TheRatmeister
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You cannot fit the Ink Block/Peters Park stations with island platforms, travel lanes, and bike lanes. There just is not enough space. (Tufts does barely fit with an Island platform but obviously it makes no sense if you have to then go back to the side.) You're right that staggered platforms would save width but for the Tufts station that's not really workable because it makes the transfer to the Orange Line absolutely miserable and for Herald St it doesn't work because you need to have at least one platform's width available to use, which this section does not. You have to take parking lot space for the former and use a combined sidewalk/platform for the latter. The Peters Park station which I'm working on now does use offset platforms, and somewhere around Monsignor Reynolds Way the plan is to switch to a median for the rest of the route. I've been trying to do some research as to how to make a junction like that not super deadly. From there down to Melnea Cass street width is mostly not a problem.
The missing ped refuges would be between - e.g. a turn lane and the transitway. You have to remember that cockamamie designs like this are what kills BRT projects - e.g. Pie IX in Montreal basically lost all BRT for about 20 years because of bonkers pedestrian hostile designs like this.
TheRatmeister
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The transitway is frankly what I'm least concerned about. In terms of places for pedestrians to wait a few seconds, the transitway is one of the least bad. Vehicles would only be coming about once ever 3 minutes on average, and it's not difficult to put indicators at crossings to alert pedestrians when a vehicle is coming.
No shit. You'd never choose a design like this if you have a comfortable width for platforms, travel lanes, bike lanes, street parking, and pedestrian islands. (Parts of) Washington St do not have this. So the questions are:
- How can the 'cockamamie' design be made less bad
- Are the inevitable tradeoffs that come from the narrow street justified?
JeffDowntown
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Isn't this why some short sections may need to be tunneled rather than surface?
TheRatmeister
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That is certainly an option, but I think it's worth avoiding it if possible because god that be a nightmare. Washington St is one of the oldest parts of Boston and the stretch around East Berkeley St has particular historical significance. The original town wall and gate of Boston on the neck was located here, so I have to imagine any digging here would need to be preceded by extensive archeological work. I don't know for certain but I have to imagine that's at least part of why the proposed subway that would have replaced the El used Shawmut Ave instead.
Over a half-mile that's probably $250m+ which is a lot to pay if a surface design is merely 'sub-optimal'.
themissinglink
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If the MBTA ever builds an infill station at Newton Corner, what will the platform setup look like? The station site seems very constrained due to the nearby bridges. A full-length platform might not fit without bridge modifications.
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TheRatmeister
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Even with bridge modifications I don't see how you're fitting a full-length platform without quite a lot of mining and/or bridge modifications. 400-500ft would likely be doable with only a little mining of the Bell Corner 'park' and modification of the Washington St bridge. If the line is electrified and frequencies during rush hour are bumped up further that might be okay, for example a train every 15 minutes local to Framingham, 30 mins local after Framingham, 30 mins local to Worcester, and 30 mins express to Worcester. That's 10TPH though so you'd need some extra capacity to come from somewhere. If the OC lines were double-tracked and the Needham line is not replaced by rapid transit, the capacity at South Station would look something like this:
| Amtrak | 2 |
| Framingham/Worcester | 4 |
| Needham | 2 |
| Franklin/Foxboro | 4 |
| Providence | 4 |
| Fall River/New Bedford | 4 |
| Kingston | 2 |
| Greenbush | 2 |
| Fairmount | 8 |
| Total | 32 |
F-Line to Dudley
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Regional Rail locals to Framingham are going to need something longer than 400-500 ft. And if the bus connections (e.g. 71 to Harvard extended to the NC station) are sufficiently enhanced, it'll attract at least a few thru-Worcester runs wanting to stop there at peak. Don't forget, we've thrown in for BEMU's that only seat an anemic 93 people per car, much worse than even our single-levels. You need a maxi-length 7-car train of Stadler KISSes (600 ft.) to hold as many riders as a minimum-length 4-car 173-185 seat Kawasaki/Rotem set (350 ft.). And even at substantially enhanced Framingham all-local frequencies, rush hour still has enough ridership swell to require at least 5-car Kawasaki/Rotem's, if not 6. More if :30 worth of Framingham locals need future-proofing like eventual extension to Northborough or Clinton. MetroWest is that big, its current transit shares that small, and its potential transit shares with service increases that huge. Even something more intermediate in seating capacity like a 110-142 seat self-propelled Alstom MultiLevel is going to require some substantial platform length for the peaks. Newton Corner is not going to be cheap to do, that much is true. But its ridership projects so good it's probably worth doing at a price that mods the bridges to get at least 600+. It's important that the ongoing NC-area transportation study (which is a grab-bag mostly focusing on improving the Pike exit and street configurations, but has requests to take a look-see at a CR station) shows enough positive signal for the infill station that that gets broken out into a full study that tallies up the cost-benefits in detail. Right now we don't have a good handle on what it would structurally cost to do, and only wild-guesses at the topline ridership (especially how that ridership could be accentuated by bus improvements). Those numbers need to be crunched in detailed, digestible form to inform decision-making here.
