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

Re: North-South Rail Link

What about doing SSX as the underground platform which you would do for NSRL? So, SSX becomes a phase I for NSRL. Probably would increase the cost of SSX, but it reduces the cost of NSRL and literally and figuratively puts NSRL on the right track.

Also avoids the issue with the post office relocation and long term keeps more waterfront land available for redevelopment.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Also avoids the issue with the post office relocation and long term keeps more waterfront land available for redevelopment.

What issue??? That no one wants to do it??? It does not cost a billion dollars to relocate a sorting facility. The reason it's not happening is because none of the gaggle of institutions in that staring contest feels arsed to take the initiative.

Second...what extra land freed up? South Station is being covered over by a giant tower. SSX will put a couple hundred thousand square feet's worth of commercial facing Dot Ave. AND have the stumps to get covered over by another tower. There is not one square foot of extra developable space you can put there that isn't already going to be put there as a result of SSX. It's hands-down superior land use than what we've got now with the outmoded sorting facility.

Third...did you read a single word about station capacity? It is par...not 1 train better...if the tunnel displaces the surface. It is outright worse if it's a climb down 100 ft. to a stub-end "down payment" build that, as above, does not create one solitary extra square foot of commercial space by virtue of being underground.



Sorry...but it just amazes me that this level of misinformation keeps coming up over and over and over and over again. This is easy enough to hashtag-trend: #It'sTheFrequenciesStupid. We are not ready as a region to be talking NSRL as a present-tense advocacy if both public and pols are this lost in space at what it's supposed to do at its most basic level.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

In short, no. Many/Most lines will continue to terminate at SS (and NS for that matter). Only a very limited number of trains would use the NSRL.

I think NSRL would for the most part benefit New Hampshire, Maine and possibly Vermont most of all since through-service would allow them to avoid taking the MBTA to reach the Acela. Once NSRL was completed, Acela could head to those states more quickly and make them the new terminal points just passing through Boston like every other city down to Washington, D.C.

Then again, if that glorified Silver/Grey Line bus is done and Grand Junction Line is removed, then the occasional North-South equipment would also benefit during break-downs etc.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

I think NSRL would for the most part benefit New Hampshire, Maine and possibly Vermont most of all since through-service would allow them to avoid taking the MBTA to reach the Acela. Once NSRL was completed, Acela could head to those states more quickly and make them the new terminal points just passing through Boston like every other city down to Washington, D.C.

….
Sorry...but it just amazes me that this level of misinformation keeps coming up over and over and over and over again. This is easy enough to hashtag-trend: #It'sTheFrequenciesStupid. We are not ready as a region to be talking NSRL as a present-tense advocacy if both public and pols are this lost in space at what it's supposed to do at its most basic level.

F-Line, I’m just sitting here banging my head against my desk. I really despair.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

I think NSRL would for the most part benefit New Hampshire, Maine and possibly Vermont most of all since through-service would allow them to avoid taking the MBTA to reach the Acela. Once NSRL was completed, Acela could head to those states more quickly and make them the new terminal points just passing through Boston like every other city down to Washington, D.C.

OK, on the positive side, you've seen what F-Line would call the "Intercity Component"--things than can be served with NEC Corridor and (restored) Inland Corridor trains operated by Amtrak, for which we'd expect the same success as Virginia has had extending NEC trains southward.

Beyond that, almost every detail in the above is wrong, except that Maine and the NH Coast would be tied in. It's hard to say that Intercity is "for the most part" given how daily commuting volumes dwarf intercity volumes. Underestimated? Sure. For the most part? No. So let's go back and read F-Line:
Local pols severely underestimate the regional intercity component, to their detriment. [...] in 15 years [...]The Downeaster happened; the Virginia NE Regionals happened; Hartford Line commuter rail happen(ing)ed; RIDOT intrastate predicated on easy transfers to Boston or New Haven got greenlit; the tri-state Inland Route/New England Intercity study happened; and Providence, Portland, Worcester, and Lowell in varying degrees started to catch a growth wave towards bona fide reverse-commute and reverse-travel markets. Amtrak looms a lot larger across New England today than it did 15 years. MA's #2, 3, 4 largest cities loom a lot larger today than they did 15 years ago. The largest cities of our immediate neighboring states loom a lot larger today than they did 15 years ago.

So when you think "Intercity" strike NH (if you were thinking Concord) and VT and insert in their place

Springfield
Worcester
Framingham
Providence
Portland-Haverhill-NH Coast
Lowell-(Nashua/MHT)

Which would all get one-seat rides to each other.

