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

MA: North-South Rail Link advocates look to get project back on track
20221208_AMX_US_NEWS_NORTHSOUTH_RAIL_LINK_ADVOCATES_LOOK_1_YB.6392c53eb07a1.png


Supporters of a North-South Rail Link project that’s been batted around for a century are dusting off the proposal and making another push, in hopes the incoming administration will show more interest in the pricey connection than the prior one.

The project, which was last discussed by transit officials in 2018-19 when a MassDOT feasibility study estimated a hefty cost of $8.6-$17.7 billion, would connect the Amtrak and Commuter Rail lines that currently end at North and South station, via a tunnel under downtown Boston.

“We got no movement from the Baker administration on this,” said former Gov. Michael Dukakis, a longtime advocate for the project. “It’s absolutely critical to the future of the city.”

https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail...k-advocates-look-to-get-project-back-on-track
 
stick n move said:
MA: North-South Rail Link advocates look to get project back on track
20221208_AMX_US_NEWS_NORTHSOUTH_RAIL_LINK_ADVOCATES_LOOK_1_YB.6392c53eb07a1.png


Supporters of a North-South Rail Link project that’s been batted around for a century are dusting off the proposal and making another push, in hopes the incoming administration will show more interest in the pricey connection than the prior one.

The project, which was last discussed by transit officials in 2018-19 when a MassDOT feasibility study estimated a hefty cost of $8.6-$17.7 billion, would connect the Amtrak and Commuter Rail lines that currently end at North and South station, via a tunnel under downtown Boston.

“We got no movement from the Baker administration on this,” said former Gov. Michael Dukakis, a longtime advocate for the project. “It’s absolutely critical to the future of the city.”

https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail...k-advocates-look-to-get-project-back-on-track
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“Despite what Gov. Dukakis has said in the past, I think it’s going to be unbelievably expensive,” Chieppo [Senior Fellow at the Pioneer Insitute] said. “To be perfectly frank, my fear is I don’t want to spend a lot of state money for something that is going to partly help Amtrak.”
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This is such a maddening take.
 
People need to stop accepting the purposeful linguistic choice of "Institute" in the context of right wing crank organizations like Pioneer. It adds an air of esteem where none is warranted. Massachusetts Institute of Technology is an institute. Pioneer is just a conservative think tank. They're not an "institute" and they don't have "fellows."
 
Charlie Chieppo can suck his own tailpipe. I don't want to build roads near his house because they might partially get him to and from his job. I don't want to help fund fire departments in his town because they may save him from burning up. I don't want to hire state police in his district because they might save him from a beatdown.
Small-minded cheapskate caveman crap. Basic math for Charlie The Lesser. If you can spend one dollar (obligatory state contribution) and get back 4 dollars (matching fed cash), that's.... lessee.... carry the one.... MORE MONEY!

Build it. Build it now.
 
Riverside said:
This is such a maddening take.
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It's not exactly a new take. Back in the 90s Dukakis (when he was the head of Amtrak) was the only one really pushing the NSRL to the point where people assumed that Amtrak would be the only real beneficiary. Which is why it went nowhere.

Now you have the problem that CR ridership is in the dumps because of WFH.
 
jklo said:
It's not exactly a new take. Back in the 90s Dukakis (when he was the head of Amtrak) was the only one really pushing the NSRL to the point where people assumed that Amtrak would be the only real beneficiary. Which is why it went nowhere.

Now you have the problem that CR ridership is in the dumps because of WFH.
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Doesn't really change the fact that not wanting to spend a bunch of state money on something that will significantly benefit the state, because it will also help Amtrak, is a pretty stupid take. It's one thing to either question whether the project's benefits justify its costs (which the CR's depressed ridership absolutely affects), and it's also fair to ask that the feds contribute to a project that will help them (Amtrak) and the greater New England region, directly and economically. But the quote that led to the "maddening take" description was pure pettiness and, to the extent that it represented an actual position (which it might well have, coming from Pioneer), represented a stupid one. It's a good point you bring up about the misconception that NSRL would mainly benefit Amtrak, but that they benefit is at most a reason for them (or their Congressional masters) to contribute, rather than saying "no tunnel for us" because they'd also get to use it.
 
One thing is for sure and that is that NSRL has to happen for the future growth and economic vitality of the boston metro. The city has had an incredible comeback since its rust belt days, but the infrastructure is near its breaking point. Everybody knows boston has some of the worst traffic in the country, this growth is not guaranteed forever and the cost of living combined with the infrastructure is a ticking time bomb.

We can either rest on our laurels and start to stagnate as the metro crumbles under its own weight or we can build for the future. NSRL is front and center of that future. Since I highly doubt anybody wants boston to stagnate that means we have no choice but to start going forward with NSRL. The fact that were not even in the loi stage of the project is criminal, seeing that its probably going to take 15 years from then to the finish. We dont have to be in the process of constructing it today, but we should be at least part way through the proposal process. Ignoring it like charlie baker has done does not make it go away. We have no choice… so we need to just accept that fact and get on with it. Hopefully Maura Healy recognizes this fact and the status quo does a 180.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Charlie Chieppo can suck his own tailpipe. I don't want to build roads near his house because they might partially get him to and from his job. I don't want to help fund fire departments in his town because they may save him from burning up. I don't want to hire state police in his district because they might save him from a beatdown.
Small-minded cheapskate caveman crap. Basic math for Charlie The Lesser. If you can spend one dollar (obligatory state contribution) and get back 4 dollars (matching fed cash), that's.... lessee.... carry the one.... MORE MONEY!

