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

[Wash]

it'd force the outbounds to the easternmost track, which does not serve Assembly (except for if you did it the most kludgy way possible and made all the expresses stop at Assembly, which makes very little sense).

Honestly, that seems like the way to do it. Especially as a "Phase One" while a third assembly square platform is being built.

 

[Brattle Loop]

Honestly, that seems like the way to do it. Especially as a "Phase One" while a third assembly square platform is being built.

Except now I think I made an error in the initial post. I forgot that Assembly doesn't have flanking crossovers. If the center track is the express track, then the expresses could stop at Assembly, but the outbounds couldn't, which seems infeasible. If the easternmost track is the express track, then the locals can all stop at Assembly, but the expresses can't (which is acceptable). It's not a problem in the PM because there's no traffic-sorting issue, but it'd be an issue in the AM because the inbound expresses would have to cross over the outbound-to-center track at Community (via a crossover that does not currently exist), which is operationally problematic. The only way to fix that requires building at least one interlocking and adding a bunch of complexity to operations (not to mention it'd be confusing as hell to passengers at express stations because the inbound expresses would be on a different platform than the inbound locals, which is annoying if you miss a train because of that. At that point it just makes more sense to fast-track the third platform and wait on the expresses. After all, we don't really need to even consider expresses until and unless this OLX to Reading actually happens.

 

[The EGE]

Apparently the MBTA has an RFI open for battery electric multiple units. I don't know any details beyond the link.

 

[Stlin]

Apparently the MBTA has an RFI open for battery electric multiple units. I don't know any details beyond the link.

This is the relevant bits from that RFI; I must say that the MBTAs proposed approach paths being basically a combination of battery EMUs and multi-power locomotives is... Interesting.

That said... Some amount of off wire capability for an EMU is honestly not necessarily a bad idea if the tech is mature and you can avoid having to electrify all the yards, sidings, branches etc, given it's specified that they'll remain on catenary for most of their routes. Ie, Stoughton or TF green for the Providence line - no need to wait for the capital construction of catenary if onboard battery power can do it. Plus, redundancy in the event of a power outage they should be able to make it to a station or to the next active segment rather than being stranded somewhere.

It's not a bad thought actually, but given that I'm pretty sure that battery EMUs are very much in the very early stages of trials, pilots and adoption in Germany and Japan, let alone the US, If this ends up driving the procurement process (and it's just an RFI, so no guarantee it will even get favorable responses from vendors), this will be a rediculously unicorn fleet.

Dual Mode locos on the other hand... I'm not quite as intrigued by or sure is a good idea for acceleration reasons, but it would achieve the same results with a known technology.

 

[Brattle Loop]

It's not a bad thought actually, but given that I'm pretty sure that battery EMUs are very much in the very early stages of trials, pilots and adoption in Germany and Japan, let alone the US, If this ends up driving the procurement process (and it's just an RFI, so no guarantee it will even get favorable responses from vendors), this will be a rediculously unicorn fleet.

Ah, no wonder, ridiculously unicorn fleets is the MBTA's specialty

Also, I'm no expert, but are the harder-to-wire areas really so hard and expensive that they justify the inevitable weight penalty of an EMU carting around its own power storage?

Dual Mode locos on the other hand... I'm not quite as intrigued by or sure is a good idea for acceleration reasons, but it would achieve the same results with a known technology.

I don't much care for dual modes, but given that any electrification of the T is going to take bloody forever, it might not be that bad an idea to have some of them around for the long transition instead of needing two separate, partially-redundant fleets (especially since if I recall correctly much of the non-NSRL Regional Rail would be manageable on diesel/dual-modes, if not ideal)

 

[stick n move]

The Haverhill Line report doesn't go into detail about the tradeoffs it mentions in the choice of OLX to Reading or electrified Regional Rail / double tracked (NSRL world) CR to Reading. One of the tables mentions that removing Reading while routing Haverhill via the Wildcat would create an imbalance of branches for the NSRL, though I don't know if that presumes Needham hasn't similarly been swallowed by the OL and GL or not; it also seems to presuppose that Reading's been double-tracked which is...optimistic (and if that doesn't happen its functionality as a NSRL line pair to anything other than similarly-constrained Needham is questionable at best).