But also don't picture Acela. Northside electrification will probably push no further north than Anderson Woburn (on the Lowell Line), or maybe onward to Lowell/Nashua (not Maine), and involve an engine-change from electric to diesel just like New Haven in the old days, and Washington DC (for Virginia service) today.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

It really doesn't make any sense to say this doesn't take up any space that could otherwise be redeveloped:

SouthStationExpansionPlan.jpg


Sure we can talk about the pros and cons, but that these new platforms take up more physical space doesn't seem to be an arguable point.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

It really doesn't make any sense to say this doesn't take up any space that could otherwise be redeveloped:

..

Sure we can talk about the pros and cons, but that these new platforms take up more physical space doesn't seem to be an arguable point.

What part of "build up above" is difficult to understand? There are previously installed foundation piers between the existing platforms for a tower to go onto. There will be foundation piers installed between the new platforms. What goes on top could even be TALL, TALL, TALL, well, so far as the FAA allows.

The only space not being redeveloped in a SSX scenario is the actual first floor platform space. A not-trivial amount of space, to be sure, that is not arguable. But the Boston metro area desperately needs dramatic expansion of transit capacity, and to accomplish that, some potential retail space (or office, or whatever) will be given up here and there. Rail expansion can't all go underground.

This reminds me of how all the Olympics "planners" so casually dismissed the rail facilities around Widett Circle as "blighted" or "underutilized" land*. To call those Southampton etc rail yards, or the expanded surface-level platform area of SSX, wasted space is like saying your spinal column is a waste of space because it is space that could otherwise be packed with additional muscles. It's true: if you removed your spinal column and replaced it with muscle, you would indeed have more muscle! But if you did that, you'd not be able to use either the new muscles or your existing muscles. What the hell would be the point?

If Boston and its environs are going to keep growing by leaps and bounds, the rail network needs to first get fixed but concurrently with the fixing of it, we need to lay the groundwork to grow our collective spinal column, that is, the rail network. We need both NSRL and SSX to do that. Without that, our growth is going to choke itself off not so far in the future.

*ETA: and yeah, the Olympics planners did then shift over to the deck over the yards. But I very distinctly remember the first meetings where those rail yards were casually dismissed as "stuff that could be elsewhere", with not one whit of apparent awareness of how insanely difficult (if not impossible) it would be to shift those rail yards and repair facilities.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

I swear, every new page of this thread is like Groundhog Day.
ohno.gif



#ItsTheFrequenciesStupid
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

We are better off just keeping the post office where it is than losing half that space to a few train platforms that we won't need if this is done properly.

The existing platforms are more than sufficient for any conceivable future schedule for Amtrak service.

I hate to say it, but after some consideration it appears to me that Seth Moulton is right to oppose SSX in favor of NSRL. Kill SSX. Kill it now.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

We are better off just keeping the post office where it is than losing half that space to a few train platforms that we won't need if this is done properly.

The existing platforms are more than sufficient for any conceivable future schedule for Amtrak service.

I hate to say it, but after some consideration it appears to me that Seth Moulton is right to oppose SSX in favor of NSRL. Kill SSX. Kill it now.

It's like talking to a fucking wall. There are over thirty pages explaining that you need to expand south station and do the NSRL.

You need both.

You need both.

YOU NEED BOTH

YOU NE E D B

typingbloodygif.gif
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

It's like talking to a fucking wall. There are over thirty pages explaining that you need to expand south station and do the NSRL.

You need both.

You need both.

YOU NEED BOTH

YOU NE E D B

typingbloodygif.gif

Counter-arguments which when you actually read through the NSRL proposal sound like complete BS. I get it if you think NSRL is never going to happen, then you probably need a few more platforms for South Station. But there is absolutely no way it makes sense to expand SS if you can actually push NSRL through in the next twenty years. Sorry guys repeating your BS just convinced me of the opposite.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

SSX takes about half of ground level space on the first floor of tall and very tall towers. Think of it as ground level retail that activates the development. Yes, it takes space, but in that space it does everything and more that ground level retail would do--bring people, facilitate exchanges.

Nothing is lost by SSX. Think of the platforms as taking space that piled up shelving and invetory would in retail. Its still a great urban space at the base of tall towers. I can't think of a better use for it, can you?
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Counter-arguments which when you actually read through the NSRL proposal sound like complete BS. I get it if you think NSRL is never going to happen, then you probably need a few more platforms for South Station. But there is absolutely no way it makes sense to expand SS if you can actually push NSRL through in the next twenty years. Sorry guys repeating your BS just convinced me of the opposite.

