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

Re: North-South Rail Link

Charlie_mta and Arlington, I don't necessarily disagree with your points. The only way to learn is to remember where we've been. But we're talking about the relatively RECENT naming of a new train station after him. Why do we need more things named after him (e.g., we already deal with Yawkey Way next to Fenway Park, which we can use to teach about history and his legacy).

The crux is not that we should erase our past...it is that there are some people who still don't get it; still don't accept the severity of what was wrong.

Plus, if you read the news articles about Yale, indeed they are erecting a plaque telling of the 86-year history of Calhoun's name being there and why it was changed.
 
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Re: North-South Rail Link

So far as I can tell, Yawkey was not merely a product of his time, but a particularly outspoken racist even for his time. That's a significant difference.

Any of "Fenway Park", "Kenmore Square", "Brookline Avenue", or "Fenway-Kenmore" would be a more useful name while still maintaining a connection to the Red Sox.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

So far as I can tell, Yawkey was not merely a product of his time, but a particularly outspoken racist even for his time. That's a significant difference.

Yep, it is one thing to not be the first team owner to have a black player on your team. It is another to be the last holdout.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

So far as I can tell, Yawkey was not merely a product of his time, but a particularly outspoken racist even for his time. That's a significant difference.

This.

Also, no one is suggesting erasing the guy from history books. It's a question of whether or not we should be honoring him.

What exactly did he accomplish? He was born rich and bought a baseball team, then lost for forty years in part because he was a racist.

The street name is embarrassing.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Not on board with this. Do we know if Yawkey remained a racist or did he change his ways? Does the name also represent his wife who owned the team for decades after his death? Was she a racist too? Do we have proof or just anecdotal comments about said racism?

My point being its awful tough to re-litigate a guy's legacy 40 years after he croaked. Its not as easy as him standing in a school doorway blocking integration ala George Wallace.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Short term: when you hear "Yawkey", honor Jean Yawkey,'s philanthropy and remember Tom, his flaws and his era.

Long Term: Get a seamless Green-CR connection and rename it the Kenmore Transit Center.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Get a seamless Green-CR connection and rename it the Kenmore Transit Center.

Maybe this would ideally go on a different thread, but since this thread's been off course for some time now, I'll ask: how would you create a seamless Green-CR connection? There's about 500 horizontal feet and a turnpike between the two. Are you thinking pedestrian tunnel? That's be roughly the same length as the Winter Street concourse linking Park to DTX, so not such a radical distance. Pesky Turnpike in the way, though. Or did you have a different idea in mind?

I'd be all for such a connection by the way, so I'm asking optimistically, not pessimistically.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

This.

Also, no one is suggesting erasing the guy from history books. It's a question of whether or not we should be honoring him.

What exactly did he accomplish? He was born rich and bought a baseball team, then lost for forty years in part because he was a racist.

The street name is embarrassing.


He also got to the World Series a number of times before the team lost. If one of those runs won once, then the argument all of a sudden becomes moot? I am not personally that interested in honoring him, but I'm not one who want everyone who don't meet to the values we have now have to feel embarrassed.

BTW, I'm not white if you're thinking of that.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

I know it is a bit soon, but with Elon Musk getting into the boring business I would look for some downward pressure on costs of digging tunnels in the 3 to 5 year range. He has a good track record of bringing down the prices and increasing competition in the industries he has gotten into. Assuming he is somewhat serious with The Boring Company.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/amp25257/elon-musk-boring-company/
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

The tunnels aren't the cost problem in American transit. Pretty much everything else is.
 
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/changing-the-mindset-on-commuter-rail/

A great piece on the shortfalls of the current commuter rail system (designed for white collar workers in the 1950s) and the potential for it to become something great. All that is needed is electrification and a NSRL and we could have a full fledged transport system effectively making places like Lowell/Providence etc part of the Urban Core. Using trains similar to the ones used in Europe a trip from Providence to South Station could take only 40 mins, a trip to Lowell or Lawrence could take less than a half hour. The solution to our housing affordability crisis is not more tall towers, it's expanding transit in the Boston area to become make the Urban Boston job market easily accessible to people living in dense exurbs.

We should not cut commuter rail service. Instead the MBTA should have a vision for a regional rail service with convenient headway's (10 mins during rush hour and 20 mins during other times).
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

WGBH, NOVA, 9pm, "Super Tunnel". That's tonight, Wednesday, May 3 !

"Follow an army of engineers and designers as they tackle the complex challenge of building Crossrail, a massive new subterranean railway deep beneath the streets of London".
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

WGBH, NOVA, 9pm, "Super Tunnel". That's tonight, Wednesday, May 3 !

"Follow an army of engineers and designers as they tackle the complex challenge of building Crossrail, a massive new subterranean railway deep beneath the streets of London".

I watched that. Really good.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

The program's focus was on engineering challenges. Examples included an incredible maneuver dubbed, "the Eye of the Needle", where a massive boring machine passed 33 inches above an existing subway tube and 14 inches below another structure (reading those words I say to myself, "was it really inches?"). One employee's job was positioned in the subway tube below to monitor the ceiling for possible falling objects. As with the Big Dig, mitigation costs were expensive. Crossrails is being constructed in heavily congested areas and buildings had devices attached to monitor subsidence in real-time. Several large open concrete wells were constructed in anticipation of subsidence so that workers down in the wells could inject a liquid substance (don't remember what was used) into the ground to shore up any subsidence.

