deferred until the northside gets all RER'd up with :30 and :15 bi-directional headways.

Could that morning Worcester train, after arriving at NS, collect a few passengers and head back to Kendall, essentially doing the job of the EZ-ride? That seems like a valuable trip, though proceeding all the way to Worcester doesn't (remember it is still AM rush). Can the train ping back and forth Kendall-NS a few times? Does that even make sense?

Same concept can be repeated in reverse in the evening.

They'd never do that on dollars and sense. A 6-7 car train doing a reverse at NS, a low-revenue +1, and a non-revenue reverse at Kendall back to base bleeds too much revenue vs. simply taking that A.M. Worcester inbound and re-badging it on the platform as a northside outbound on a line with genuine reverse-commute demand growth.

Further, the Kendall platform would be very tight between the grade crossings and an ops-risky place to stage the reverse move. Highest potential for mechanical/electrical faults are during the ends change (as true for push-pull as it is EMU's, subway trains, and multi-car trolleys). Not only are you idling at full power for 10 minutes beneath office towers where thousands of people are working, but the train could be rattling up the neighborhood for a long time if they have to check a fault. Worst-case glitch is that they have to take whatever end (cab or loco) got them there and do an assisted back-up (i.e. "throw it in reverse") onto the nearest passing siding. And since engineers don't have rear-view mirrors that means either Main or Broadway gets FUBAR'ed while the conductor gets out to flag the crossing and the engineer crawls the train backwards with only the crew's signals to guide them.

This isn't so disruptive when it happens in grade-separated downtown Haverhill or Worcester. Or at North Station for that matter where regularly scheduled 'blind' reverses to/from BET and the platforms happen all day every day smoothly staged by ground staff. But there's probably no worse place on the whole system to attempt daily scheduled reverses than the heart of Cambridge between that grade crossing sandwich.

 

[tysmith95]

There are definitely a lot of people who work in Kendall along the Worcester line. You wouldn't need to go any further than the Square though. OTOH ridership outside of peak commuter time would be zero basically.

Getting these people to give up their cars, especially if they have free parking might be tough.

Ridership on most of the commuter rail is pretty low outside of peak commute times, with the exception of a few lines. A theoretical Kendall station would be mainly for rush hour commuters. With capacity constraints at North and South station it might work. You could just add a train on some of the lines.

I don't think a speed restriction is too much of an issue. It's an issue yes, but you're still going faster than driving. Basically every morning my commuter rail train stops for a min or two than proceeds slowly through the drawbridge. The train gets to the maintenance factory at around 830, but it usually takes about 10 mins to get the last mile to North Station.

Just an observation though, I don't see why the Haverhill line stops at Malden Center. It's a lightly used stop, and Malden center isn't a huge jobs center. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people using that stop are just transferring from jobs near Sullivan or Assembly (orange to CR). A Sullivan stop would make more sense, and you could get rid of Malden Center. Each stop cuts the commute time by 2-3 mins or so for people further out (F-Line can give an exact number), so if you add Sullivan I think you should get rid of Malden Center.

If you run into space constraints the CR stop doesn't need to be right next to Sullivan. Maybe you could put it somewhere in-between Sullivan and Assembly.

 

[tysmith95]

Exactly this has been studied. All your questions answered here: Thru-routing from the GJ through t...rains could still bypass a 2nd Salem station.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Just an observation though, I don't see why the Haverhill line stops at Malden Center. It's a lightly used stop, and Malden center isn't a huge jobs center. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people using that stop are just transferring from jobs near Sullivan or Assembly (orange to CR). A Sullivan stop would make more sense, and you could get rid of Malden Center. Each stop cuts the commute time by 2-3 mins or so for people further out (F-Line can give an exact number), so if you add Sullivan I think you should get rid of Malden Center.