Since you've repeatedly demonstrated a lack of understanding of basic concepts like air rights development, I'll try to do this as simply as possible.

Either NSRL or SSX gets us about a 50% increase in frequency over what can currently come into Boston from the south. We want about a 100% increase in service over the next three decades to handle anticipated demand in the region. The only way to get that +100% is SSX now and NSRL as soon as possible.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

We want about a 100% increase in service over the next three decades to handle anticipated demand in the region. The only way to get that +100% is SSX now and NSRL as soon as possible.

Agreed. All it takes is 2.4% year over year growth and in 30 years we'll have 100% more trips to accommodate. (growth compounds just like interest as each year's traffic is "the base" from which next year grows)
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Let's see.

Crossrail uses existing stations outside London, NS Rail would use existing stations outside Boston.

Crossrail builds new platforms in London. NS Rail builds new platforms in Boston.

How are these the antithesis of each other?

That is just plain false. You even quote.

Transport for London is part of the government. It is an agency within the Greater London Authority, which is the government of London. I don't see how you can claim it is a "private corporation".

Dwash -- Take a look at the CrossRail map for starters

All of the stuff on the map marked the Elizabeth Line is new -- not just new tracks and new stations -- New ROW in many cases or rehashing some old abandoned stuff. While it is true that the CrossRail Tunnels being built to accommodate the largest EU-sized passenger trains can allow trains from Traditional Intercity or Commuter Lines Lines [e.g. gzreatwester, ThamesLink] to be routed through the core tunnels, that is not the principle focus of the project.

That's why my hypothetical Boston Version went from Reading to Marlborough or Wayland -- New not just connecting Rockport line to Needham

As to private -- well OK Crossrail, Ltd., is a Gov't Corporation -- i.e. Ltd.

However, ever since the days of Maggie Thatcher the Brits have been unwinding their former Labor [aka Socialist] Government ownership of all the major things and so CrossRail, Ltd., is some sort of a hybrid crafted to fund, build and operate the Elizabeth Line. As such its given some gov't-like powers ["Compulsory Sales" --aka eminent domain] and a lot of private sector freedom to do its job. For example, CrossRail's board decided to look at development projects which could be located next to or on top of its new stations or their additional stations connected by escalators to the Tube stations.

I really doubt that the Mass Legislature would create a Boston CrossRail, Inc., and let it loose building botanic gardens [Canary Wharf], and office towers [Paddington].

Much more likely would be yet another Mass Boston Greater Mobility Authority [MBGNA] which decades of corruption later would be subsumed back into the DOT with a heritage of over priced, under-engineered, leaky tunnels with too little ventilation to permit anything except electrified Amtrak to use the tunnels.

On the flipside -- the N-S link in London would dig a giant tunnel to permit all of the Trains that now deadend into many dozens of tracks at Paddington to continue to Kings Cross/St. Pancras -- so that N-S running-through-like ..... You could board a train at Oxford for Cambridge

versus the method today
There's not really much choice by train for Cambridge to Oxford. Go from Cambridge to London Kings Cross - get the underground (Circle or Hammersmith & City) to Paddington Station - then train to Oxford. Journey time about 3 hours.

And of course the above exposes the logical fallacy of the running through argument

Even with F-line's impressive exposition telling us about why 128 to 128 versus not 495 to 495 -- Through Running for anything except Amtrak makes no sense. Take the Downeast passengers -- of which I was regularly while teaching at UNH. Most of the time I rode from Anderson [Woburn] to the station on the edge of the UNH campus. I tried North Station a couple of times just for "kicks". A couple of times I've taken the Downeast to Portland -- once for a technical workshop organized by National Semiconductor in South Portland.

In general, I was the classic reverse commuter -- traveling north in the AM and south in the PM with a mostly empty train [once I was accompanied on the way home with a hoard of people wearing Celtic Jerseys and i guess there might be some trains full of Red Sox jerseys in the summer].

I got to spend time with the mostly bored conductors and so we talked about the Downeast. All of the conductors [I guess in 5 years or so I got to talk to more than 10 as my return trips varied depending on my teaching research schedule] were dedicated to itss success and quite knowledgeable. Almost uniformly, they told me that there were a handful of dedicated direct commuters who boarded north of the Mass Border headed for Boston some traveling all the way from Portland. I asked about the reverse commute and outside of people traveling from NH to Portland the number was very small. Mostly, the people on the train were just folks from wherever going to wherever.