BBY is not going to work as a turnback if the train density significantly increases with Urban Rail routes like 10 TPH on the B&A and god-knows-what-else saturating the NEC even more. Even a staff-assisted shunt in R gear off the platforms and onto the putative pocket track to do the full 10-minute ends-change with FRA-mandated brake checks off the mainline is going to happen slow enough to cause congestion to the abutting interlockings, especially at times when the same platform assignment of the throw-it-in-R return to the station is not available and requires more crossing over. There really is no way around doing some degree of South Station Expansion. It doesn't have to be the full +7 tracks studied if due-diligence ops reform changes things for the better, but you aren't politically cutting anyone's Purple Line service to fit in service increases elsewhere and Amtrak is going to grow by leaps and bounds on both the NEC and B&A. So some degree of track expansion is going to be non-optional, even if it's only a few platforms. We can do that within-cost if the monolithic SSX project with its lumped-in palatial Dot Ave. headhouse, Dot Ave. redevelopment, unrelated Ft. Point Channel public interface elements, and so on got broken into pieces under different authorities so the raw capacity needs could live up to a rational valuation and stay tightly focused.
bigeman312
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Fully modernize the Boston - Springfield corridor as the eastern end of modern, layered corridor:
- Boston - Framingham: 2 tph
- Boston - Worcester: 2 tph
- Inland Route: 4 RT/day
- Boston - Toronto: 2 RT / day
- Boston - Chicago: 2 RT / day, decoupled from the NYC - Chicago LSL
- South Station Tower 1 Interlocking.
- Rebuild all three Newton Commuter Rail stations with full high level center island platforms.
- Build the Weston-Framingham third track.
- Inland Route Early Actions.
- Complete the double tracking, without gaps, all the way to Springfield.
- New/expanded layover and maintenance facility in Springfield.
- Springfield area track reconfiguration.
- South Station - Worcester
- 0:50 travel time
- 2 tph CR + 8 RT/day intercity
- South Station - Springfield
- 2:00 travel time
- 8 RT/day (Inland + Chicago + Toronto)
- Boston - Hartford
- 2:30 travel time
- 4 RT/day (Inland Route to NYC)
- Boston - Buffalo
- 9:30 travel time
- 4 RT / day (Chicago + Toronto)
- Boston - Toronto
- 13:30 travel time
- 2 RT / day
- Boston - Chicago
- 21:00 travel time
- 2 RT / day
EastCambridgeDreamer
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This would be very nice! I already enjoy taking the train from Boston to Toronto, with an overnight in Albany. Being able to do it in one go would be very nice indeed. Also, if it took just 50mins to get from Worcester to Boston I would consider living in downtown Worcester without a car! That would really shrink the distance between the two cities.
bigeman312
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I know, right? It should so feasible, too. Worcester Union is only 44 track miles from South Station. 50 minute travel time would require an average speed of 53 mph. There are quite a few examples of commuter lines abroad that far exceed that average speed.
Under transitmatters’ plan “the trip time from Boston to Worcester will fall to 43-50 minutes depending on the stopping pattern, compared to a travel time of 1:38 (or 1:25 for express service) now, and the Boston-Framingham trip will fall to 35 minutes (24 express).” 50 minutes is on the conservative edge of that.
H2H is 1:10 right now to South Station and was 1:06 since it used to not stop in Framingham.
F-Line to Dudley
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The TransitMatters trip time numbers, like in all of their Modernization reports, are complete garbage. It assumes intercity-class, no-standee EMU's that are not available for sale in North America and are not bought by most worldwide commuter agencies (because of the standee issue), and lots of premium-price track (Class 6) and grade crossing upgrades that their reporting does not account for on cost. On the Worcester Line, the presence of big manifest freight trains running at 60 MPH to the yards in Westborough and Framingham means the curves won't be elevated nearly as much as TransitMatters demands to increase curve speeds on the Framingham-Worcester portion. You can do some curve canting Boston-Framingham for minor savings, but the curve restrictions are pretty much written in stone west of there.
