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

Re: North-South Rail Link

DigitalSciGuy said:
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?
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I just don't see the blue line as being on par with the quality of transfering to other lines, especially when EMUs to Lynn enter the picture. Unless there are plans for massive growth and redevelopment along the Blue Line, there aren't any destinations which couldn't be accessed from another mode. MGH=Red, Airport=Silver, and Lynn/the rest of BLX will share a ROW with EMUs on the Eastern Route.

The value for Central Station is really in the better, direct downtown access others have already mentioned, not a blue transfer for suburban CR commuters. Based on what I've read so far, it seems like the major drawback to CS is trying to accomodate the typical, sluggish dual-mode push-pull CR and Amtrak, whereas a Red Line branch could (allegedly) easily make the station work. Now, what if EMUs from the Commuter Rail ran through the RLX F-Line described, while Amtrak and the mostly 495 bound dual-modes use their own tube bypassing the Central Station shit show.

This would allow for a much cheaper, non-bunker Central Station and would provide rapid transit level of service between the 3 major stations with direct connections to every transit line. Also, this would give an Indigo line of EMUs their own ROW through the heart of the city and could be scaled up to provide rapid transit headways to massively underserved cities like Lynn, Lowell, Salem, Reading, Chelsea, etc. The majority of expansion plans and crazy pitches want to add subway service alongside existing ROWs to reach destinations like these for billions more. (Think BLX, OLX north, etc.)

The obvious downside of this would be fare collection, as pre-payment would be impossible to implement at stations shared with regular commuter rail. The T would either have insane dwell times from Green Line style front door boarding, be forced to hire a ton of extra conductors/ticket collectors, or finally get around to proof of payment system with ticket machines at stations shared with CR. If the FRA requires more personnel on the EMUs, then just hire the bouncers put out of work from the T canceling late night weekend service to "enforce" the proof of payment system.

Although I'm starting to get into crazy pitch territory, the rail-link would potentially offer 5 styles of rail travel for the city, with 4 sharing tracks and facilities.

1. Local, frequent rapid transit (Trolleys and HRT) for dense urban areas
2. Local rapid transit, but running along CR ROWs with lots of infill (Proposed Indigo routes, Fairmount, Riverside/Framingham, Lynn, Waltham, Reading, etc)
3. Local EMU commuter service to major cites mostly inside 128 (Salem/Beverly, Lowell, etc)
4. Dual mode/diesel expresses to Worcester, Providence, outer commuters
5. Amtrak long distance and high speed rail
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

The central station money would be far better spent on doing red-blue and upgrading the ROWs through Chelsea and along the south east expressway. As for the argument on access to the State St area, the orange line goes there too... southside commuters would just ride through the link and get off at north station. Again, instead of spending money on a superfluous and logistically complicated central station, increasing frequencies on the OL would have greater benefit. As has been mentioned, a direct CR to blue line link isn't really required, the high profile destinations are served by other modes.

The only way a central station really make sense is if it's 2 tubes for CR, and two for a hypothetical subway. But even then I don't think it's necessary; the Atlantic ave El was torn down almost a century ago because the demand just wasn't there, and the waterfront arguably gets less traffic now than it did on the 20s
 
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Re: North-South Rail Link

The only reason you would need a Central Station-Blue Line connection would to allow suburban riders to get to the airport... which is now possible at South Station via Silver Line.

There is really no need for a Central Station at all. If the point of the NS Link is to allow through running then you have to assume that the greatest impact it will have is allowing commuters from the north a one seat ride to the Financial District and the Back Bay. Second you will open up one seat rides from the south to smaller job centers north of Boston. Third is allowing a through route for Amtrak from Portland or NH (whenever they get their shit together) to RI and NYC.

The unknown is how the NS Link will effect commuting patterns. The Green Line was built when trolleys were slow and clogged the streets but it changed the way people commuted via rapid transit so much so that the city developed differently because of it, as did the traffic (which is why so many branches changed throughout the years).

Boston's historical advantage was that you had to transfer there, you had to get off in the city. If you wanted to get anywhere else you needed to go there first and when you were there you may as well stay and work/spend money. Through service has the potential to change how people move and live throughout the greater Boston area in ways we can't even predict. It will be a generational shift and will take a generation to start to come into view (a generation AFTER the NS Link is opened).

What does that mean? That a Central Station is even less necessary since people will be moving through Boston more than they will be stopping in Boston. Transfers at a Central Station will be so minimal that the station will hardly be necessary. It's not like it's THAT far from South Station, get out and walk.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Transfers at Central Station might be dominated by cross-platform transfers between these "RER" lines that we are imagining. More so than to the Blue Line.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Matthew said:
Transfers at Central Station might be dominated by cross-platform transfers between these "RER" lines that we are imagining. More so than to the Blue Line.
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I'm not clear on why transferring at a Central Station is better than transferring at North or South stations. All RER-type, through-running lines would be stopping at both of them.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

I think the advantage is you can walk across the platform to change as opposed to up/down and over/under to a separate one, which is nice, but an incredibly marginal upgrade considering the cost involved.

