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

[Matthew]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Hi Alon, welcome.

2. The plans for the NSRL involve two 40'-diameter bores, and as I understand, this is what the space left in the Big Dig is for. This diameter is (barely) large enough to fit two tracks with platforms, as in the diagrams of mine that Arlington posted above. Thus, the cost of a station at Aquarium is likely to be very low. I agree that it's a waste of money at $1 billion, but with large-diameter bores, it's likely to cost a fraction of that. I think even $250 million is a good deal given the Blue Line connection.

Have you given any thought to the problem that any proposed Central station at Aquarium may have to be placed on a slope, much like the existing Blue Line station is (albeit, in another direction)? And the trickiness of digging access shafts for elevators and escalators?

 

[Alon]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I have not. How steep would the slope be? I know there are stations on slopes on the subway in New York, so the maximum slope is more than zero.

Access shafts are an issue, yeah. That's why the cost isn't zero. (It's a pretty big problem at Fulton Street in New York, too, but there are station sites there for escalator banks to land.) Is there any profile diagram of the underground infrastructure in that area? The Big Dig is probably the only big problem, since the Blue Line tunnel is much narrower than the station would be long, so escalators can avoid it.

 

[whighlander]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Hi! I saw this thread in blog referrer stats. I wrote something but it got eaten. A few comments:


9. Amtrak shouldn't really be part of the tunnel. The surface rail schedule should accommodate high-speed rail if Amtrak decides to run any, but the tunnel should be built for local and regional trains. Even if there's high-speed rail south to New York, I can see maybe one hourly train to Maine use the tunnel for New York-Portland through-service. If the schedule and the line pairing can accommodate it then great, but if not, there's only so much money that should go to a train to Portland.

Alon -- this thing is pure fantasy -- the only funding possible for the N-S Rail is for Amtrak NE Corridor

No one is going to spend $3 to $5B for tunneling when all is said and done + the cost of electrification of all the Commuter Rail routes just to offer someone in Newburyport a single seat ride to Plymouth or someone in Fitchburg a single seat ride to Worcester

The demand for such long CR trips is measured on the fingers of one hand per week

Nor is there any demand for once an hour service from anywhere to/from Portland

A few years ago [circa 2007 - 2009] I taught some courses at UNH and commuted in the morning from Anderson in Woburn to Durham a few dozen times in a couple of years and -- typically there were a small bunch of people who boarded a mostly empty Downeaster when it arrived at Anderson. Similarly, in the late afternoon I joined a dozen or so standing on the platform in Durham and had no problems finding a pair of open seats {one for me and one for my laptop and snack}.

I can only recall a couple of occasions of full conditions both associated with large numbers of people wearing jerseys with numbers and heading for North Station and the Gahdn [Green and White, or Yellow and Black]

I have to admit that it was pleasant to be able to drink a coffee and have a snack without worrying about running off the highway and the hour plus travel time allowed for some useful work without anyone bothering you since the Downeasters all had good Wifi

 

[bigeman312]

Re: North-South Rail Link

1. Having just one South Side portal at Back Bay is a nonstarter. Through-running is useful mainly for local service, not longer-range service. In Paris, the RER is more local than the Transilien network (which stub-ends at the traditional terminals), and in Tokyo, the Keihin-Tohoku and Yamanote Lines provide local service, while longer-distance commuter service only began running through about a week ago. In Boston, the Fairmount Line has the most local demand while the Providence and Worcester Lines have the longest-range demand, so it's necessary to include them in the scheme.

Not ideal, maybe, but I completely disagree with your classification as a nonstarter. The North-South Rail Link can definitely be successful, even with only the one South Side portal. This would still give every.single.North Side CR rider a one-seat ride to South Station. It would still give every.single.North Side CR rider a one seat ride to Back Bay. Just based on those two facts alone, the NSRL would most certainly not be a "nonstarter" (i.e. having no chance of effectiveness or success). Giving North Side riders easy access to South Station and Back Bay, what is our region's core, gives this project a chance of success alone. That ignores the access to the NEC and Inland Route that would lend the project even more merit and credibility.

 

[Alon]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Alon -- this thing is pure fantasy -- the only funding possible for the N-S Rail is for Amtrak NE Corridor

No one is going to spend $3 to $5B for tunneling when all is said and done + the cost of electrification of all the Commuter Rail routes just to offer someone in Newburyport a single seat ride to Plymouth or someone in Fitchburg a single seat ride to Worcester

The demand for such long CR trips is measured on the fingers of one hand per week

Okay, then it won't happen, because Amtrak has no reason to care. And if it does offer the NSRL, I will be happy to point out that it's engaging in agency imperialism, of the same kind that led it to propose Gateway (which is of limited use for it - it's much more useful for commuter rail), at much higher cost than ARC because it's Amtrak. Basically, an Amtrak that's willing to offer Massachusetts the NSRL is an Amtrak that's too incompetent for Massachusetts to want to deal with it.

Where Amtrak could be useful is electrification, at least on lines that tie into the Providence Line. To avoid long three- and four-track segments, the Providence Line needs to speed up commuter trains, so it's in Amtrak's interest to offer the MBTA help in procuring EMUs for the Providence Line and maybe even electrify the New Bedford and Fall River; if Massachusetts is willing to set $2 billion on fire for New Bedford, Amtrak could throw in $200 million on stringing catenary so the trains won't interfere with faster Acelas. However, there's zero reason for Amtrak to spend money on electrifying North Side lines, and not much reason for it to spend money on electrifying Worcester, Franklin, or the Old Colony. Fairmount, sure, if Amtrak wants to divert intercity trains there and leave the Southwest Corridor to commuter trains. But the rest are all wonderful scope for an integrated Northeastern mainline rail plan and terrible for a plan focused on faster intercity trips.