Cutting Reading off of the CR does mean you lose direct NSRL run-through benefits. It'd require transferring at North Station (which would be a doable if fairly long transfer due to depth and station siting) or Back Bay (shorter transfer for applicable CR routes). That said, unless Reading somehow gets double tracked all or most of the way from Sullivan to Oak Grove, it's not going to be running through the NSRL to the south side near as much as some of the other lines because of the pair-matching problem, so a fair number of the Regional Rail CR trains in that instance would be terminating on the surface anyway.

OLX brings a bunch of benefits, albeit at a cost, and it's worth noting that the political lift needed to electrify the extant CR line is probably an order of magnitude easier than bringing the OL through. Melrose was...not exactly on board with the idea of the Orange Line coming through town the last time, and I don't get the sense that it'll be much less controversial the next time around. (I still think the T absolutely should do it, but we live in a world where the transportation agency is beholden to the politicians who fund it, so...we'll see.)

Im sure a few of you have read this, but I came across this article a bit ago that makes a pretty good case for extending the OL one stop to wyoming hill as a really good bang for your buck extension to serve melrose. Oak grove was never supposed/designed to be a terminal, and the lot fills up by 7:30am. Most of the drivers parking at oak grove are coming from melrose, which is crazy because its barely 1 town over. Extending the tracks one station further serves melrose and takes a ton of pressure off oak grove. Combine this with a new terminal and better bus routes to the station in melrose and it takes a lot of cars off the road and better uses the transit we already have.
http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-case-to-extend-orange-line-to.html?m=1

 

[Brattle Loop]

Im sure a few of you have read this, but I came across this article a bit ago that makes a pretty good case for extending the OL one stop to wyoming hill as a really good bang for your buck extension to serve melrose. Oak grove was never supposed/designed to be a terminal, and the lot fills up by 7:30am. Most of the drivers parking at oak grove are coming from melrose, which is crazy because its barely 1 town over. Extending the tracks one station further serves melrose and takes a ton of pressure off oak grove. Combine this with a new terminal and better bus routes to the station in melrose and it takes a lot of cars off the road and better uses the transit we already have.
http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-case-to-extend-orange-line-to.html?m=1

Oh my. Yikes, yeah, talk about decent ideas that are never gonna happen.

First massive problem comes from the fact that that parking lot isn't the T's. It's operated as a municipal lot (much to the T's annoyance), but as far as I can tell that parcel is actually owned by Melrose-Wakefield Hospital. So just to open up the possibility of building on (part of) it, you'd need the city to agree to lose out on revenue, and you'd need to get the hospital to, presumably, rent or sell you its parcel. Not to mention the fact that part of the remaining lot and the narrow end of the driveway are the main access points to a diner, whose owners surely wouldn't be pleased if no one could ever get to their front door at breakfast because of a line of cars serving the Orange Line terminal.

Here's the thing, though. All of those problems are relatively simple to solve with the proper application of sufficient funds. What hasn't been addressed is the problem of Melrose itself. This would go over like the proverbial lead balloon. I'm depressingly familiar with my home town and it's, ah, aversion to change shall we say. I've heard tell that Oak Grove is right on the Malden side of the line because Melrose wanted no part of it in their city, and I have absolutely no trouble believing that story. And in the case of a Wyoming terminal, it wouldn't just be hysterics.

W. Wyoming on that stretch is already no picnic, traffic-wise, at various times of day, and that factor's way worse when people are dropping off and picking up their kids from the school that's two blocks away (and that proximity is also pretty sure to be a catalyst for more hysterics of the classist/racist-but-not-in-those-terms, "who will think of the children" sort of way). Adding the inevitable traffic impacts (even if they're not as bad as Oak Grove's) and doing it where it's noticeable (as opposed to in Malden), especially where they'll be intermittently exacerbated by the Commuter Rail's continuing presence, is not going to go over well. I highly suspect that any local politician who tried to float this as a trial balloon would get shouted down almost instantaneously, and the city council is not, as a rule, composed of idiots, so they'd probably think twice before suggesting it again in that scenario.

