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

DBM said:
a.) the NSRL tunnel would just be too damned submerged to be of any practical use to users (to which I might respond--has he ever clocked the amount of time it takes an average Porter Sq. user to ascend from the bowels of that station--escalator or otherwise?)
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Your Porter comparison seems about right. That depth isn't ideal, but it's still an incredibly useful station. The same would be true for NSRL stations. A more modern example would be the Grand Central Madison terminal, which is similarly deep. I haven't been yet, but it looks nice, and is an example that it's possible to quickly bring a ton of people up to street level or subway connections.

Again, that depth isn't ideal. It adds time for people, and slows passenger flow. Sadly, if we had built NSRL during the Big Dig, the plan had these stations much closer to the surface. At the Central Station, the Blue line would have been just upstairs, instead of a ten story escalator ride.

DBM said:
b.) the Central Station infrastructure is exceptionally vulnerable to damage from rising sea levels...
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True-ish, but that's because most of Downtown Boston is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. If Central Station is flooding, then so is everything around it. We will need to build protections against rising sea levels, and those will equally protect any NSRL. If he's saying we shouldn't build new infrastructure downtown because of climate change, that sounds like his plan is to just... I don't know... abandon Boston to the sea?

And besides those points, a lot of what Straus is saying is just kind of dumb. His concern over climate change is undercut by the fact that his proposals for what else to build are mainly (by cost) car infrastructure, which is already the biggest part of Massachusetts's GHG emissions. He spends a lot of effort criticizing what is or isn't in the new Kennedy School study, but that hasn't been published yet, so I don't even know what he's looking at. While dismissing that report he hasn't read, he does give a lot of weight to some undergrad class project at Harvard from a few years ago (they apparently found that a monorail between north and south stations would be just as good as NSRL, to give you an idea of the quality of that work). And he belabors the details of what goes into NSRL, I guess to make it sound more onerous (We'll also have to build approach tunnels! And escalators!).
 
ritchiew said:
Your Porter comparison seems about right. That depth isn't ideal, but it's still an incredibly useful station. The same would be true for NSRL stations. A more modern example would be the Grand Central Madison terminal, which is similarly deep. I haven't been yet, but it looks nice, and is an example that it's possible to quickly bring a ton of people up to street level or subway connections.

Again, that depth isn't ideal. It adds time for people, and slows passenger flow. Sadly, if we had built NSRL during the Big Dig, the plan had these stations much closer to the surface. At the Central Station, the Blue line would have been just upstairs, instead of a ten story escalator ride.


True-ish, but that's because most of Downtown Boston is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. If Central Station is flooding, then so is everything around it. We will need to build protections against rising sea levels, and those will equally protect any NSRL. If he's saying we shouldn't build new infrastructure downtown because of climate change, that sounds like his plan is to just... I don't know... abandon Boston to the sea?

And besides those points, a lot of what Straus is saying is just kind of dumb. His concern over climate change is undercut by the fact that his proposals for what else to build are mainly (by cost) car infrastructure, which is already the biggest part of Massachusetts's GHG emissions. He spends a lot of effort criticizing what is or isn't in the new Kennedy School study, but that hasn't been published yet, so I don't even know what he's looking at. While dismissing that report he hasn't read, he does give a lot of weight to some undergrad class project at Harvard from a few years ago (they apparently found that a monorail between north and south stations would be just as good as NSRL, to give you an idea of the quality of that work). And he belabors the details of what goes into NSRL, I guess to make it sound more onerous (We'll also have to build approach tunnels! And escalators!).
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Dont forget the Charles River shuttles
 
DBM said:
a.) the NSRL tunnel would just be too damned submerged to be of any practical use to users (to which I might respond--has he ever clocked the amount of time it takes an average Porter Sq. user to ascend from the bowels of that station--escalator or otherwise?)
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It would be about the same depth. Yes it would add some travel time, but no this wouldn't be enough to change the calculus for any journey that doesn't start and end in downtown.
DBM said:
b.) the Central Station infrastructure is exceptionally vulnerable to damage from rising sea levels
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Yes, the central station would be exceptionally vulnerable to rising sea levels. But all of Boston is already exceptionally vulnerable to rising sea levels. If the Central Station is flooded we're probably well past screwed regardless.
ritchiew said:
and is an example that it's possible to quickly bring a ton of people up to street level or subway connections.
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There are much deeper metro stations that can still move a ton of people. Arsenalna station in Kyiv is about 3 times as deep as Porter Sq and takes almost 5 minutes from platform to street. People generally (and understandably) don't walk up/down the escalators which massively boosts capacity on them, and the escalators move quite a bit faster than most normal escalators. (They still feel slow to me now.)
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
South Station >>> Ruggles as a destination.