I mean, how many people looking to go Orange north bound to Green west bound travel all the way up to North Station for the cross platform switch? I think it's probably a very small number compared the the number that get off at Downtown Crossing and Haymarket, and both of those transfers are relatively long (and sort of complicated) walks.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Cross-platform transfers significantly reduce the pain of connecting trips. ALon Levy's plan is to give each of the major pairings an ideal place to connect: N-NW at NS, "thru" at Central, and S-S at south Station.

spreading that load is important too. If all connections happen at just two stations you will find that they need to be expensive caverns rather than cheap tubes in order to have enough floor area.

Finally. Yes, it is a big deal to have aState Street CR stop "right there" walkable in just .2 miles instead of .6. That's the kind of convenience that really pushes cars out of the maket even for hardened suburban commuters--which should be a big goal of this: making heavy rail work for the burbs both through and to Boston
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Arlington said:
Cross-platform transfers significantly reduce the pain of connecting trips. ALon Levy's plan is to give each of the major pairings an ideal place to connect: N-NW at NS, "thru" at Central, and S-S at south Station.

spreading that load is important too. If all connections happen at just two stations you will find that they need to be expensive caverns rather than cheap tubes in order to have enough floor area.

Finally. Yes, it is a big deal to have aState Street CR stop "right there" walkable in just .2 miles instead of .6. That's the kind of convenience that really pushes cars out of the maket even for hardened suburban commuters--which should be a big goal of this: making heavy rail work for the burbs both through and to Boston
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I just don't see it as worth the $1-2B extra to build it... it would be nice, but Central Station would not be the "transformational" part of the NSRL. When push comes to shove and funding is tight, I still say ditch Central Station.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

And whose to say that South or North Station underground platforms can't be designed for easy transfers? It's a through run so you aren't going to need that many platforms. At most you'd could have two bi-level platforms with 4 tracks, each level is one direction. Have that at North Station since it would have a smaller volume of passengers than South Station. Problem solved. MetroNorth in NYC has this at the Harlem-125 St station where all trains stop and you can transfer cross platform. You won't need a THIRD station for this.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Yeah, I think that the transfers can be made significantly better than many current MBTA ones with or without Central Station. But, I do think that we, as Americans, don't spend enough time thinking about transfers and the way people walk inside of stations. It's one of those subtle details that show that the designers cared about transit, rather than just viewing transit as yet another make-work project for construction companies to rake big bucks on (and they don't care what they build, so long as they get paid).

I really, really hate the connection from OL-N to GL-W. In fact, I typically try to avoid doing it. I don't mind GL-E to OL-S. Even though it's a bit of a way, it's all flat and pretty quick. But multiple sets of stairs and I say: screw it. I'll look for some other way. Hey, 39 -> 66 doesn't require all those stairs and passageways, might be quicker, and goes to the places I'm going.

When I was in Montreal I was very impressed at the amount of effort that the designers of that system went through in order to create easy cross-platform connections at the outer transfer stations such as Snowdon. The tunnels dip and curve in order to set up the parallel tubes. Even BART has managed to pull off the timed cross-platform transfer, something fairly rare for a transit agency in the United States.

Americans "hate" transfers and "prefer" single-seat rides because American subway systems have historically mostly sucked at handling transfers. If you do it right, you'll change perceptions.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Transfers was something that mid-century systems really took to heart. Early systems like Boston's and New York's (not to mention many early European systems) didn't see the importance of seamless transfers since, I'm assuming, rapid transit users were used to transferring from trains to trolleys all the time.

Fun fact: when NYC was designing the city run subway (Independent) they purposely designed it so that all local trains would terminate within their borough; local Manhattan trains would terminate in downtown Manhattan, local Brooklyn trains would terminate in downtown Brooklyn, and local Queens trains would run to Brooklyn via the Crosstown Line and terminate in downtown Brooklyn. If you wanted to get to another borough (Manhattan mostly) you HAD to transfer to an express train (assuming you weren't already on the express train).

This proved so unpopular that the city had to build new connections and tunnels to adjust the subway to how riders actually wanted to ride it. It's why the G train sucks so much (it doesn't go into Manhattan) and why the subways in Queens have been clogged since they opened (two new tunnels were added to the original system which bottlenecks already heavy traffic).

I'm also generalizing a lot for people not that familiar with the NYC subway, but still.

