Regional Rail (RUR) & North-South Rail Link (NSRL)

[Arlington]

Re: North-South Rail Link

What about a BRT so the SL-1 from Chelsea can use it, too? On the Greenway or in the tunnel? Screw the South-Shorers!

Yes to Greenway (it needs a surface Circulator), but no to BRT in NSRL, given that:
- Too complicated to mix modes in NSRL
- expensive NSRL a is best used for ever longer (high capacity) trains of vehicles
And given that:
- Chelsea CR is likely to run on NSRL (no need for BRT)
- easy Silver - NSRL a transfers at South Station
- BRT/LRV get directed to Urban Ring alignments

 

[Matthew]

Re: North-South Rail Link

NSRL is probably going to be the very last new "subway line" ever built in downtown Boston. Whenever it does get built (30 years from now?). So yeah, it's going to be engineered for high capacity. Gotta squeeze it for all its worth.

Alon Levy recently came up with a scheme that actually makes Central Station somewhat worthwhile, if it can be managed. He noted that the tubes can be designed within two bores so that they shuffle around in such a manner that you gain cross-platform transfers at North Station, Central Station, and South Station. Except that at North Station and South Station, the cross-platform transfers are "opposite direction" whereas at Central Station they are "same direction".

https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/north-south-rail-link-diagram/

So if you were traveling from Framingham to Chelsea then you would want to carry out your cross-platform transfer at Central Station. But if you were traveling from say, Waltham to Chelsea, then your best cross-platform transfer would be at North Station.

At most there would be one set of stairs/change in level.

I don't know if it's worthwhile but I figured I might as well post it since I don't think it was posted already.

 

[cbrett]

Re: North-South Rail Link

My opinion is that Central Station will be trashed if the NSRL is ever actually build. It's superfluous bloat, very expensive, provides minimal utility and is difficult to engineer. Also, Central Station would be sited near the Aquarium Blue Line station (the whole point is the Blue Line transfer). The Long Wharf Mariott isn't going anywhere. Chiofaro has enough to worry about without planning a massive train infrastructure project tacked on to his dream tower.

Yeah, I agree 100%. The 30 story headhouse comment was supposed to come across more tongue in cheek, I doubt Central Station will make it into any final plans, just too much of a hassle for too little benefit. The expansions and major current destinations of the Blue Line can all be reached by other modes from the link (CR to Lynn/Salem, Red to MGH, Silver to the Airport).

 

[Arlington]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Alon Levy recently came up with a scheme that actually makes Central Station somewhat worthwhile, if it can be managed. He noted that the tubes can be designed within two bores so that they shuffle around in such a manner that you gain cross-platform transfers at North Station, Central Station, and South Station. Except that at North Station and South Station, the cross-platform transfers are "opposite direction" whereas at Central Station they are "same direction".

I like Alon Levy's plan, actually. At NS/SS the transfers are "turn around and go back out" and it makes sense to facilitate them. Then, yes, a switch at Central is a nice add.

 

[kevtron2000]

Re: North-South Rail Link

NSRL is probably going to be the very last new "subway line" ever built in downtown Boston. Whenever it does get built (30 years from now?). So yeah, it's going to be engineered for high capacity. Gotta squeeze it for all its worth.

Alon Levy recently came up with a scheme that actually makes Central Station somewhat worthwhile, if it can be managed. He noted that the tubes can be designed within two bores so that they shuffle around in such a manner that you gain cross-platform transfers at North Station, Central Station, and South Station. Except that at North Station and South Station, the cross-platform transfers are "opposite direction" whereas at Central Station they are "same direction".

https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/north-south-rail-link-diagram/

So if you were traveling from Framingham to Chelsea then you would want to carry out your cross-platform transfer at Central Station. But if you were traveling from say, Waltham to Chelsea, then your best cross-platform transfer would be at North Station.

At most there would be one set of stairs/change in level.

I don't know if it's worthwhile but I figured I might as well post it since I don't think it was posted already.

I don't see the need for 3 stations all within decent amount of distance between each.....

 

[Arlington]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I don't see the need for 3 stations all within decent amount of distance between each.....

There is a whole lot of the Financial District on the "far side" of Post Office Square (between POSq and Long Wharf), that is hard to walk from South Station. As a bonus, Central would also best serve boat/ferry connections and not to mention Quincy Market and the Lewis Wharf side of the North End.

Central isn't obviosly awesome, but it would also serve to decongest the RL and OL and Haymarket--it does a good job offloading intra-core trips, effectively adding capacity to the Subway.

 

[underground]

Re: North-South Rail Link

A billion dollar station so a few people don't have to walk 15 mins (at granny pace) from South or South Station to Long Wharf?

 

[bigeman312]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I don't see the need for 3 stations all within decent amount of distance between each.....

North Station would serve as a direct connection to the Orange Line and Green Line, Central Station would serve as a direct connection to the Blue Line, and South Station would serve as a direct connection to the Red Line. These stops are to serve connecting passengers more than to serve people walking to destinations near the stops themselves. Without any one of the three, the core subway stations become more strained with passengers transferring to-from their unconnected lines.

