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

Re: North-South Rail Link

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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Chmeeee -- Your numbers are a bit off as well -- but more importantly your system analysis is faulty

A major component of the Big Dig is I-90 Ted Williams and the now direct connection from the Seaport / Innovation District to Logan
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

bigeman312 said:
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?
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Bigeman -- you are making the faulty assumption that every CR rider arriving at N or S Station becomes a subway rider

A few minutes standing in Dewey Square will disabuse you of that notion -- its much like a Boston version of Paddington* -- minus the bowlers and umbrellas

* by the way Paddington and several other London major train stations are the end of multiple CR & Regional lines
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

If only the MBTA Blue Book broke out AM vs PM entries at their downtown stations. What we do know is that North Station has 17k entries per day and that South Station has 25k, (See PDF page 16)

Here's a stat to play with: there are 183k daily Subway-to-Subway transfers each day...that's a lot of platform and train crowding that you'd divert if you could put Southside and Northside people on the CR --not just ending CR-to-Subway connections, but also diverting people off the inbound suburban branches at their point of origin of the D, Orange and Red in favor of parallel commuter rail lines that were better connected.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

kevtron2000 said:
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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keytron -- there is just very very sparse data on those kinds of commutes -- today they are very much the outlier

Commuting today in the Boston Metro via both road and rail is either:
  • the traditional inner suburbs to CBD*1 -- still very large -- hundreds of thousands by road, rail and combo
  • outer suburbs / cities to CBD -- e.g. Lowell, Fitchburg, Worcester, Providence [about 5,000 via rail for that list]
  • outer suburbs / cities to CBD -- e.g. Fitchburg, Worcester, Providence -- total of about 200,000 via road
  • Segment Circumferential radial feeders from outer suburbs and cities and inner suburbs to inner suburb employment clusters*2 -- about 200,000 [recent estimate at Rt-2]

*1 CBD is all of traditional commercial Boston + Cambridge + Seaport / Innovation District + Longwood
*2 traditional Rt-128 Industrial / Office Parks and some extensions along I-93, Rt-2, Rt-3 North

No amount of N-S tunneling will have any significant impact on the Circumferential commute without huge additional investments in getting the people to the jobs

A lot of CBD Boston is easily walkable from either or both N and S and / or Back Bay Stations -- not a whole lot of benefit from the N-S unless you build the increasingly dismissed Central Station

If any amount of serious moneys are to be expended the focus should be on:
  • passenger connections in the DTX -- enabling Green-Red-Orange-Blue by foot
    and
  • on improvements to access to the Seaport / Innovation
  • on improvement to access to Kendal
    with
  • some thought now on how best to enable the use of the Turnpike & Rail yards as the next gen Seaport / Innovation District

Feel-Good CLF-type Boondoggles such as N-S and New Bedford-Fall River should have the lowest standing
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Arlington said:
If only the MBTA Blue Book broke out AM vs PM entries at their downtown stations. What we do know is that North Station has 17k entries per day and that South Station has 25k, (See PDF page 16)

Here's a stat to play with: there are 183k daily Subway-to-Subway transfers each day...that's a lot of platform and train crowding that you'd divert if you could put Southside and Northside people on the CR --not just ending CR-to-Subway connections, but also diverting people off the inbound suburban branches at their point of origin of the D, Orange and Red in favor of parallel commuter rail lines that were better connected.
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Arlington -- how does the N-S directly effect someone getting on at Wellington Orange and heading via DTX [Red] and South Station [Silver] to the Seaport / Innovation District

Similarly the folks getting on the Red at Alewife transferring to Green at Park for Longwood
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

whighlander said:
A few minutes standing in Dewey Square will disabuse you of that notion -- its much like a Boston version of Paddington* -- minus the bowlers and umbrellas

* by the way Paddington and several other London major train stations are the end of multiple CR & Regional lines
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Yes, the very same Paddington station under which TfL is currently adding an underground annex as part of the £15 billion Crossrail effort, which itself is a tunnel connecting many of the existing terminals and cutting under the entire city. Much like the North South Rail Link does for Boston (albeit on a larger scale).