The major exception occurred on the crappy half car length platform at UNH around a holiday or college vacation -- they poured on headed to Boston and Logan, or on south to NYC or even DC -- it was a large crowd of mostly college kids.

They would benefit from N-S Rail being able to board Amtrak in say DC and probably change trains once platform to platform or perhaps even have an excursion train from Portland to NYC or DC.

For everyone else there is essentially no-value in through running except possibly a couple of Center City to Center City links -- a near exhaustive list [Worcester to Providence, Worcester to Lowell, Lowell to Providence]

the rest of all possible connections just is too diffuse to offer any value on any one train. F-Line talks about Rt-128 to Rt-128 congestion being reduced by taking a train -- not realistic. For one there are few places on Rt-128 where you could locate a new station from which it would be an easy walk to work. One possibility might be Winter St. on the back of the Cambridge Reservoir where there are a couple of million sq ft bounded by a circle of a about a mile radius with tech, biotech, pharma, business -- but to which possible existing station on an existing line or even a new station on a new line passing through Boston would match Hypothetical Raytheon Plaza?

It just doesn't work and unfortunately neither the former Governor nor the current Congressman has a sufficient mathematical background to apparently understand.

Once before I alluded to it -- its been a problem solved by the "Bell System" about 100 years ago with the creation of "Long Lines" There were not enough people in Boston who wanted to call any exchange in NYC and vice versa. So instead you called the Boston Long Distance operator who literally plugged your call through into the trunk line going to NYC and connected it to the specific local exchange. Eventually, with direct distance dialing the connections got automated but calls still travel trunked outside your immediate area code. unfortunately, due to some weird regulatory stuff all calls in Eastern Mass need to dial the full North American Dialing number even if you are calling across the street.

Now Packet Networks are different [e.g. Ethernet, Wifi, Bluetooth]---while a packet may be routed multiple times in multiple places -- it travels independently of everything else from source to destination.

Now here's a thought -- Perhaps the N-S would work with a whole bunch of small pods carrying 1 to a handful of people which could be individually targeted to a particular destination with some clever switching where all the lines come together to be trunked under Boston and then dispersed among many lines after coming back to the surface.

Well -- Outside of substituting pods for cars -- that's the essence of the Big Dig and the Metropolitan Highway Network.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

You still missed the point it is about some 128 to 128 for selected lines aka the Indigo Lines the MBTA has been talking about for years now and as if not more importantly providing riders heading to Back Bay on the Northside lines to get a more direct trip right to Back Bay Station or a closer stop to the Financial District with South Station.

Your description of trunking and the comparison you make is like comparing apples and kiwis, but in some ways that is what NSRL would do it takes the lines with their low frequencies at the ends and slowly builds up to a high frequency trunk line through downtown Boston.

And every day the highway system grinds to a slow crawl for several hours in the morning and at night because that is not a space efficient way to transport people. Mass transit works because it uses limited numbers of vehicles to transport large numbers of people relatively close to their destination in a relatively timely manner. Individualized rail mounted pods can't do that any more than our current rubber wheel mounted pods can do that. Using the word pod and some BS about using the rail network to move them doesn't change how car geometry works if anything it probably would make it even worse and less efficient.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

You still missed the point it is about some 128 to 128 for selected lines aka the Indigo Lines the MBTA has been talking about for years now and as if not more importantly providing riders heading to Back Bay on the Northside lines to get a more direct trip right to Back Bay Station or a closer stop to the Financial District with South Station.

Your description of trunking and the comparison you make is like comparing apples and kiwis, but in some ways that is what NSRL would do it takes the lines with their low frequencies at the ends and slowly builds up to a high frequency trunk line through downtown Boston.

And every day the highway system grinds to a slow crawl for several hours in the morning and at night because that is not a space efficient way to transport people. Mass transit works because it uses limited numbers of vehicles to transport large numbers of people relatively close to their destination in a relatively timely manner. Individualized rail mounted pods can't do that any more than our current rubber wheel mounted pods can do that. Using the word pod and some BS about using the rail network to move them doesn't change how car geometry works if anything it probably would make it even worse and less efficient.

Citylover -- there is nothing that the N-S rail link would do to get Northside riders closer to their Back Bay jobs. The chance that every train you take from say Salem would stop at Back Bay is vanishingly small, Most likely most of the Salem Line trains would not. You would get off at North Station and take a Back Bay train -- but more frequently there would be an Orange Line train to the same station. Financial District example is even worse as you can get off the Orange Line at DTX. So none of the North Side commuter rail trunking is relevant. Once the Hub on Causeway is completed sufficiently to enable the weather -free walk from the trains at North Station to the Trains at back Bay station -- then even the bit about weather become irrelevant.