So anyway... back to transfers. Yes, building a seamless transfer along the NS Link would be very beneficial. It would also be more expensive than the original two track tunnel envisioned decades ago. The thing that sucks is that any NS Link is going to have to be rethought for today's needs and realities (post Big Dig) and will still end up costing billions even with a Central Station removed (and especially if this multi-level platform transfer thing is built).
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

London the model for all rail and transit doesn't use through trains for long haul or commuter rail

Trains coming from one direction stop at peripheral stations or sometimes in-town stations and people then transfer to the Tube to get to the other side of the city and another train

This train to train commuter rail model is a fantasy -- I'd bet less than 1% of commuters from traditional north shore venues would transfer to an outbound south station type of venue

The only realistic transfers are from commuter rail to Amtrak as even Amtrak Downeaster is insignificant compared to the NE Corridor service

File this whole discussion under Crazy Transit and Rail Pitches
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Perhaps you are right. Besides it's not like when the NS Link is opened that all trips are going to run through; I'm sure you will still have at least 50% of rush hour trips terminating at South Station or North Station.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

London is adding through commuter rail service with the Crossrail projects.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

I think "through" is a relative term. Much will be one seat rides to places that are still core (but the trips, by staying on EMU offload the subways and power lots of system ridership)
Southside <-> Porter (Harvard by backtrack)
Northside <-> South Sta & seaport/airport
NS to Back Bay/Ruggles (offloads Green/orange)

Making any place (North or Central) an "NEC" destination will do a lot to spread development north of Post Office Square (a good and profitable thing)

But if not through, Central still functions a lot like the 5th Ave stop on NYC's 7 train (midway between GCT and Times Sq) ...the only stop in a very dense area that prefers a shorter walk to their ride to the burbs (Queens, in the 7's case)

F-line postulates that it be left for a later Red Line spur, rather than a 4 track NSRL. That may be the price of getting a 2 track NSRL a built quickly. But we are going to want a stop there eventually.
 
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Re: North-South Rail Link

Transfers in older American systems may be annoying, but they are nothing compared to transferring lines in old European systems, like Paris and London. Windy passages, up and down stairs, across other platforms, etc. North Station is a breeze compared to Chatelet-Les Halles, which is the busiest subway station in the World. I doubt transfer ease matters that much.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

The new North Station is actually one of the better designs for transfers between Orange and Green. It's clear that there was some thoughtfulness here.

For commuter rail, though, ugh.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

If you can tell a horror story about some aspect of transit, please accept that it seriously de-motivates trips. Search your own feelings: don't you much prefer Red-Green at Park than, say, the terrible Orange-Blue at State? Or prefer Green-Orange at North Station to Haymarket, and, in turn, prefer that to the walk at Park that you can technically do (but near-nobody does)? Your preferences are shared by lots of other people. Aggregated, they determine how heavily used a facility will be.

In the airline business, the old rule of thumb was that Non-stops are preferred 28:1 versus connections. That's how much people hate connections.

One-stops (same plane, but you land, dwell, and take off, but with no risk of your connection not being there) are preferred 8:1 versus connections (and Nonstops were preferred 28:8 versus one-stops)

I don't have transit stats, but the Cross-Platform transfer is a lot like the "one stop". People are going to choose it for its ease. It will drain crowds from South Station and North Station platforms, and it will encourage connecting through trips simply by making them easier, boosting ridership and boosting payback on the whole NSRL investment.

Combine that with the good that a State Street station would do FiDi north of POSq (.2mi walk to CR to near-all points of the metro compass) and to Haymarket/Quincy (which would gain great access to the South Shore and NEC).

Is it enough to pay an extra $1b to $2b? It seems like its getting close.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

No one is saying that cross platform, single seats, etc isn't preferable. The debate is over how preferable and at what price tag. If it's $0, obvious yes, but it's not $0. It's ~$2B.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

underground said:
No one is saying that cross platform, single seats, etc isn't preferable. The debate is over how preferable and at what price tag. If it's $0, obvious yes, but it's not $0. It's ~$2B.
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I edited, above, to address this. Central has 3 values which I'd say do add to $2b.

1) Blue connection & network balancing
1a) Offload some Airport/State/MGH trips from SS/Red/Silver (capacity reused for other growth)
1b) Offload transfers from mixing at NS and SS (can be built smaller/cheaper/tailored to their best cross-platform cnx)
1c) Improved ferry/water access (minor)

2) Cross-platform transfers boosting thru usage. If there are going to be any thru passengers, let's make it easy.

3) Direct increase in land values State-to-Haymarket
3a) Easy walk (.2 miles vs .6) to north FiDi & Lewis/Long/Aquarium
3b) South shore has single-seat direct access to QuincyMkt/SouthHaymarket/
 
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