Malden's a big bus depot in itself with 13 routes terminating there. It actually has more routes than Sullivan has as a terminal, though Sullivan slugs harder being disproportionately weighted with Key Routes. Malden is a must-have on multimodal coattails if you have any expectations of future Urban Rail headways to Reading. The multimodal connections get proportionately more important with frequencies, so in an RER universe you really do want both Sullivan and Malden on a Reading schedule.

Keep in mind that the Haverhill and Reading halves would be sheared back off into separate schedules in such a scenario, with most North Wilmington-Haverhill trains reverting back to their pre-1979 routing via the Lowell Line + Wildcat Branch. That's the only way the Medford single-tracking can support Urban Rail frequencies. It also directly addresses your question about time chew at platforms. Haverhill schedules are long and brittle, with crowding attributed to the Melrose-Wakefield stretch that starts really weighing down the station dwells. The much faster and wider stop-spaced Lowell Line routing speeds up the trip to I-495 a lot, and isn't such a divergent clash of longer-distance commuters colliding with quicker-trip neighborhood walkup.

Meanwhile, you can safely add high-leverage stops to the Reading schedule like Sullivan and Quannapowitt/128 where not only is that too much to keep a thru Haverhill schedule running on-time...but you might've otherwise had to look at consolidating one of the Melrose stops for the sake of dispatching sanity across the whole corridor. Not only does making the inner Western Route a 90% exclusive Urban Rail corridor keep the audience uniform enough to densify the stops, but conversely Haverhill trains blasting up the Lowell Line at time/resiliency savings opens up infill station options on the outer half of the line--South Lawrence, Ward Hill/495, etc.--that you wouldn't have been able to consider if the schedule were still conjoined with Reading at no margin for error.

 

[tysmith95]

Keep in mind that the Haverhill and Reading halves would be sheared back off into separate schedules in such a scenario, with most North Wilmington-Haverhill trains reverting back to their pre-1979 routing via the Lowell Line + Wildcat Branch. That's the only way the Medford single-tracking can support Urban Rail frequencies. It also directly addresses your question about time chew at platforms. Haverhill schedules are long and brittle, with crowding attributed to the Melrose-Wakefield stretch that starts really weighing down the station dwells. The much faster and wider stop-spaced Lowell Line routing speeds up the trip to I-495 a lot, and isn't such a divergent clash of longer-distance commuters colliding with quicker-trip neighborhood walkup.

Meanwhile, you can safely add high-leverage stops to the Reading schedule like Sullivan and Quannapowitt/128 where not only is that too much to keep a thru Haverhill schedule running on-time...but you might've otherwise had to look at consolidating one of the Melrose stops for the sake of dispatching sanity across the whole corridor. Not only does making the inner Western Route a 90% exclusive Urban Rail corridor keep the audience uniform enough to densify the stops, but conversely Haverhill trains blasting up the Lowell Line at time/resiliency savings opens up infill station options on the outer half of the line--South Lawrence, Ward Hill/495, etc.--that you wouldn't have been able to consider if the schedule were still conjoined with Reading at no margin for error.

North Wilmington is south of the Wildcat split on the Haverhill line. So if you terminate the Haverhill line at reading and have a Haverhill line go through the Lowell branch than you'd have to eliminate north Wilmington.

As of now north Wilmington dosn't get great rush hour service. No inbound trains from 6:41 until 9:34. In that period there are two Haverhill line trains that go through the wildcat line.

North Welmington itself is a pretty terrible station (20 parking spots and not in the densest of neighborhoods). They should just build a new garage at Welmington station and use that as an excuse to get rid of North Welmington.

And this might be the first and only time I know something more than f-line about transit (grew up in that area).

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Could a flyover possibly work?

Absolute no. You have a sweeping 90-degree curve bookended by the GLX mainline overpass on the west end and Lowell Line overpass on the north end, and an extremely constrained path around the throat narrowed significantly by adjacent GLX construction. The throat may be too narrow to even fit support pegs between the yard & freight tracks below without cutting capacity even further. Then up above there's not enough running room between bridges to rise, curve, and get back down when the curvature places even stricter limits than usual on allowable grades.