Getting the city to go along with full OLX to Reading will not be easy even with the benefits of better service (for those who use the T or might use it) and eliminating the grade crossings, and that's without the massive disincentive of a terminal served by roads lacking the capacity to support them. Just dump the terminal right there at Wyoming and a fairly sizeable and insanely-loud section of the town will freak out, and there's, regrettably, a very good chance that a (hysterically disingenuous) "bad for our kids"-type argument would gain traction, and, around here, whenever that happens it's pretty much the writing on the wall.

(It's depressing being a transit nerd in this town. You'd think from some of the NIMBYs' reactions that any proposal, no matter how modest, is actually a front for banning all cars. At least the city's not completely hopeless when it comes to bike lanes, though.)

 

[Charlie_mta]

As for eliminating the grade crossings on an OLX to Reading, as I recall from the 1960s the Orange Line cars were to have overhead catenary on the Reading extension, They would still have third rail on the existing OL line, and change to overhead, similar to the Blue Line. The overhead catenary would supposedly allow the grade crossings to remain That was back in the 60s, so I don't know if tighter rules about that are currently in effect by FRA.

 

[Brattle Loop]

As for eliminating the grade crossings on an OLX to Reading, as I recall from the 1960s the Orange Line cars were to have overhead catenary on the Reading extension, They would still have third rail on the existing OL line, and change to overhead, similar to the Blue Line. The overhead catenary would supposedly allow the grade crossings to remain That was back in the 60s, so I don't know if tighter rules about that are currently in effect by FRA.

I don't know specific rules, but I have heard it said here and elsewhere that the FTA is unlikely to permit HRT grade crossings on (effectively) new construction (which Reading conversion would be) nowadays, meaning that the Reading Line grade crossings would have to go. It would be easier to remove them on HRT versus CR because the Orange Line can handle steeper grades.

 

[Scalziand]

Also, I'm no expert, but are the harder-to-wire areas really so hard and expensive that they justify the inevitable weight penalty of an EMU carting around its own power storage?

Some of the hard to wire areas are undoubtedly low clearance bridges which might be prohibitively expensive to raise if undercutting isn't possible.
Having significant onboard batteries would also reduce peak power draw, which would reduce the size and/or number of required substations, which would help further reduce the upfront costs of installing the catenary.

 

[Arlington]

The energy density of batteries per kg or per liter is really bad compared to diesel, but least you aren't hauling a giant 12-cylinder prime mover and big honkin alternator. I suspect they'd get performance in between diesel and pure catenary.

 

[ceo]

I vaguely remember F-Line saying that the only low-clearance bridge on the system that can't be modified to allow for catenary is the Memorial Drive bridge over the Grand Junction, which isn't used in revenue service.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

I vaguely remember F-Line saying that the only low-clearance bridge on the system that can't be modified to allow for catenary is the Memorial Drive bridge over the Grand Junction, which isn't used in revenue service.

I'm guessing you meant the BU Bridge. The BU Bridge has one of (perhaps the) most restrictive clearances on the commuter rail network. Lowering the Grand Jct doesn't really work unless you eliminate Storrow Drive (please do!), and raising the Grand Jct would require blowing up the BU Bridge and raising that first, which would be one hell of a project for little gain.

 

[Brattle Loop]

I'm guessing you meant the BU Bridge. The BU Bridge has one of (perhaps the) most restrictive clearances on the commuter rail network. Lowering the Grand Jct doesn't really work unless you eliminate Storrow Drive (please do!), and raising the Grand Jct would require blowing up the BU Bridge and raising that first, which would be one hell of a project for little gain.