Interesting comparison! I'm afraid it quite eviscerates your argument, however.
 
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Re: North-South Rail Link

whighlander said:
Arlington -- how does the N-S directly effect someone...
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Who says the effect has to be direct? It is a network load balancing and redundancy are network effects.

You can cherry-pick connections that seem mostly unimproved, but you're wrong: users switching off crowded and indirect (for them) routes leaves better service for those who appeared unaffected. Uncrowding a train may be an indirect "routing"but it is a direct benefit.
whighlander said:
getting on at Wellington Orange and heading via DTX [Red] and South Station [Silver] to the Seaport / Innovation District

Similarly the folks getting on the Red at Alewife transferring to Green at Park for Longwood
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Turns out, your examples can be DIRECTLY improved.

Wellington-Seaport? HOw many Wellington users are park-and-ride from places along the Lowell or Haverhill line? LOTS! A one-seat ride from their home CR Station to SS would be a HUGE improvement

Alewife-Longwood? A one-seat Porter-Yawkey would vastly outperform. Or, again, how many Alewife riders are from Belmont or Winchester and could go from their "home" CR to Yawkey.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Arlington said:
If only the MBTA Blue Book broke out AM vs PM entries at their downtown stations. What we do know is that North Station has 17k entries per day and that South Station has 25k, (See PDF page 16)

Here's a stat to play with: there are 183k daily Subway-to-Subway transfers each day...that's a lot of platform and train crowding that you'd divert if you could put Southside and Northside people on the CR --not just ending CR-to-Subway connections, but also diverting people off the inbound suburban branches at their point of origin of the D, Orange and Red in favor of parallel commuter rail lines that were better connected.
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Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but 2012 commuter rail data is available in this CTPS document. It has per-train all-day counts for every station, which were taken by CTPS staffers and are substantially more reliable than Bluebook numbers which are conductor counts.

Page 27 (53rd page of the PDF) has breakdowns for the three downtown stations, plus the subway transfer oddballs. Turns out that Ruggles and Porter are absolute powerhouses for transfers; Porter is largely transfers to the Red Line for Cambridge, but Ruggles is a major destination of itself. For the downtown stations:

Back Bay gets 9200 inbound riders getting off, and 7600 outbound getting on. South Station has 19900 off and 21800 on (which indicates how much Back Bay currently sucks - 2000 people a day hoof it or take the subway to South Station in the evening just to avoid sitting in Back Bay). North Station has about 16400 in each direction.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

whighlander said:
Arlington -- how does the N-S directly effect someone getting on at Wellington Orange and heading via DTX [Red] and South Station [Silver] to the Seaport / Innovation District
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less time spent squeezing passengers on at North Station, less crowded making the transfer with those passengers at DTX, less crowded getting off at South Station to make the Silver line. Staggered arrivals at the silver line platform, which currently results in sardine can packing of vehicles right after a red line train arrives. If the commuter rail arrives at different time as red line, people get better distributed between vehicles...
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Also, no one is talking about the other BIG network effect of NS Link. It opens up the Grand Junction route for use as an Urban Ring routing.

Without NS -- we are stuck with Grand Junction as FRA-restricted rail line to allow commuter rail trains to be shuttled between the north and south side yards.

Long term this is a huge network effect!
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

JeffDowntown said:
Also, no one is talking about the other BIG network effect of NS Link. It opens up the Grand Junction route for use as an Urban Ring routing.

Without NS -- we are stuck with Grand Junction as FRA-restricted rail line to allow commuter rail trains to be shuttled between the north and south side yards.