There's no way to Civil Engineering Strongman this. Commuter rail ops screamed loudly at the state about how GLX was going to limit their ops flexibility (northside CR employee "GP40MC" can spin a yarn about that next time he logs into AB), the state made its decision, and this is the ultimate consequence of it. They weren't unaware of what they were getting into. So either the follow-up traffic modeling for Fitchburg-Rockburyport interlining from the RER options proves that at-grade can work by the skin of its teeth, or it's not going to happen at all because the conflicts are too numerous to net a reliable schedule.

I'm guessing it's going to be the latter based on how hotly contested those throat tracks already are...before GLX has ripped any of them out. BUT...those 3rd tracks on each NS drawbridge and pending reactivation of other leads around Tower A are going to be oh-so-useful for increasing service. So I wouldn't develop singular target fixation around the BET throat, either, because the terminal district as a whole is quietly increasing its capacity.

In terms of the Grand Junction...if the throat ends up too dodgy a prospect for the intra-northside interlining that the RER study proposes, then you know it'll never happen on the GJ. If it ends up doable but only by skin-of-its-teeth...then that's also a bridge too far for Grand Junction-routed service because any schedules predicated on the slowness of the GJ are already too brittle to take on the BET throat.

I mean the Nbyprt/Rockport line is one of the higher ridership lines on the MBTA system. Providence line is the highest, but Nbyprt/Rockport and Worcester are nearly tied for 2nd.

No doubt. Which is why it'll be interesting to see what the RER study comes up with. We going to see :30/:30 Rockburyports and :15 Urban Rail to Salem/Peabody? And what about Peabody...either the Square on active track or the extra restored mile to 128? What about that Salem State U. infill station? What about the Chelsea grade crossings? How five-alarm urgent does BLX get now?

Don't think Worcester rates as one of those considerations at all, because the North Shore so is thick with bread that needs to be buttered just to establish the essentials.

And just a random proposal, but is there any way to add a 2nd commuter rail stop in Salem? There are some dense walk-able neighborhoods, plus Salem State, that would really benefit from having a train within walking distance. Salem is already the 2nd highest inbound station for ridership (after Providence) so there is definitively a demand.

Express trains could still bypass a 2nd Salem station.

Ta-da!

Option 1: https://cdn.mbta.com/uploadedFiles/..._Improvements/Figure_3_8_SalemStaionSoOpt.pdf

Option 2: https://cdn.mbta.com/uploadedFiles/..._Improvements/Figure_3_7_SalemStaionNoOpt.pdf

Those renders are from the 2004 North Shore Transit Improvements study. The state kind of lost interest after that, but the city is still chomping at the bit to get a SSU stop added and initiated its own study in 2016-17: http://northshoretma.org/south-salem-commuter-rail-stop/

 

[The EGE]

North Wilmington is an easy 1-for-1 swap for the former Salem Street station (open 1959-1967) less than a mile away. Salem Street wouldn't have the issue of trains blocking Route 62 that currently plagues North Wilmington.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

North Wilmington is south of the Wildcat split on the Haverhill line. So if you terminate the Haverhill line at reading and have a Haverhill line go through the Lowell branch than you'd have to eliminate north Wilmington.

North Wilmington on the Western Route would close, yes. But Salem Street on the Wildcat would reopen, as that was the sole North Wilmington-serving stop until it was closed in 1965 from the town declining to subsidize. The T still owns the property for the platform and parking lot as a long-term hold specifically in the event of the schedules diverging. Before the 2014 budget cuts there was even a bus route running on that street.

Assuming the Wildcat had to be double-tracked to support :30 RER frequencies (fair bet), Salem St. may have to be rebuilt as low platforms with mini-high like Ballardvale and Andover since this is a freight clearance route with no physical room for passing tracks. But since N. Wilmington has malingered for 4 decades now as the single crappiest "station" on the whole system receiving full-time service, it would still be a massive improvement.