For what it's worth, F-Line specifically mentioned the Memorial Drive overpass over the Grand Junction as the problem here. Quoted below:

The Grand Junction does not have overhead clearance under the Memorial Drive overpass for 25 kV wire to safely clear existing T equipment unless there was an insulated dead section and enough speed over the very slow Charles River bridge to coast through the unpowered length. That's an unfortunate demerit for trying to do the RUR shuttle idea, and also why the T's actual advertisement for EMU's doesn't spec that line as one of the first to be electrified. Kludges are required....eminently doable kludges in the real world, but unfavorable and non-ideal nonetheless.

 

[Riverside]

Replying to an NSRL discussion happening over in the Bus/BRT thread:

Did I miss something? What has you saying NSRL is "not happening?"

General answer: *gestures vaguely at... everything*

Lengthier answer: Okay so I want to start by saying unequivocally: the NSRL needs to be built. The NSRL needs to be built. The NSRL needs to be built.

Second, I also want to have us pause and reflect on the term "not happening". At various points in the last 10 years, both GLX and South Coast Rail were "not happening". These projects necessarily have a long gestation period, and therefore have a long period of time where they can be halted, or paused. But when you look on the long view, most of these projects have a long enough and torturous enough development period that it's not really useful to say at any one point in time whether it's "happening" or not.

But third: NSRL has major hurdles to overcome, and frankly I think sometimes those of us in the pro-transit sphere don't give these hurdles enough credence, making us look out of touch.

First: I don't have polling data to back this up, so am happy to be corrected. But I'm reasonably confident that the Big Dig burned public goodwill in major construction projects to a crisp. For folks who live in/near downtown, or work within walking distance of the Greenway, they see the transformative benefits of the Big Dig every day, in very concrete terms. But for everyone else, they don't experience what we see as an "active benefit" -- at best, we experience it as the absence of a negative, which is much less effective at generating goodwill. Moreover, the Big Dig has the image of going over budget, costing lots of money to begin with, being disruptive to locals and commuters, being delayed, and then having quality problems after completion (e.g. falling ceiling tiles).

I don't think that lack of goodwill is insurmountable, but I think it's a conversation we need to have, and be confident and reassuring to a public who reasonably asks, "How do I know this won't just be Big Dig 2.0?"

Second: while there has been some improvement on this in recent years, there remains much work to be done to articulate the benefit of the NSRL to the public. Connecting North Station and South Station sounds like a railfan's completionist wishlist. No one wants to go to South Station or North Station in the first place -- what people want is to "connect the North Shore to Back Bay and Longwood", for example.

Equally so, we need to let go of the clever but ultimately ineffective visual of the commuter rail map emphasizing the gap between North Station and South Station in the context of the whole commuter rail system. Like I said above, this isn't about connecting Mansfield to Salem -- it’s about connecting Beverly to Longwood, Norwood to the Bulfinch Triangle, Waltham to the Pru. This is about diverting riders away from the Orange Line, into a new tunnel through downtown, increasing capacity on the entire system overall.

Finally: setting aside the need to convince the public, and setting aside the construction cost and logistics, the elephant in the room is that you can't run diesel trains through a tunnel like the NSRL. Now, I'm not saying that you need to have the whole system electrified before starting construction -- but I am saying that any reasonable politician will argue that there at least needs to be a plan for electrification, which there is not right now.

TransitMatters has it right: the NSRL is a component of a multi-phase transformation into regional rail, of which the NSRL is either the grand finale, or part of Act 3 at the earliest. Success on those earlier phases -- frequent, reliable all-day service with fare integration -- will help build public support to overcome the first two hurdles I describe above.

But this -- all this ^^^ -- is why the NSRL isn't just a problem of political cowardice. It is a legitimately complex project with multiple prerequisites. And, frankly, MA does not have a great track record with such things, all the more so when they are transit-related. So, "is it happening?" is an unanswerable question, and a healthy dose of skepticism remains sadly called-for. And assuming that "it's not happening" remains a reasonable bet.