 

[Arlington]

Re: North-South Rail Link

A billion dollar station so a few people don't have to walk 15 mins (at granny pace) from South or South Station to Long Wharf?

$1b might be cheap as an infill station, particulary if, as Matthew suggests, you think of NSRL as "our last subway tunnel" that we can put in the Core.

So think of these "high concept" reasons

1) Infill Stations Generally Work.

Particularly in places as dense as Boston's core, the infill station serves to make rail trips clearly dominant (faster in time) vs private car. If you add a for-sure 10 minute walk (and rain exposure) onto every commute to State Street, car starts looking really competitive. In fact, the only person I know who drives to a downtown Boston job from the burbs drives to a building at 20-something State St.

2) Half-Mile Spacing for Heavy Rail is standard (and related to how far people picture themselves walking, particularly in the rain/snow)

It is .5 miles from South Station to POSq or Broad Street (just beyond International Place). State Street getting pretty marginal--it can't be pitched/marketed as "close to commuter rail"

It is a 1.1mile walk from North Station to South Station. The problem is that "Aquarium/Waterfront/State are off that direct axis (it is 1.3 miles to walk the Greenway from SS to N). So Central Station ends up being .7 miles from North Station and .6 miles from South Station. Pretty good spacing.

3) We need to off-load CR-Subway transfers in the core so that the Subway can be used for Subway trips.

It'd be better to push at least of some Northside growth (like CR from NH) into a Central Station than to see them spilling into the Orange to get to State/DTX or doing a Green-Blue to get to Aquarium

4) If we want to implement a Congestion Charge on the whole Core, Central Station is the kind easy transit alternative that you'd want to offer. (to deliver tourists to the North End/Aquarium, for example). The NE Aquarium itself struggles with access (tourists don't walk that far).

4) Connections build the network.

As bigeman points out, Central connects to the Blue. That's got to drive improved values for urban development @ Maverick (E. Bos Waterfront), Airport, and Suffok Downs

 

[George_Apley]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Quoting F-Line for posterity. He has weighed in with his opinion on Central Station before.

I do think he missed the boat on worrying about diesels, since AFAIK, no diesels will be using the Link.

Otherwise though, I agree with him that the Central Station has more drawbacks than benefits.

The problem with Central Station is less the track capacity than the fact it is badly constrained by the point in the tunnel it's supposed to be located:

-- 100 feet below the already 100 ft. below ground Aquarium at the deepest part of the tunnel, which is an excruciating 5-7 minute escalator ride to the surface with not much room to build escalators. Just picture a bad day at Porter when the up escalator is out of service, double the length of it, and add more out-of-towners carrying bags. Yep...I see resiliency problems with that setup.
-- The cavern is going to be somewhat narrow, claustrophobic, and bunker-like. Not a very pleasant place to dwell.
-- The tracks sit at the very bottom grade of the tunnel and incline slightly in one direction, meaning the platforms will tilt ever-so-slightly uphill and be really disorienting to stand on.
-- Because the trains stop at the very bottom there's an big acceleration penalty in each direction to get from a dead stop up a 2% grade. This is going to be a very slow trip, and that will crimp capacity slightly on the trains passing through without stopping when they get stuck behind one starting up the grade at 10 MPH. EMU's should handle it OK, but on the diesel branches that run in push-pull with clumsy dual mode locomotives this is going to be a real schedule penalty.
-- The platforms are capped at max 800 ft. length by the space constraints. That will just fit the longest Providence and Worcester consists today. 2030...they're probably going to be longer than this station can handle, and that means doors on the rear cars won't be able to open. Large dwell penalty when all those people have to enter/exit single-file through the front cars. And Amtrak can't stop here at all even if it wanted to because the Regionals are already 10 cars.


Are all those compromises worth the $2B it's going to take to bore out that cavern at the deepest point in Boston anyone has ever tried to civil engineer something? Hell no. It's defective by design.


This would be a good place to plunk a rapid transit station with a narrow Broadway-like single island platform. If a good third of the ridership is just using it to transfer to/from Blue that's not going to be a huge crush of people taking a 5-minute escalator ride all the way to the surface. You don't need much space for that...at least half of it would fit just by thinning out the center dividing wall between the 2 tunnel bores in that one 400 ft. spot. With no need for a sloping platform because subway cars can climb much steeper grades than RR trains from a level spot at the bottom. May only cost a few hundred mil instead of $2B+...consistent with the going rate for an infill subway stop a la Charles MGH Under on Red-Blue.

 

[MBTAddict]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Which rapid transit line would go there though?

 

[underground]

Re: North-South Rail Link

@arlington

I don't think anyone is arguing that Central Station isn't a plus in a vacuum. The issue is the engineering and the cost, which make the cost/benefit absurd. It's something the Soviet's wouldn't even have included in the Moscow Subway.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Which rapid transit line would go there though?

F-Line's "Red-X" plan.

