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

Re: North-South Rail Link

deh74 said:
There wouldn't be any freight in the NSRL if it ever gets built since the link would likely be electrified and so diesel freight wouldn't be allowed in there because of the fumes that the locomotives would generate. I think this is the reason anyway.
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Freight is also impossible due to the extreme (by rail standards) climbs and dips that are required to get down into and up out of the tunnel. Only passenger trains have a power/weight ratio adequate to the task. (a secondary issue is the question of freights wanting tall clearance).

Freight also isn't in a hurry and is highly tolerant of circuitous routings, and, as the last 30 miles of every trip moves to truck, the railroads would rather have double stack clearance and an easy place to switch to truck for the last 30 miles of delivery, which is why CSX sold out its "inner" stuff to the MBTA and retreated to a new intermodal yard in Worcester. about 4 years ago.
 
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Re: North-South Rail Link

NSRL is pretty useless for freight anyway -- there's no need to go through the NSRL. CSX will continue to serve Everett via the Grand Junction unless it sheds the service to Pan Am. There's zero interchanging of traffic between CSX and Pan Am in Boston -- it all happens in Worcester and Rotterdam, NY.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

nico said:
^Thanks. And for the cost savings?

"it will save the nearly $2 billion that we are now told will be needed to expand South and North Stations and the millions more for layover facilities in South Boston and Allston because of the growing congestion both stations face"
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That is a good point to remember on the plus side.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

So does the price tag offered include electrifying lines on the north side and Worcester Line or does it include dual mode rolling stock? If it is just creating a tunnel, then the costs don't include the whole project.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

whighlander said:
Fattony -- That's bogus illogical analysis and you should know it

If it takes something equivalent to the capacity of the Big Dig -- i.e. improving the access to Boston for the 300,000 cars carrying a minimum of 300,000 commuters per day to justify spending $20 B

Then to justify $10B on the Big Dig II -- aka the N-S rail link [$10 B is a realistic all-in cost of the N-S Rail link and its various accoutrements which will be demanded as compensation for disruption, etc.] -- then you had better make a similar-scale major impact on the entire subway and C-R -- maybe this would be through electrification of the core of the CR net -- Its certainly not through another very expensive tunnel

We have much much better ways to spend the limited Taxpayers' very valuable money than Boondoggle II

For example we could make a major down payment on improving access to the new downtown in the Seaport / Innovation district with its potential for 50 M sq ft of housing and office spaces ==> effecting some 30,000 to 40,000 people who will live and /or work there
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chmeeee said:
Your numbers are a bit... off. 93 carries roughly 185k vehicles per day, that's roughly 92k people per day per direction entering from the south (MassDOT count @ Widett) and from the north (MassDOT count @ Zakim).

Commuter rail carries 76k inbound trips per day. For the purposes of this conversation, I'll ignore the 159k Orange Line and 217k Red Line passengers who would benefit from reduced congestion within the Downtown core.

Assuming NSRL would cost $8B and the Dig cost $24B, NSRL would benefit more users per dollar spent, and that does NOT account for the increased ridership that would result. Surely the Central Artery counts were lower than 185k/day pre-dig, because you couldn't squeeze that many through the old system no matter what you did.
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What he said.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

tangent said:
That is a good point to remember on the plus side.
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It won't save that money - SSX happens anyways, and happens on far shorter timeline.

That was a bizarre point they made, I liked what they were saying, that just seemed odd blip - maybe Weld couldn't resist just a little cost-saving.

What is Weld's role in this? Governor Baker doesn't want anything to do with it, I thought they had a mentor-mentee sorta relationship.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

They should talk up how moving all the Widett/Amtrak yards out to Woburn will free up all that core land for big time redevelopment. Cash to Amtrak/MassDOT for real land, not crazy deck-it-over stuff, and big ongoing revenues to the City (I'd do Tax Increment Financing for the City's share of the projects' costs)

Even better, if one of the NSRL tubes were Red Line, you could move its yards out to (someplace) too.
 
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Re: North-South Rail Link

Arlington said:
My favorite quote from the Weld & Dukakis joint Op-Ed in favor of NSRL in Tuesday's (Aug 18) Boston Globe is
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I still think the best analogy is:

Imagine if we stopped I-93 at South Station and started it up again at North Station. Would it cause congestion on our city streets like the lack of NSRL causes congestion on our downtown subways? Would it dissuade people from driving through city between Northside and Southside suburbs like the lack of NSRL does?
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Assuming a $5 billion bond to cover construction costs, 30 year payout, and an interest rate of 4.5 percent, the interest payments are $4.1 billion. One would need $303 million in increased revenue / cost savings annually just to get to the plus side of the ledger.

Assuming 25,000 new daily riders because of the NS link, each paying $50 a week in fares. That's $62.5 million in additional annual revenue. $240 million short, so there has to be one heck of a cost savings.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

stellarfun said:
Assuming a $5 billion bond to cover construction costs, 30 year payout, and an interest rate of 4.5 percent, the interest payments are $4.1 billion. One would need $303 million in increased revenue / cost savings annually just to get to the plus side of the ledger.

Assuming 25,000 new daily riders because of the NS link, each paying $50 a week in fares. That's $62.5 million in additional annual revenue. $240 million short, so there has to be one heck of a cost savings.
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And this analysis was done when building the CA/T?

I'm sure drivers have paid for that construction. *cough* not *cough*
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

stellarfun said:
Assuming a $5 billion bond to cover construction costs, 30 year payout, and an interest rate of 4.5 percent, the interest payments are $4.1 billion. One would need $303 million in increased revenue / cost savings annually just to get to the plus side of the ledger.