A better measure for time savings is the 20-22% trip time reduction that Amtrak specifies for the Providence Line and Wickford Jct. tail if the T implemented stock commuter EMU's (which they of course aren't...they're doing the no-better-than-now battery locos). It can even be as high as the 25% actual that Caltrain got if it's a straight all-stops local to Worcester because it's an extremely high quantity of starts-stops, though the Rail Vision envisions a zone-express setup for most of those runs because the travel times are still too stiff making all stops. But it's not going to be TransitMatters' warp-drive timings because the infrastructure doesn't have enough give for all of the traffic types it must accommodate and there's pretty much no place on earth other than select areas of Japan that intentionally supplies intercity-powered EMU rolling stock on purely commuter-fare and commuter stopping-distance runs.
bigeman312
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Thank you for the perspective. What's a reasonable estimate for best-case travel time for express CR trips from Worcester with the completion of all of the aforementioned and proposed reasonable improvements (South Station Tower 1 Interlocking, all three Newton Commuter Rail stations rebuilt, Weston-Framingham and Framingham/Worcester triple-tracking, Allston Intermodal Project, full high-level platforms at all stations)? What about with full electrification and an electric fleet? You don't trust TransitMatters. What's your counter-estimate?
F-Line to Dudley
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Well, the EMU electrification savings are easy to calculate, and form the largest by-far share of potential savings. Take current travel times, lop off a safe 20-22% (side with a more-aggressive 22% on locals and zone expresses that make more stops, less-aggressive 20% on super-expresses). That's pretty reliably proven in world practice because it's factorable from raw acceleration, and all of the who's-who of FRA-compliant EMU and BEMU makes the T was bid in its last RFP's can meet that performance profile. I'm less certain about the amount of padding that can be stripped out for complete level boarding. They really need to be able to get all-doors-open at all stops to get the dwells down to the minimums, and of course they aren't doing that at Newtonville with the asinine 4-car platforms which might make the dwells from longer bi-level sets as bad or worse than the low-platform penalty of today. They really need to correct the error of their ways on that one or it's going to bite them square in the ass. It's also going to matter *somewhat* on dwells if you do bi-levels, bi-levels with 3x2 vs. 2x2 seating, single-levels (again 3x2 vs. 2x2), or single-levels with extra doors (which might be a rough fit on Worcester because curved platforms like Lansdowne wouldn't be able to open non-vestibule doors at stops)...but I'd caution that the savings for flats probably aren't as dramatic as some advocates make it out to be because the increasing length of sets gets a little harder to manage (mainly for staffing reasons) the more you lean hard into platonic ideals like all-flats + 2x2 + extra doors. And only the T knows how much contingency padding can be stripped out from a more flexible track layout. Worcester currently has a lot of lard in all schedules due to its cumulative infrastructural constrictions (especially Newton-related padding). But it matters a lot if the Terminal District can be reformed at all to take a 10 MPH speed limit up on the South Station approach up to 30 MPH (it's never going to be 60 to the bumper post, though). But I'd hesitate to assign a cumulative % figure to non-EMU factors given the sheer number of variables. It's a few minutes for sure, but I don't know how it scales by line length and number of stops. The main problem with TransitMatters' traffic modeling in addition to the unrealistically high speeds and acceleration is that they went too threadbare...basically taking Train Sim software and stripping out every failsafe to net a perfection that'll rarely-if-ever be achieved in the real world where things run late for purely chaos reasons and need common-sense padding.
bigeman312
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Thanks! I'll use your numbers.
Current status:
- Fastest Boston-bound express is 70 minutes.
- Fastest Worcester-bound express is 67 minutes.
- In the name of conservative estimates ("common-sense padding"), let's go with 70 minutes as our base status.
- "Less-aggressive 20% on super-expresses" like the 70 minute trips stated above.
- 70*0.8=56 minutes.
- "It's a few minutes for sure, but I don't know how it scales by line length and number of stops."
- I'm having a hard time seeing 10% as unrealistic given the aforementioned investment, but like you said it can't be known for sure.
- Mostly triple tracked between Weston and Worcester (except for a short stretch in Framingham), plus the rebuilding of the Newton Stations allowing for less wrong-way conflicts.
- That should easily accomodate 4 tph (2 tph Boston - Framingham and 2 tph Boston - Worcester).