Build it. Build it now.
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Charlie The Lesser is upset that his phone calls won't ever be returned come 4 weeks from now.

He's an impotent little troll.
 
I'm not even surprised that another naysayer from the Pioneer Institute felt the need to take up an obstructionist stance and pull the "unbelievably expensive" card when it came to NSRL.

As for his fear that the NSRL might "partly help Amtrak"? That's just next level ridiculousness.
 
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Maybe some effort should be made to court conservative support for the project.

I know, thats capital-A Anathema, but given how little progress has been made over the decades, maybe a change of strategy is in order?
 
Brattle Loop said:
but that they benefit is at most a reason for them (or their Congressional masters) to contribute, rather than saying "no tunnel for us" because they'd also get to use it.
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Oh I don't think it's realistic for MA to go it alone given how much it'd cost. There's no question you would need the Feds to pony up.
 
DominusNovus said:
Maybe some effort should be made to court conservative support for the project.

I know, thats capital-A Anathema, but given how little progress has been made over the decades, maybe a change of strategy is in order?
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But what conservatives are we even talking about? If it's federal money we're talking about, the issue is more regional than it is ideological. While I don't doubt that there are plenty of conservatives/Republicans who would happily attack a proposal to spend federal dollars on a transit tunnel in liberal-blue Massachusetts, the thing they all care about the most when it comes to federal money is that their preferences get funded (this particular impulse is decidedly nonpartisan), which is why a project like this would almost certainly need to be part of a larger spending package for horse-trading money for other projects for votes of people (regardless of party) from elsewhere.

Specifically on the question of ideology, there's no meaningful conservative slant one can put on a project like this, unless we're talking the old "pro-business" style of conservatism. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have more support from various companies, employers, economic entities, etc., but even that doesn't necessarily outweigh the old-line conservatives' distaste for government spending and large-scale public works projects. (It's a pity Lockheed Martin doesn't do tunnels, we could call it a military program and get an endless budget.) Modern Trumpist-conservatism is basically tribal warfare, and Boston's in the enemy camp to those types of conservatives, so there's no meaningful support to be found there (well, Trump himself is so vain that maybe if we offered to name it after him, or trade him our electoral votes...)
 
Brattle Loop said:
But what conservatives are we even talking about? If it's federal money we're talking about, the issue is more regional than it is ideological. While I don't doubt that there are plenty of conservatives/Republicans who would happily attack a proposal to spend federal dollars on a transit tunnel in liberal-blue Massachusetts, the thing they all care about the most when it comes to federal money is that their preferences get funded (this particular impulse is decidedly nonpartisan), which is why a project like this would almost certainly need to be part of a larger spending package for horse-trading money for other projects for votes of people (regardless of party) from elsewhere.

Specifically on the question of ideology, there's no meaningful conservative slant one can put on a project like this, unless we're talking the old "pro-business" style of conservatism. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have more support from various companies, employers, economic entities, etc., but even that doesn't necessarily outweigh the old-line conservatives' distaste for government spending and large-scale public works projects. (It's a pity Lockheed Martin doesn't do tunnels, we could call it a military program and get an endless budget.) Modern Trumpist-conservatism is basically tribal warfare, and Boston's in the enemy camp to those types of conservatives, so there's no meaningful support to be found there (well, Trump himself is so vain that maybe if we offered to name it after him, or trade him our electoral votes...)
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Well, if you’re looking for some to win over, try the specific ones being attacked in this thread: the Pioneer Institute. I’ve heard Dukakis stump for the NSRL, and it was just a political speech about why Republicans are evil.

If thats the approach being taken by the most prominent proponents, don’t whine when the people being demonized won’t lift a finger to help.
 
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DominusNovus said:
Well, if you’re looking for some to win over, try the specific ones being attacked in this thread: the Pioneer Institute. I’ve heard Dukakis stump for the NSRL, and it was just a political speech about why Republicans are evil.

If thats the approach being taken by the most prominent proponents, don’t whine when the people being demonized won’t life a finger to help.
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When Tip O'Neill secured the funding for the Big Dig under President Reagan, he did so by not alienating Republicans or conservatives. He wheeled and dealed all of them to get things done. His type of pragmatism is needed today, instead of the tribalism that' has taken over national politics.
 