The only riders from the North who would benefit would be someone taking a train from say Gloucester who wanted to go to Plymouth -- but even for them its not a one seater. The NS as currently planned doesn't include the Old Colony Line so they still need to change at South Station as opposed to today having to change twice from the Train to Orange or Green, and then Orange or Green, to Red before taking the Old Colony out of South Station.

Sorry that really can't justify the $10 to 12B project [the proponents now say its $8B and these are the same proponents who estimated the Big Dig costs for us]. No there is only one justification and would be to take two of the tracks and devote them to a subway connecting North and South Station. That line should start somewhere near the Cassino loop though the Navy Yard stop under North Station -- continue to South Station under -- continue under the Fort Point Channel to the back of GE-ville -- continue to Black Falcon-ville cross under the Reserve Channel down the Southy Peninsula to City Point -- under the Harbor to Logan, under Logan to Revere and end up in Lynn.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Citylover -- there is nothing that the N-S rail link would do to get Northside riders closer to their Back Bay jobs. The chance that every train you take from say Salem would stop at Back Bay is vanishingly small, Most likely most of the Salem Line trains would not. You would get off at North Station and take a Back Bay train -- but more frequently there would be an Orange Line train to the same station. Financial District example is even worse as you can get off the Orange Line at DTX. So none of the North Side commuter rail trunking is relevant. Once the Hub on Causeway is completed sufficiently to enable the weather -free walk from the trains at North Station to the Trains at back Bay station -- then even the bit about weather become irrelevant.

There's the strawman. Absolutely no one says this is about northsiders to Back Bay, and in fact the argument was about how this is being misconstrued at that.

The only riders from the North who would benefit would be someone taking a train from say Gloucester who wanted to go to Plymouth -- but even for them its not a one seater.

And there's the rehash of facts already in evidence. It was said right up-front that this wouldn't be Rockports-Franklins.

The NS as currently planned doesn't include the Old Colony Line so they still need to change at South Station as opposed to today having to change twice from the Train to Orange or Green, and then Orange or Green, to Red before taking the Old Colony out of South Station.

And there's the made-up bullflop passed off as conventional wisdom.

1447412570567


The NSRL as currently planned does include hookups to all lines. Always has. It's been discussed here--but not at the official level, because nothing has been discussed at the official level since the Major Investment Study was completed in 2003--that if the base build needed to be segmented into phases the OC lead tunnel could be deferred to later no-foul. Thread's been half-derailed by people who don't understand the basic concept of the third dimension, so you assumed nobody knew how to read 1 page prior. You assumed wrong. Again.

Sorry that really can't justify the $10 to 12B project [the proponents now say its $8B and these are the same proponents who estimated the Big Dig costs for us].

And here's the conclusion cobbled together from the strawman, the rehash presented as original thought, and the make-believe bullshit.

No there is only one justification and would be to take two of the tracks and devote them to a subway connecting North and South Station. That line should start somewhere near the Cassino loop though the Navy Yard stop under North Station -- continue to South Station under -- continue under the Fort Point Channel to the back of GE-ville -- continue to Black Falcon-ville cross under the Reserve Channel down the Southy Peninsula to City Point -- under the Harbor to Logan, under Logan to Revere and end up in Lynn.

And here's the night spent at a Holiday Inn Express mansplaining the One True Path forward the bureaucrats won't think of...because they didn't construct a false argument on a mountain of bullshit.



This has been your daily whiggy Mad Libs. Stay tuned tomorrow for same threadshit, different day.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Counter-arguments which when you actually read through the NSRL proposal sound like complete BS. I get it if you think NSRL is never going to happen, then you probably need a few more platforms for South Station. But there is absolutely no way it makes sense to expand SS if you can actually push NSRL through in the next twenty years. Sorry guys repeating your BS just convinced me of the opposite.

Tell us what you read in the official NSRL proposal that set off your BS alarm. Not the .org advocacy site full of misinformation...the Major Investment Study from 2003 on Web Archive which you can drill down to from the footnotes on the Wikipedia page EGE artfully curated on the subject.

Go ahead. You just staked yourself to having read the thing. Explain to us what you read--because you said you read it--that is such contradictory bullshit viz a viz South Station Expansion and real estate development therein. Because I hope you're not claiming you actually read it if that's not true. That would put one's behavior in this thread in a suspect light...perish the thought.
 

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