Assuming 25,000 new daily riders because of the NS link, each paying $50 a week in fares. That's $62.5 million in additional annual revenue. $240 million short, so there has to be one heck of a cost savings.
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How about the cost savings of not having to 4-track (local/express) the Red and Orange lines through downtown, second tunnel bore and Charles River crossing for both, and rebuilding every downtown station they serve?

This is a NETWORK improvement, not just a Commuter Rail improvement.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

stellarfun said:
Assuming a $5 billion bond to cover construction costs, 30 year payout, and an interest rate of 4.5 percent, the interest payments are $4.1 billion. One would need $303 million in increased revenue / cost savings annually just to get to the plus side of the ledger.

Assuming 25,000 new daily riders because of the NS link, each paying $50 a week in fares. That's $62.5 million in additional annual revenue. $240 million short, so there has to be one heck of a cost savings.
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I don't think anyone was going to maintain that it'd pay for itself directly--Vanderbilt made as much of his fortune from developing Park Avenue as he did from the railroad.

There are direct-payback options, though, that we should consider:
Tax Increment FInancing, particularly if there's a Central Station in the mix. If we'd used TIF on all the land along the CA/T (Greenway & Seaport) it'd have been a good thing instead of just letting the McCourts pocket the upside.

Boston should also have a congestion zone charge and those are best spent on a mix of "to" "through" and "around" transport projects (and this is a most worthy project)

The other paybacks/benefits are stuff that the great mass of people "pocket":
- Employers' better able to recruit from north or south (bigger talent pool)
- Employee's better able to optimize their job (better jobs)
- Commute time saved (for both car and transit users)
- Increased property values
- Improved air quality / lower energy $/GDP
- Improved access to New York's job/labor markets
- Logan Airport capacity redeployed to higher value trips
(it leverages coming investments in Acela 2.0, the Downeaster, and BOS-WOR-SPG-HFD-NHV rail)

And, yes, as the network grows more valuable, it makes rail to NH (Lowell-Nashua-Manchester-Concord) have a higher payback
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

stellarfun said:
Assuming a $5 billion bond to cover construction costs, 30 year payout, and an interest rate of 4.5 percent, the interest payments are $4.1 billion. One would need $303 million in increased revenue / cost savings annually just to get to the plus side of the ledger.
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^ 1. An analysis with a 30 year time horizon should be done in real dollars, not nominal ones. $50 is not going to be in 2050 what it is today, and neither is $5B. Assuming inflation at 3% the financing cost gets smaller and the revenue side looks better. This is a feature, not a bug.

2. The cost of borrowing (MA & federal) is closer to 3%...so when accounting for inflation the real interest rate is close to 0%. Again, a feature not a bug. (And political opinions about monetary policy are irrelevant - the reality is that borrowing costs are super low, and this is a good time to take on debt for high-impact projects.)

3. I reject the premise that an infrastructure program like this needs to be 100% supported by direct revenue in the first place. How much revenue has the Central Artery tunnel pulled in, for example? This is about the competitiveness and growth of the Boston area long-term. You'll look for effects like rising land values in the Merrimack valley and the Worcester area, more companies moving to and staying in the metro area, reduced indirect congestion costs regionally, etc. Talking about direct revenue only is just not credible....Would you evaluate the 50-year impact of rt.128 by looking only at incremental gas tax receipts, for example? Of course not...
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

JeffDowntown said:
This is a NETWORK improvement, not just a Commuter Rail improvement.
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And with this in mind, I'm concerned that framing the discussion as 'Should we build the NSRL?' is going to be a continuing drag on support for (and understanding of) the project.

The impact here is at three distinct geographic scales:

- Metro: with EMUs, this becomes something like a brand new sub-way like network that transforms mobility within 128)
- E. Mass: Cross-town commuter rail service, particularly from the north to Boston employment, plus improved capacity)
- New England region: Radical transformation of inter-city service, including especially to NYC

I guess the challenge is communicating just how transformative the benefits are, without making it seem like an absurdly large project.

But I still wonder if we'd be in a better position if the Duke and Weld had title the article "Downtown link is the key that unlocks new era of mobility for new england' or something like that
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

There are many good technical arguments for the NSRL. But ultimately, it's only going to get built for political reasons, because that's what motivates people in power. That's what happened with Philly's CCCC. And as a result, they don't really take advantage of its potential. Because that's not why it was built. Wouldn't be surprised if the MBTA made the same mistakes even if the NSRL magically appeared tomorrow.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Matthew said:
There are many good technical arguments for the NSRL. But ultimately, it's only going to get built for political reasons, because that's what motivates people in power. That's what happened with Philly's CCCC. And as a result, they don't really take advantage of its potential. Because that's not why it was built. Wouldn't be surprised if the MBTA made the same mistakes even if the NSRL magically appeared tomorrow.
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Imagine if the NSRL is built with no portals and just a shuttle a la Grand Central/Times Square Shuttle. facepalm
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

meddlepal said:
I'm kind of with Baker on this one... South Station Expansion probably has a greater value add all around than NSRL.
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We need to do both sometime in the future. My only concern of wasted money would be on Central station, which isn't necessary, if we are expanding South Station. Of course, we should take cost into consideration, but the connection is necessary to finally allow commuters to move from north to south without many transfers and time delay, which hasn't been done for decades. Also, it opens up High-Speed Rail to Montreal and Northern New England.
 
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