As of now north Wilmington dosn't get great rush hour service. No inbound trains from 6:41 until 9:34. In that period there are two Haverhill line trains that go through the wildcat line.

North Welmington itself is a pretty terrible station (20 parking spots and not in the densest of neighborhoods). They should just build a new garage at Welmington station and use that as an excuse to get rid of North Welmington.

And this might be the first and only time I know something more than f-line about transit (grew up in that area).

North Wilmington had to be where it is when they decided in '79 to mash the schedules. It's too close to the main Wilmington station being 1.7 miles up Route 62, and its main "TOD" attraction is the freakin' RMV. Salem St. has better walkup access, almost equal access to I-93, identical size parking lot, and a non-redundant catchment because it can draw from South Tewksbury in addition. Much doubt that anybody's going to be out picketing with "Save Our Stop" banners if they decide to divorce the schedules and go with the reanimated Wildcat stop instead.

 

[tysmith95]

Another thing, why the heck are the two Winchester stops so close. They're less than half a mile from each other, it's pointless to have both.

I know why, wealthy people have more political power, but it's still crazy.

 

[whittle]

Another thing, why the heck are the two Winchester stops so close. They're less than half a mile from each other, it's pointless to have both.

I know why, wealthy people have more political power, but it's still crazy.

If get rid of one, you lose it's parking.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Another thing, why the heck are the two Winchester stops so close. They're less than half a mile from each other, it's pointless to have both.

I know why, wealthy people have more political power, but it's still crazy.

Wedgemere-Winchester Ctr.'s stop spacing is residue from when the line had much denser spacing. Winchester Highlands, 1 mile north of Winch Ctr., was also a stop until 1978. And then there was Cross St. on the Woburn Branch barely a half-mile down the street from Winch Highlands until 1981.

Woburn was even nuttier: Montvale to 195(8?), Walnut Hill (Salem St.) to 1965, East Woburn (modern-day Mishawum site), South Wilmington (modern-day Anderson RTC site). Plus on the Woburn Branch: Woburn Highlands to 195(?), Woburn Center to 1981, Central Square to 1959, and North Woburn to 1959.

--------------------

As for why Wedgemere has survived this long through multiple rounds of stop consolidation: $$$$. Very loaded neighborhood right there by Mystic Lakes straddling the Medford-Winchester line. They guard their home stop as jealously as they flung poo at GLX as NIMBY's-from-afar. It's like the Westonites with the Fitchburg Line boutique stops, only the ridership actually is very robust here. Arguably if the stop went away and very minor improvements were made to the Ginn Field footpath to give it lighting, that ridership would all migrate up the street and merge with Winch Ctr.'s. But Wedgemere does good enough that absent a major service or construction dilemma they're content to just let it ride and not risk rubbing 500 daily riders the wrong way.


Where that dilemma may be coming is the RER study. Lowell is a freight clearance route from Somerville to Concord, NH so absent passing tracks or gauntlets like they're going to be installing at Winch Ctr. you have to have low platforms with mini-highs, not full-highs. That means auto-door cars can't operate on the Lowell Line, which is inconvenient especially if they want to use interlining of :30 headway Lowell and :30 headway Haverhill trains to net de facto :15 Urban Rail headways to Anderson (de facto because Haverhill has to swim in dense freight + Downeaster traffic north of Andover, meaning its slots will have somewhat more drift off of 'pure' clock-facing than the Lowell slots.)

Winchester will join Anderson as full-high soon, and Lowell just needs its nonstandard half-high/half-low made complete in-place. West Medford, Wilmington, and North Billerica all have plausible/non-invasive reconfig options for full-highs with passers. Any high-leverage infill stops (e.g. Montvale) or proposed Nashua extension stops are fine to do as full-high w/passers. But Mishawum has no such path because of straddled bridges and a tricky hillside cut. And Wedgemere has no such path because of straddled road and water crossing bridges on a moderate curve...too risky to attempt a freight gauntlet like they're doing through 100% tangent Winch Ctr.