Oxford Street, if I remember correctly, was shown to be choked with traffic and Crossrails is passing nearby. Twenty-three billion dollars, when you need to spend the money, you spend the money.

For me, it was a fabulous hour of television viewing.


Click upper left thumbnail at this link, "Your questions answered: Crossrail".
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/october-digi-issue-2/your-questions-answered-crossrail


What was the technical process used in ‘threading the eye of the needle’ — tunnelling between the very tight clearances between the escalators and the Northern line at Tottenham Court Road?
Andy Alder, Crossrail project manager, western tunnels: Crossrail used an earth pressure balance (EPB) tunnel-boring machine (TBM) to mine the western-running tunnels between Royal Oak and Farringdon. The EPB TBM mined the section of tunnel directly above the operational Northern line platform tunnels at Tottenham Court Road, directly below the London Underground station structures, with less than 800mm clearance to each.
The EPB TBM controls ground movement during the tunnel mining by maintaining pressure on the clay being excavated within the cutting face. The cutterhead rotates as the TBM advances, cutting the clay with tungsten carbide cutting tools. There is a steel bulkhead that creates the cutterhead chamber, separating the cutting face from the inside of the TBM. A screw conveyor removes the excavated clay from the cutterhead chamber, and the speed of rotation of the screw conveyor controls the clay pressure at the cutterhead. In this way the ground movement is controlled and minimised. Foam is mixed with the clay to create the right consistency of spoil to use the screw conveyor to maintain pressure. Pressure in the TBM is monitored in real time to allow it to be controlled.

Behind the TBM, precast concrete segments are erected to create the tunnel lining. Cement grout is injected around the segments under pressure to lock the segments in the ground, and to ensure that all voids are filled.
A laser guidance system is used on the TBM, to ensure that its position is accurately known. Variable pressure on the TBM shove rams around the circumference of the TBM is used to control the TBM position to within ±50mm.
Automatic monitoring was undertaken in the Northern line platform tunnels. This used an automatic theodolite to record the position of a number of prisms fixed to the existing tunnel lining and record any movement. This data was analysed in real time to monitor the effect of the mining on London Underground’s assets. Recorded movements were less than 3mm, well within predictions, and a remarkable feat given that the 1,000t TBM passed only 800mm above.
 
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Re: North-South Rail Link


She's damned right to be fanning that hope. We need to do both: expansion first and then the NSRL. Along with a shitload of other transit investments that probably won't happen so long as Baker is Governor and DeLeo is Speaker (but we can lay groundwork now).

I like Moulton in most regards, but his argument that SSX would stymie $10B of development is just cracked. He pulled that number straight out of his ass, it makes no sense whatsoever. Development can go above those additional tracks, albeit with greater challenge that if the land was just clear of the post office and built on fresh. So perhaps SSX knocks some profit off a theoretical development. But there's no way in hell SSX makes even as much as $1B of development moot. Probably not even $100M.

And how does Moulton think that $10B of alternative universe development happens there with the Post Office being so stubborn about moving? The state is cobbling together all these other land swaps to make the PO move feasible: what private developer would be able to pull that off, or willing to even engage in the extreme bureaucratic headache to try? And if they did pull that off, they'd be plunking down $10B more development on the footprint of the post office than what could be build over the expanded platforms? With the FAA caps limiting either scenario? That's $10B worth of Bullshit he's spewing.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

I like Moulton in most regards, but his argument that SSX would stymie $10B of development is just cracked. He pulled that number straight out of his ass, it makes no sense whatsoever. Development can go above those additional tracks, albeit with greater challenge that if the land was just clear of the post office and built on fresh. So perhaps SSX knocks some profit off a theoretical development. But there's no way in hell SSX makes even as much as $1B of development moot. Probably not even $100M

Maybe it will, maybe it won't. If the N/S rail link were built. It might make land in New Hampshire and Maine more valuable since those states would then have one-seat connectivity to New York City, Baltimore, Washington D.C. etc. Right now the separation acts as a bit of resistance towards northern inter-city development. If the N/S/ rail link opens up new future electrified stretches of track north of Boston, those areas will become more valuable. Boston acts like a mini choke-point and somewhat of an apex for New England's commerce and economy. If Maine people can "Acela" right down to Washington D.C. without even having to get off a train at Boston it might make Boston a little less important. Maybe it will maybe it won't. Given Maine and New Hampshire stand to benefit they should kick in some tax dollars for the rail link to which benefit their states.
 
Re: North-South Rail Link

Maybe this would ideally go on a different thread, but since this thread's been off course for some time now, I'll ask: how would you create a seamless Green-CR connection? There's about 500 horizontal feet and a turnpike between the two. Are you thinking pedestrian tunnel? That's be roughly the same length as the Winter Street concourse linking Park to DTX, so not such a radical distance. Pesky Turnpike in the way, though. Or did you have a different idea in mind?

I'd be all for such a connection by the way, so I'm asking optimistically, not pessimistically.

What about a tunnel from Copley to Back Bay Stations below Dartmouth St. over by the Boston Public Library? Then it ties into the Orange Line too?
 

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