Charlie_mta said:
When Tip O'Neill secured the funding for the Big Dig under President Reagan, he did so by not alienating Republicans or conservatives. He wheeled and dealed all of them to get things done. His type of pragmatism is needed today, instead of the tribalism that' has taken over national politics.
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Both true and, sadly, of limited applicability to the present. The Congress that funded the Big Dig was dramatically less polarized, ideologically and geographically, than the present. Something like 21 states had one Democrat and one Republican in the Senate, now (well, in January, anyway) that number's 4 (five if you count Maine). Things had not yet reached the current point where the parties had stratified into clear ideological-regional tribes. (That's an oversimplification, in part because that sort of tribalism has occurred before, and the mid-20th century had remarkably non-ideologically-coherent parties, and a long, slow process of re-stratification.) A historical footnote by way of illustration, the now-retiring Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, hardly someone who could credibly be called a liberal, was in his first year in the Senate the year the Big Dig funding passed, having been elected the previous November...as a Democrat. Given the relative lack of ideological cohesion of the parties, there wasn't anywhere near the same stigma to working with the "other" party, especially on things (like infrastructure projects) that didn't address core ideological issues. Now, when in a lot of instances the only meaningful election is the primary, and where ideological conformity is held at a premium, working with the "other" party comes across less as pragmatism and more hysterically as betrayal (see the newly independent Senator from Arizona understanding that her ideological non-conformity fatally imperiled her chances of re-nomination in a Democratic primary). One can bemoan it, and it certainly hasn't done anything good for the cause of actually getting things done, but it's worth noting that (at least in some cases) the apparent ease with with partisans of different stripes worked together was less a result of willpower and dedication and more an effect of the structural factors existing at the time. As ever, the politicians go where the votes are; they often don't place that high a value on pragmatism, at least not where it counts.

DominusNovus said:
Well, if you’re looking for some to win over, try the specific ones being attacked in this thread: the Pioneer Institute. I’ve heard Dukakis stump for the NSRL, and it was just a political speech about why Republicans are evil.

If thats the approach being taken by the most prominent proponents, don’t whine when the people being demonized won’t life a finger to help.
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I don't think anyone here will whine at the prospect of Pioneer not lifting a finger to help...because no one honestly expects that they ever would do such a thing. At least with respect to transportation, Pioneer's reputation has long been one of strong (if unsurprising) skepticism towards the NSRL and other big, potentially transformative transit projects, which is pretty much par for the course for what's basically your standard small-c conservative, anti-big-(spending)-government think tank. Getting them on board would require convincing something their entire existence is predicated against believing; both that a project of this scale is transformative enough to justify the (immense) cost to the public, and, more importantly, that the government is capable of delivering it, and doing so on time and on budget. Something which is almost certainly impossible, if only because anyone capable of achieving that kind of a miracle would presumably be able to convince Congressional Democrats to fund the thing at their next opportunity (and possibly start several religious movements in their spare time).

With respect to Dukakis, much as he's a longstanding and prominent supporter of the NSRL, he's no longer in office, and can't really be described as a true power-broker anymore. (That's not to devalue his contributions to keeping NSRL alive and in the public eye.) Moreover, his audience, in my view appropriately for the NSRL's supporters, isn't, at the present time, Republicans anywhere. The national Republican Party, as a whole (exceptions-in-practice exist from bill-to-bill in Congress, as also happens the other way) is not going to be swayed to the merits of building a railroad tunnel under a liberal city in blue Massachusetts. (Well, maybe if we called it the Trump Tunnel.) Even accounting for the reflexive anti-spending (and anti-transit) legacy of the Reaganite types, the culture warriors would just reflexively reject such a project (and, as reflected on earlier, are incentivized against pragmatic horse-trading by structural factors). At the state level, the Republicans are an afterthought on most days (the occasional governor notwithstanding). If the state is to support this, it would take the support of the (Democratic) governor, the (Democratic) state senate, the (Democratic) state house of reps and its quasi-autocratic speaker, and the support of the (Democratic) congressional delegation. Few if any of them are going to bat an eye at a (Democratic) former governor turned tunnel pitch guy bashing Republicans. On the other hand, in a state this blue, attacking Republicans as evil obstructionists blocking a transformative all-problem-solving clean public transit project out of spite may or may not technically qualify as "true", but speaks to the intended audience's preconceptions and preferences, and at least has a possibility of generating interest and enthusiasm (if only from base tribalism: the transitive property applies; "if Republicans hate this project, and "I" hate Republicans, therefore I should like this project". It's hardly sophisticated, but has been known to be effective.)

The simple fact remains that the project is stone-cold dead without the support of the state government. The people in the state government (who are about to be almost all Democrats) and the people they listen to (who aren't conservative think tanks like Pioneer) are the ones who need to support it. It's not sufficient to get it done, maybe not even to get it moving, but it's absolutely necessary, and entirely appropriate to worry about things like Congressional horse-trading and building out broader support (such as across ideological bounds) as a later step. (It's worth noting that this does indicate a utility in, if not tribalism, at least clarity on what parties stand for, to allow the public to make these kinds of choices. You don't need to hope that you can convince the opposition to help you out if you can get the electorate to give you a majority, after all.)
 
Politically, let’s work on things that either *feel* like NSRL and build regional mobility (accelerate these projects)

Red-Blue,
BLX to Lynn
Orange Line Transformation
Worcester triple track
North Station Expansion NSX
South Station Expansion SSX
CR High level platforms

or are technical prerequisites for it:

Unpinch the Old Colony
Additional NEC Track
RUR Electrification
RUR clock face frequencies
 
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