Do they really let stations with as anemic ridership as Mishawum and as duplicating as Wedgemere stand in their way from getting optimal RER dwells on all schedules? That's the game-changer that may overpower inertia. Those stops are too chintzy to induce door trap flips; it might still be needed for Haverhill trains once they reach the unexpandable Andover stops on the freight main, but no schedule should have to get slowed down by dwells inside-128. That means letting Wedgemere and Mishawum go because one can't justify the cost or risk or invasive wetlands-fouling mods when there's another stop almost in eyeshot, and the other hasn't shown a pulse in 35 years of attempted TOD rebooting. The trade-in might be extending the 95 bus to Winch Ctr. to bolster the bus coverage in Wedgemere's immediate neighborhood, and building the Montvale stop + completing the west entrance to Anderson as offsets for putting Mishawum out of its misery. Closing stops isn't ideal and definitely shouldn't be taken lightly when one of the candidates serves 500 daily riders, but 2 from the very bottom of the systemwide importance pile shouldn't be forcing them to half-ass the Lowell Line's RER implementation.

 

[HenryAlan]

Another thing, why the heck are the two Winchester stops so close. They're less than half a mile from each other, it's pointless to have both.

I know why, wealthy people have more political power, but it's still crazy.

Even more ridiculous, on the Needham Line, there are three stops within less than a mile total distance: Bellevue, Highland, West Roxbury, serving in total less than a thousand people. That kind of stop spacing will be okay when the Orange Line conversion happens, but it's kind of silly for Regional Rail. You can actually see the West Roxbury platform from the end of the Highland platform.

 

[tysmith95]

Even more ridiculous, on the Needham Line, there are three stops within less than a mile total distance: Bellevue, Highland, West Roxbury, serving in total less than a thousand people. That kind of stop spacing will be okay when the Orange Line conversion happens, but it's kind of silly for Regional Rail. You can actually see the West Roxbury platform from the end of the Highland platform.

To be fair, at least West Roxbury is a fairly dense urban neighborhood, and the stops don't have much parking. Plus the Needham line doesn't go out far, only 13 miles, while the Lowell line goes out 25.5 miles and the Haverhill (through wildcat) goes out 33 miles.

I wish the MBTA would electrify more lines, as electric vehicles can speed up and stop faster which would make the lines with closely spaced stops (Needham, Fairmount, Haverhill in Melrose/Wakefield) a good bit faster.

 

[34f34f]

Even more ridiculous, on the Needham Line, there are three stops within less than a mile total distance: Bellevue, Highland, West Roxbury, serving in total less than a thousand people. That kind of stop spacing will be okay when the Orange Line conversion happens, but it's kind of silly for Regional Rail. You can actually see the West Roxbury platform from the end of the Highland platform.

I forget if I saw it somewhere or just looked into it on my own, but if/when OL conversion happens, merging Bellevue and Highland stops into an OL station around Belgrade Ave/W Rox Pkwy would make evenly 1-mile-spaced stations (Roslindale Village, Belgrade Ave, West Rox):

 

[HenryAlan]

I forget if I saw it somewhere or just looked into it on my own, but if/when OL conversion happens, merging Bellevue and Highland stops into an OL station around Belgrade Ave/W Rox Pkwy would make evenly 1-mile-spaced stations (Roslindale Village, Belgrade Ave, West Rox):

If they dropped Highland, you would have 0.8 mile spacing beteween each pairing of Roslindale, Bellvue, and West Roxbury, so no need really to move anything. I wouldn't drop Highland, though. Once it is rapid transit, the stop spacing becomes more reasonable. I'd add an infill station at Archdale, and maybe one at Catholic Memorial/VA Hospital for the Orange Line. I agree, there is good residential density, enough to justify the conversion, but 0.4 miles between stations is too close for push/pull diesel.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