Long term this is a huge network effect!
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It also opens up the possibility for a comprehensive EMU system that would be an entirely new network of rapid-transitish lines running across and throughout highly traveled, under-served corridors in our city.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Let me say that if politics were removed, I'd bet the basic-build N-S rail link would cost roughly the same as the current South Coast Rail proposal.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Good that they are talking about this! Even a two-track base-build that connects the NEC to the Lowell Line will be great in my book.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

bigeman312 said:
Good that they are talking about this! Even a two-track base-build that connects the NEC to the Lowell Line will be great in my book.
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Better way to spend the same money -- with two tracks in a N-S tunnel there will be many pairs of N-S CR which will not connect

The alternative -- Harbor Branch of the Orange Line
  • splits from current Orange Line @ Bunker Hill
  • deep underground station @ North Station
  • deep underground station @ Aquarium
  • deep underground station @ South Station
  • underground station @ BCEC
  • underground station @ Cruise Port
  • underground station @ Castle Island
  • terminal station @ UMASS Boston

provides great redundancy and insures that any N station CR or Amtrak customer can connect with Any S Station CR or Amtrak train
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

whighlander said:
Better way to spend the same money...
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This would dramatically reduce frequency on the majority of the Orange Line (i.e. Community College - Forest Hills). The only way to mitigate this fact would be extreme amounts of new equipment as well as, possibly, a new yard or major expansion of existing yard(s).

Not to mention the insane amount of deep tunnel bore in un-excavated land that branch would require.

It would undoubtedly be a more expensive project.

Not to mention a less desirable one: you talk about not capturing a lot of station pairs. Think about the station pairs that exist in this one. You are gaining a one seat ride between South Boston and Charlestown/Malden. Wahoo.

Even a link that only connects the NEC to the Lowell Line provides WAY more new one-seat rides. For example, Maine to New York.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

bigeman312 said:
This would dramatically reduce frequency on the majority of the Orange Line (i.e. Community College - Forest Hills). The only way to mitigate this fact would be extreme amounts of new equipment as well as, possibly, a new yard or major expansion of existing yard(s).

Not to mention the insane amount of deep tunnel bore in un-excavated land that branch would require.

It would undoubtedly be a more expensive project.

Not to mention a less desirable one: you talk about not capturing a lot of station pairs. Think about the station pairs that exist in this one. You are gaining a one seat ride between South Boston and Charlestown/Malden. Wahoo.
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One seat is irrelevant -- its convenience for the traveler

Most people commuting to London of to Paris on a CR equivalent do not expect to alight from their train immediately adjacent to their place of employment -- they take the Tube or the Metro respectively

Nor would someone coming from Edinborough Scotland expect to travel to Paris without a change and indeed two in London

as to the Orange Line frequency -- North of North Station there is a bonus Orange Line track which could be used to insure that the downtown corridor still gets its share of trains coming from Welllington
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

I 100% disagree with your statement that one-seat rides do not matter. That is the crux of the North South Rail Link. Anybody can take public transportation from Providence to Lowell right now, it just requires multiple transfers and takes a long time. If you don't think this is a big deal well, your wrong, and that explains your aversion to the North-South Rail Link.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

whighlander said:
One seat is irrelevant -- its convenience for the traveler

Most people commuting to London of to Paris on a CR equivalent do not expect to alight from their train immediately adjacent to their place of employment -- they take the Tube or the Metro respectively

Nor would someone coming from Edinborough Scotland expect to travel to Paris without a change and indeed two in London

as to the Orange Line frequency -- North of North Station there is a bonus Orange Line track which could be used to insure that the downtown corridor still gets its share of trains coming from Welllington
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This is quibbling over the details, but:

-Most trains from Edinburgh to London arrive at Kings Cross Station. Some also arrive at Euston Station.
-Trains from London to Paris leave from St Pancras Station.
-Kings Cross and St Pancras are actually joined together and share the same connected Tube stop. Moving between the two is probably easier than moving between the train and bus terminals at South Station.
-Euston is only 400 meters (and one Tube stop) down the road from Kings Cross St Pancras.

So a passenger can easily travel from Edinburgh to Paris by changing trains only once in London, and he or she never needs to take the Tube or even step outside. This is a MUCH easier transfer than Boston North Station to Boston South Station.

EDIT: If you had chosen a different UK city for your starting point--say, Cardiff or Portsmouth--your point would have much more validity. Those trains would arrive at Paddington and Waterloo, respectively, and would require a cross-city transfer in London.
 
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