To quote:

I would even, as I've mentioned before, consider dedicating the second 2-track bore of the Link to rapid transit for a N-S subway link with a low-profile Aquarium station transfer to Blue instead of the Central CR station of suck. It would be very easy to do, especially via Red Line because the Cabot Yard lead tracks are only a couple blocks away from where the Link hits Dot Ave. Easiest to do by forking Red into an 2 x 2 branch "X" at Columbia Jct. where the total grade separation lets you run equal capacity Alewife-Ashmont, (wherever via Link)-Braintree, etc. with no track sharing or impacts to the existing Red. Go up the Cabot Yard leads, then dip into a tunnel with a Broadway intermediate stop (maybe on the upper level in the old trolley tunnel), and get on-alignment into the Link. HRT can descend deep on steeper grades than RR, so it's a lot less tunnel construction to get that far underground. Go to North Station above the Orange level essentially completing the superstation on both floors, and double the width of the Orange tunnel under the Charles to spit out at the same portal under the Leverett ramp. Maybe then cross over BET on the surface and connect to GLX relieving Green of the Medford branch. Then continuing to Woburn whenever they want to continue to Woburn.

Because the RR tracks in the Link would not handle anywhere near as many trains per day as the fragile 2 NEC tracks from NJ to Penn Station, and unlike Penn would still be in one unified bore with crossovers for resiliency against a track outage...2 tracks is not a big capacity or reliability crunch. Really...they've been doing this on zero margin at Penn for 100 years, and we will never see thru traffic the likes of which would require a Gateway Tunnel bolt-on. But that HRT proposal is just my opinion for maximum possible ridership and return on investment...4 RR tracks through the tunnel is plenty good too.

 

[datadyne007]

Re: North-South Rail Link

The London Underground uses large pass-thru (enter on one side, exit on the other) elevators travelling around 350-400fpm in some very deep stations in lieu of long escalator rides. The small elevator from the concourse to the platforms at Porter travels at 250fpm. It's unfortunate they didn't make a large set of elevators when they modernized Porter, which could have relieved some loading on those aging slow escalators.

The other points he raises are valid, but there are ways to get people into and out of deep stations efficiently.

 

[DigitalSciGuy]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Unsure how much we're discounting Central Station for what would be a lack of space, but I thought we were talking about not having trains dwell at Central Station? What are the logistics of using North and South Station for crew transfers and taking advantage of space there for any necessary layovers rather than burdening the design of Central Station with that task?

Also, how bad would it really be to have only the 'front' 8 cars of a Regional platform at Central Station? We can't possibly be talking about such a time penalty that it would be unfeasible - the passenger volumes of people boarding and unloading from a Regional at Central Station would arguably be less than the whole train trying to cram through the one or two end vestibule doors. And thinking 30 years in the future, do we see Amtrak running trainsets more like the EMUs at higher frequencies, but with shorter trains?

Some of the listed drawbacks sound more like smaller technical caveats that shouldn't otherwise get in the way of greater network connectivity. Citing myself as an example, I work at 255 State from JP and my commute could probably be cut in half if I could take fast, frequent electric service from Forest Hills up the SWC into Central Station. My morning Orange Line train is already full when it hits Green and many get off at Downtown Crossing, but the train really empties out at State. From my ground-level perspective, I see a compelling case for extra capacity on the subway if we build Central Station.

Also thinking 30 years in the future (after this project is completed), if we skipped out on Central Station, how much would we really regret not having built that connection with Aquarium?

 

[MBTAddict]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I feel like the connection to Aquarium gets more important if we want to bring in the ridership form Lynn via BLX.

 

[Arlington]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Alon Levy got us talking about it because he does a decent job of addressing the serious issues raised by F-Line, and in showing track-platform plans that can fit in the tight Central space (by fitting it all "in tube" rather than needing a station cavern. Caverns are too expensive (esp in the tight space @ aquarium), but parallel tubes might work, esp by spreading connecting crowds)

 

[George_Apley]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I feel like the connection to Aquarium gets more important if we want to bring in the ridership form Lynn via BLX.

Not really if Lynn also has an EMU stop on a Peabody Line that runs through the link itself...

Alon Levy got us talking about it because he does a decent job of addressing the serious issues raised by F-Line, and in showing track-platform plans that can fit in the tight Central space (by fitting it all "in tube" rather than needing a station cavern. Caverns are too expensive (esp in the tight space @ aquarium), but parallel tubes might work, esp by spreading connecting crowds)

He does indeed. I still don't really see it being worth it though. All else equal, if it came down to building the NSRL without Central Station or not at all, I wouldn't view the Central Station as something to die on the hill for.

 

[kevtron2000]

Re: North-South Rail Link

North Station would serve as a direct connection to the Orange Line and Green Line, Central Station would serve as a direct connection to the Blue Line, and South Station would serve as a direct connection to the Red Line. These stops are to serve connecting passengers more than to serve people walking to destinations near the stops themselves. Without any one of the three, the core subway stations become more strained with passengers transferring to-from their unconnected lines.

Quick Transfers. I like that, though the Red-Line-Blue Line Connector needs to be built first, before we can see the cost vs benefit of placing Central Station.

 

[underground]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Not really if Lynn also has an EMU stop on a Peabody Line that runs through the link itself...

The money for Central Station would more than pay for a fix to Chelsea's grade crossings.