If they dropped Highland, you would have 0.8 mile spacing beteween each pairing of Roslindale, Bellvue, and West Roxbury, so no need really to move anything. I wouldn't drop Highland, though. Once it is rapid transit, the stop spacing becomes more reasonable. I'd add an infill station at Archdale, and maybe one at Catholic Memorial/VA Hospital for the Orange Line. I agree, there is good residential density, enough to justify the conversion, but 0.4 miles between stations is too close for push/pull diesel.

Some shifting is appropriate on the order of hundreds of feet to center around intersections with bus connections if the OL is extended to W. Rox.

4 of current intracity stops all used to have grand old mixed-use station buildings which all burned down or went so derelict that they were demolished. Former station building footprint is where Roslindale (which also had a freight station in the same complex) ended up with such absurd parking over-capacity for a dense square, and why Highland similarly over-indulges on lot size. It's also why the Bellevue platform is tucked on a side street off-center from the rotary, and why Highland is off-center from Centre St.

West Roxbury is oddly sited on Lagrange too close to Highland and off-center from the Centre/Spring Sts. split because it was a union station prior to the branch split to Dedham Center and until 1958 was hugely busy with SS-Needham-Newton-SS 'circuit' service, SS-Dedham-Readville-SS 'circuit' service, and long-haul service to West Medway. The junction's long gone, but the stop was never re-centered when the line was rebuilt in 1986.

If you're doing OL service you're probably keeping Rozzie stet and trading in some of the parking excess for busways. Bellevue probably shifts 400-800 ft. west spanning the Belgrade and W. Rox Pkwy. overpasses to tap bus loopage instead of staying tucked on Colbert St. Highland probably shifts 700+ ft. west to the Centre St. overhang and becomes a semi-enclosed station with busway fashioned out of one of the surface parking lots. And W. Rox moves behind Star Market in better position to trap all buses around the block. Stop spacing is all well within averages for Orange Line stops.

Since the storage yard is going to be out by Millennium Park it also would be possible to add a bonus infill at VFW Pkwy., which wouldn't be too off-scale on stop spacing at 2100 ft. west of relocated W. Rox. Might not be a barn-burner on ridership, but the tail tracks will always be passing on an embankment over VFW so the site is available for a station tack-on whenever they want it.

 

[bigeman312]

Definitely need an infill between Roslindale Village and Forest Hills, given the density and transit use of that neighborhood. Archdale/South St ("Arboretum") would be appropriate.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Definitely need an infill between Roslindale Village and Forest Hills, given the density and transit use of that neighborhood. Archdale/South St ("Arboretum") would be appropriate.

2 significant problems there:

• The ROW embankment is very high off the ground at Archdale, with steep sides. Making egresses is going to be difficult and costly for a stop that's probably going to have lowest boarding numbers on all of Orange by significant margin. And the neighboring homes might not like anything even taller--like elevator shafts--topping off an embankment that already nearly blots out the evening sun.

• EIS'ing through the Arboretum for the additional embankment fill required for making a station (even a slim-profile one) + those egresses reaching high up is going to be an exercise in torture. Harvard owns the Arboretum, and since this is a very remote holding of theirs equally accessible from Forest Hills they're not going to give a rat's arse about this stop. Expect stiff opposition from them on any touches to the sides of the embankment, because there's nothing in it for them and "We're Harvard, that's why! [*pokes T in eyeball*]"

Of these, Harvard >> cost in the problems dept. I wouldn't stake ANY effort to extend Orange on this stop being part of the base build. The whole project's support isn't safe enough that way. Archdale is something to try to slip in the water during a dull moment as a trial balloon then just as quietly withdraw if the Crimson Borg gets cranky...not dig in and try to get built as one of the first orders of business for the extension.