And besides, if we're in NSRL world aren't we service-dense enough across the Purple Line that the two-seat rides are super easy like we've been talking about these last 2 pages??? What's stopping a South Shore rider from hopping platforms at South Station Under to pick up an NEC train bound for Ruggles that's running every few minutes? It'd be even easier than transferring to the Orange Line at North Station/Haymarket because the walk between platforms would be shorter.


EDIT: Hell, we don't even need NSRL. Systemwide Regional Rail makes hopping platforms at current SS to change directions enough of a breeze to beat rapid transit handily on a Ruggles <> South Shore trip.
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My mistake I did not make it clear that the Old Colony thing was not in a NSRL context. I meant that in the "more trains to Ruggles" context and in the near-term. NSRL or 15min regional rail frequencies would supply the increased service to Ruggles. But in the near-term I believe there is merit in having maybe one Kingston and one Greenbush peak trip bypass South Station to supply a 1SR and additional service to West Roxbury and Forest Hills via the Needham Line for an example. The same in the reverse in the afternoon like a Stoughton train bypassing South Station onto the Greenbush and a Needham to Kingston or something.

If we had NSRL and a frequent regional rail model we could benefit a lot more from variable service patterns. Rather than trains always running to only one destination each line, having a few trains run a different service (like Franklin via Fairmount but with the stops). In a NSRL context this would look like say a Worcester Line train that runs most trips to Salem, having 2tpd run to Lowell for service to Anderson and UMass. Adding that flexibility makes rail travel more attractive and opens up more options for places to live relative to work and other things.
 
Is there a limit to escalator speed? I know it sounds like I’m about to propose something crazy so I’ll leave it at that.
 
Longfellow said:
Is there a limit to escalator speed? I know it sounds like I’m about to propose something crazy so I’ll leave it at that.
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Yes, but it's a lot higher o what is used currently in the USA. (And what is potentially legal as well.) I can't find numbers for the T, but I can find an old NYT article that claims a speed of around 0.5 m/s for escalators on the NYC subway. The number stated for the London Underground is 0.75 m/s, while some escalators used on the Prague and Moscow metros (And other systems like Kyiv are probably similar) are around 0.9 m/s.
 
For what it’s worth I also contacted the professor who I assume is in charge of it and she did not get back to me.

IMG_7991.jpeg

Looking at this makes me wonder if we could really pull off NSRL. If we fixed the cost issue and brought project management in house. Cause look at this platform — walk down stairs, train rolls in, you get on train, it rolls out. In NYC this would be 8x the size and scope and include a daycare for employees. But in Boston maybe we can stomach just building a boring station. Gives me a little hope
 
As someone who took the subway daily to and from Roosevelt Island which has a similar depth... it isn't a problem. At all. Just have a bunch of redundant escalators. As for Central Station being prone to flooding: great, let's not build it at all and just have a North and South Station Under Stops. The Central Station isn't needed (and I feel the merits of it have been discussed here at length more than a few times).
 
bakgwailo said:
As for Central Station being prone to flooding: great, let's not build it at all and just have a North and South Station Under Stops. The Central Station isn't needed (and I feel the merits of it have been discussed here at length more than a few times).
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If it's going to be the make it or break it, I agree. Overall, having redundancy of connection to the airport and having that connection be grade separated is important. The Silver Line, at least to my eyes, is forever inferior to the Blue line for cross harbor access because it is integrated into the car traffic with no separation. If the mythic people mover is ever built it would increase the gap.
 
Koopzilla24 said:
My mistake I did not make it clear that the Old Colony thing was not in a NSRL context. I meant that in the "more trains to Ruggles" context and in the near-term. NSRL or 15min regional rail frequencies would supply the increased service to Ruggles. But in the near-term I believe there is merit in having maybe one Kingston and one Greenbush peak trip bypass South Station to supply a 1SR and additional service to West Roxbury and Forest Hills via the Needham Line for an example. The same in the reverse in the afternoon like a Stoughton train bypassing South Station onto the Greenbush and a Needham to Kingston or something.

If we had NSRL and a frequent regional rail model we could benefit a lot more from variable service patterns. Rather than trains always running to only one destination each line, having a few trains run a different service (like Franklin via Fairmount but with the stops). In a NSRL context this would look like say a Worcester Line train that runs most trips to Salem, having 2tpd run to Lowell for service to Anderson and UMass. Adding that flexibility makes rail travel more attractive and opens up more options for places to live relative to work and other things.
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Again, South Station >>> Ruggles. You're not depriving 2 South Shore branches and Stoughton of South Station slots for 2 hours at a time during peak. That's going to lose many times more ridership than it gains. And the Needham Line is tapped out. Adding service there means a Franklin, Providence, or Stoughton slot has to lose service. That's not a fair tradeoff when the ridership on those 3 slays the Needham Line by a wide margin. I think you are cosmically overestimating both the ridership of Ruggles in comparison to South Station, and the ease with which such ops could be mounted today.