 

[737900er]

Unlike many other transit projects, NSRL would provide relatively little benefit to the residents of the neighborhoods, or even city, in which its construction would be most disruptive. Fairmount doesn't really have a nice pairing on the north side, so would likely continue to terminate at South Station.

As you wrote, Big Dig had a clear benefit: vehicles go away and central artery comes down. NSRL doesn't have that. It's not like people who live in the North End are complaining about their lack of connection to Weymouth Landing or people who live in Seaport are complaining about their lack of one-seat-ride to South Acton.

Like you said, it would provide a small benefit to many municipalities outside 128 and on the north shore, but there are no big winners like most of the _X projects, and thus champions.

But I'm reasonably confident that the Big Dig burned public goodwill in major construction projects to a crisp.

The Big Dig was done almost 15 years ago. For anyone under 35 or who moved here in the last 15 years, they don't really remember it (or what it was like before it). Smaller projects like GLX or even the Comm Ave bridges and Government Center reconstructions, Terminal E expansion, etc. have shown that there is the ability to do projects right here. Part of the messaging has to be "we learned lessons X, Y, and Z from Big Dig and it will be different because we already dealt with these problems in that project" though.

 

[Riverside]

The Big Dig was done almost 15 years ago. For anyone under 35 or who moved here in the last 15 years, they don't really remember it (or what it was like before it). Smaller projects like GLX or even the Comm Ave bridges and Government Center reconstructions, Terminal E expansion, etc. have shown that there is the ability to do projects right here. Part of the messaging has to be "we learned lessons X, Y, and Z from Big Dig and it will be different because we already dealt with these problems in that project" though.

This is a fair point, and well-made. I still think there is enough institutional and political memory of the Big Dig to create inertia, but that will indeed ease with the passage of time.

Unlike many other transit projects, NSRL would provide relatively little benefit to the residents of the neighborhoods, or even city, in which its construction would be most disruptive. Fairmount doesn't really have a nice pairing on the north side, so would likely continue to terminate at South Station.

As you wrote, Big Dig had a clear benefit: vehicles go away and central artery comes down. NSRL doesn't have that. It's not like people who live in the North End are complaining about their lack of connection to Weymouth Landing or people who live in Seaport are complaining about their lack of one-seat-ride to South Acton.

Like you said, it would provide a small benefit to many municipalities outside 128 and on the north shore, but there are no big winners like most of the _X projects, and thus champions.

Gonna push back hard on this, actually, just to clarify a few things.

Construction: as I understand it, because the NSRL will be deep-bored, there actually will be relatively little impact at surface level -- certainly nothing like the Big Dig. Significant impact at the portals, yes, but that's more localized, and most of the portals are in industrial-ish areas.

Lack of benefit to locals: this is not true, and goes back to my point about the need to rework the messaging. Right now (or at least pre-covid), inbound Orange Line and Green Line trains need to pick up huge numbers of commuter rail passengers to carry them the last mile to their employment center, from North Station and Back Bay. The crush load on the Orange Line core is radically reduced with an NSRL, freeing up capacity and speeding up service (shorter dwells) for local residents.

In my opinion, Fairmount is actually the most likely to get routed through the NSRL -- not as full suburban runs to Lowell or Rockport, but as short-turns to Waltham/Weston or Lynn/Salem. (Fairmount would actually pair match pretty nicely with a Peabody Branch.)

The Fairmount-Waltham idea is illustrative of an additional major benefit the NSRL would provide to local residents. Both by virtue of the capacity increase and the frequency increase, an NSRL would essentially allow us to create two (or perhaps three) full-on near-rapid transit lines, with branches to Waltham, the North Shore, Fairmount, and Allston/Brighton/Newton/Riverside. (Remember, even with the NSRL built, the current North Station and South Station remain in place, meaning you have capacity to run many more trains into Boston, even if not all of them are running through the tunnel.)

This would provide enormous increases in access for residents of Dorchester, Mattapan, Allston, Brighton, Newton, Watertown (via Newton Corner), Waltham, Belmont, Somerville, Everett (depending on station site), Chelsea, Lynn, Salem, and the Seaport. It would open up new one-seat rides to satellite employment areas like Longwood, Sullivan, Waltham, Dedham/128 (if extended), in addition to the new cross-downtown access described earlier.

(For example, compare the experience of a Chelsea rider working in Longwood before and after NSRL: before, it's probably the 111 to Haymarket, followed by a crowded transfer to the Orange Line or maybe the Green. That becomes an easy and significantly faster journey with the NSRL, potentially in a single seat.)

And there are benefits to residents in the core as well. Yes, it's true that Seaport residents aren't kicking to go to South Acton, but Waltham, Sullivan, and several places on the North Shore would be compelling. And with the aforementioned frequency increases, Seaport residents will also have much better access to Back Bay and Longwood.

And while residents of the North End may not be as excited about their new possible destinations, employers in Downtown, Back Bay, and the Seaport would be thrilled to see their pool of potential job applicants double. We know that Boston's job market is essentially bifurcated based on the North Station/South Station split. NSRL mitigates that enormously.

Likewise, residents of Downtown, the North End, and Seaport might not care about all the places they could now travel to by train... but they absolutely would be thrilled to have less traffic on their streets. I'd need to go and find the specific paper again, but there is research that suggests that the reduction in auto traffic on 93 would be significant enough that it would actually drop below a major "speed threshold" -- the road would be uncrowded enough that traffic would naturally flow faster, which speeds journeys for those who can't use public transit, and would have a major impact on emissions and air quality.

(Imagine the difference it would make on the Tobin if enough of those North Shore commuters coming down Route 1 could be diverted on to a train. Say hello to faster 111 trips!)

^^^ All of this is why that graphic emphasizing the gap between the northside network and southside network is ineffective. It does nothing to articulate the ripple benefits, and it leaves folks with the very understandable misconception that the North-South Rail Link would not help local residents of Boston and the surrounding cities.

Sorry for the wall of text! I don't mean to come off harsh -- like I said, I think what you said is a very common notion of what the NSRL would do, and I think it's very understandable, given the way the project has been talked about for decades. But it's so important that we start to shift our mindset on this! The NSRL will be a big lift, and I remain pessimistic about our ability to carry it off. But it's also vital to understand the literally transformative benefits it would bring.

 

[SouthEnder88]

Has the Cross Harbor Link in the BPDA's Seaport transit long-term strategy mix been discussed much on here? I hadn't seen it before. Seems to be quasi-NSRL sans the North Station part (but would appear to make the fancy Courthouse Station buildout in the Seaport finally make sense.

 

[Riverside]

I discussed a similar proposal in Crazy Transit Pitches a couple of years ago. I think it's a poor alternative to NSRL, in part because it reduces the number of trains you can run through the core tunnel, limited to whatever you can furnish from, and accommodate at, Lynn. Also, redirecting Providence and Franklin trains away from South Station proper ends up moving riders away from Downtown, as well as the Red Line transfer, as well as away from the Silver Line transfer -- if I'm reading that diagram correctly, riders would basically get deposited halfway between South Station and Courthouse, and have to walk a quarter mile just to get to a transfer platform. And folks going to World Trade Center would still need to walk a while or change to the Silver Line. Better off keeping trains focused at South Station and making Seaport transit faster and more reliable.

If money is going to be spent building another tunnel across the harbor, it should be an LRT/BRT/express bus tunnel between Seaport and Logan.

 

[tysmith95]

Has the Cross Harbor Link in the BPDA's Seaport transit long-term strategy mix been discussed much on here? I hadn't seen it before. Seems to be quasi-NSRL sans the North Station part (but would appear to make the fancy Courthouse Station buildout in the Seaport finally make sense.

Crazy transit pitches level here. Are you proposing routing the Newburyport Rockport line to south station via the airport and seaport?

As someone who lives on the north shore I would love that! I'm not sure if there's any viable route.