A subway healed of slow zones, 3-minute RLT frequencies, and 4.5 minute OLT frequencies is plenty much enhancement for a South Shore-Ruggles trip in the interim. At least that's in the offing. We'd need to do the Old Colony double-track megaproject to be able to vulture any one-seats without hurting somebody more.
 
Frequencies Frequencies Frequencies!!!

That's the biggest sell. Even if it takes 2 or 10 minutes longer for a trip as long as the rider is moving they won't feel they are wasting time in their commute.

When I commuted from Malden Center to the LMA I would take either the OL switch at NS to the E Line or OL to BB and switch the 39 bus or walk to Rox Crossing and OL the whole way. Switching trains and or train to bus could be alot less stressful of a commute when I made quick transfers than even sitting on the OL after a 10min walk because I was always moving.

So a train to SS and switch to another train to Ruggles will be nothing as long as the Frequencies make the transfers quick vs a pull in and back out on the same train at SS.

My 2 cents. :)
 
guitarguynboston said:
Frequencies Frequencies Frequencies!!!

That's the biggest sell. Even if it takes 2 or 10 minutes longer for a trip as long as the rider is moving they won't feel they are wasting time in their commute.

When I commuted from Malden Center to the LMA I would take either the OL switch at NS to the E Line or OL to BB and switch the 39 bus or walk to Rox Crossing and OL the whole way. Switching trains and or train to bus could be alot less stressful of a commute when I made quick transfers than even sitting on the OL after a 10min walk because I was always moving.

So a train to SS and switch to another train to Ruggles will be nothing as long as the Frequencies make the transfers quick vs a pull in and back out on the same train at SS.

My 2 cents. :)
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Yeah. Especially if they could pull off timed and cross platform transfers for higher volume pairs like any other major transit agency in the world. Make the switch relatively painless and seamless.
 
ritchiew said:
Your Porter comparison seems about right. That depth isn't ideal, but it's still an incredibly useful station. The same would be true for NSRL stations. A more modern example would be the Grand Central Madison terminal, which is similarly deep. I haven't been yet, but it looks nice, and is an example that it's possible to quickly bring a ton of people up to street level or subway connections.

Again, that depth isn't ideal. It adds time for people, and slows passenger flow. Sadly, if we had built NSRL during the Big Dig, the plan had these stations much closer to the surface. At the Central Station, the Blue line would have been just upstairs, instead of a ten story escalator ride.
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Funny that i never see people in DC complain about how deep their subways can be...

Outside of the obvious environmental issues that could arise in the near future, I honestly don't mind a deep station. I think the only place where I've genuinely been irritated by it was London's Bank station, and that is mostly because you need to plays shoots and ladders with like 3 different platforms to get to the line you're looking for. Russell Square in London is the only station I've ever seen that is elevator first, and they've figured it out there.

ritchiew said:
True-ish, but that's because most of Downtown Boston is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. If Central Station is flooding, then so is everything around it. We will need to build protections against rising sea levels, and those will equally protect any NSRL. If he's saying we shouldn't build new infrastructure downtown because of climate change, that sounds like his plan is to just... I don't know... abandon Boston to the sea?
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I'm surprised we don't see a push to continue wharfing out into the harbor bay, like how much of the city was built. would probably make it safer from flooding if we just move the water away from the city
 
bakgwailo said:
As someone who took the subway daily to and from Roosevelt Island which has a similar depth... it isn't a problem. At all. Just have a bunch of redundant escalators.
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what was that like commuting to Roosevelt Island? I visited once when I was living in NYC and it just seemed like a headache to deal with, but Roosevelt Island seems like a nice community
 
thepixelnation said:
what was that like commuting to Roosevelt Island? I visited once when I was living in NYC and it just seemed like a headache to deal with, but Roosevelt Island seems like a nice community
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Yeah, before we over by Penn for a few years. RI is like a little bit of quiet suburbia in the middle of the East River/Manhattan. Was right above the MTA station - so it was a stupid short subway ride right down stairs into town on the F. If something was up on that, had the Tram which was close and was fun, plus dumps you out right by a couple of metro lines. Plus, had the Q102 bus to go over to the Queens side (which included a Costco like 5-10 minutes away). The island itself had just enough good/OK things with a good sushi place, bar, couple of other restaurants of varying quality, Duane Reade/Starbucks, bodega, and even an old school video rental store that was a pretty fun throwback. So in short, I'd say much more laidback/quiet, but you got all the amenities of the city right there. My model of a cool high/mid rise suburb concept.

I'll also point out that it was the one place we also made friends with actual neighbors/locals, and the various business owners which was neat. Our building in Manhattan was much more transient/did meet too many people and most of our friends came from work/else where in the city.
 
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