Electrification and through-service aren't really about Newburyport-Plymouth trips, and of course not about Fitchburg-Worcester ones, which will always be faster by car. They're about more convenient trips to the core and to secondary destinations: Lowell-South Station, Salem-Back Bay, Bridgewater-Lynn, Readville-Brandeis, Dedham-Tufts, Allston-Malden. Some of those are possible today but with annoying transfers in the Boston CBD; commuters are especially averse to destination-end transfers, even ones who will drive multiple kilometers to a better park-and-ride. Others are subway/bus trips because the commuter trains don't make enough urban stops, and are even slower. All of these turn into one-seat rides, or two-seat rides with a cross-platform transfer at Aquarium. With the Grand Junction, even trips to Kendall, the region's third business district, become two-seat rides with a cross-platform transfer at North Station or Aquarium.

It's also about speed. Lowell-North Station today is 45 minutes - about the same schedule as when the Boston and Lowell first opened (although that was for nonstops). A FLIRT could do the trip, making all current stops, in less than 30 minutes, including schedule contingency. It would reliably beat the roads even when there's no traffic, boosting off-peak ridership, which is cheaper to provide than peak ridership (no need for new equipment or infrastructure for it).

Nor is there any demand for once an hour service from anywhere to/from Portland

Hourly trains from Boston to Portland aren't fantasy at all, provided the speed is adequate. Portland's metro area is slightly smaller than Malmö's. Boston's is twice as large as Stockholm's, and New York's is ten times as large. The Stockholm-Malmö express service, which runs shitty 200 km/h tilting trains but still averages 140 km/h, runs hourly. Stockholm-Malmö is about 500 km, whereas Boston-Portland is 200, but at this range, ridership doesn't depend on distance - more people travel Boston-Portland than Stockholm-Malmö, but assuming equal train average speed, more will drive in the US because the shorter distance means the train's speed advantage translates to a smaller trip time advantage than in Sweden.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Portland wouldn't be the only potential Amtrak route going through the link. There would likely be a New Hampshire route as well going through Nashua, Manchester and Concord.

 

[whighlander]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Okay, then it won't happen, because Amtrak has no reason to care....

Electrification and through-service aren't really about Newburyport-Plymouth trips, and of course not about Fitchburg-Worcester ones, which will always be faster by car. They're about more convenient trips to the core and to secondary destinations: Lowell-South Station, Salem-Back Bay, Bridgewater-Lynn, Readville-Brandeis, Dedham-Tufts, Allston-Malden....

It's also about speed. Lowell-North Station today is 45 minutes - about the same schedule as when the Boston and Lowell first opened (although that was for nonstops). A FLIRT could do the trip, making all current stops, in less than 30 minutes, including schedule contingency. It would reliably beat the roads even when there's no traffic, boosting off-peak ridership, which is cheaper to provide than peak ridership (no need for new equipment or infrastructure for it).



Hourly trains from Boston to Portland aren't fantasy at all, provided the speed is adequate. Portland's metro area is slightly smaller than Malmö's. Boston's is twice as large as Stockholm's, and New York's is ten times as large. The Stockholm-Malmö express service, which runs shitty 200 km/h tilting trains but still averages 140 km/h, runs hourly. Stockholm-Malmö is about 500 km, whereas Boston-Portland is 200, but at this range, ridership doesn't depend on distance - more people travel Boston-Portland than Stockholm-Malmö, but assuming equal train average speed, more will drive in the US because the shorter distance means the train's speed advantage translates to a smaller trip time advantage than in Sweden.

Alon my Swedish is limited -- or I'd reply more appropriately -- But this ain't no stinkin EU country

In EU specifically, signs outside of Gdansk Poland give the mileage to drive to the ferry and take it overnight [18 hr] to Sweden for business [including large trucks]

The only thing close to that here is the Portland ME to Yarmouth NS -- Casino Cruise ship [4 hrs] -- somehow I don't think you'll see much in the way of business and commerce on that cruise

Now back to EU for ferry land
http://www.cheapferry.co.uk/cheap_ferry_to_gdansk_from_nynashamn.htm

Find a Cheap Ferry to Gdansk from Nynashamn and book a cheap ferry to Gdansk from Nynashamn online with Cheapferry.co.uk.

Use our Ferry to Gdansk from Nynashamn sailing information guide to find all the info you need to plan and book your cheap ferry ticket.

Want to compare Cheap Ferry to Gdansk from Nynashamn with other ferry route? Take a look at the alternative routes at the bottom of the page.

Somehow that doesn't seem very much a US type of search site

We just have a different ethos -- you can not reasonably compare the demand for some sort of non-auto service in the EU with the US -- even the "enlightened NE"

 

[iamdjmichael]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I think many people believe that this seems like fantasy and that people won't use it to its full potential because we are so accustomed to what we have now. If we have better connections we will use them. They just need to be consistent. Personally I tried commuting from Salem to Framingham by train and to say it was a shitshow is an understatement. Be

 

[Alon]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Alon my Swedish is limited -- or I'd reply more appropriately -- But this ain't no stinkin EU country

In EU specifically, signs outside of Gdansk Poland give the mileage to drive to the ferry and take it overnight [18 hr] to Sweden for business [including large trucks]

We just have a different ethos -- you can not reasonably compare the demand for some sort of non-auto service in the EU with the US -- even the "enlightened NE"

The ferries aren't actually all that patronized. It's Europe, not China - the main rail routes are fairly short-distance, and if there are rail ferries on the way, people will just fly. We're the region of Ryanair and EasyJet and Norwegian Air Shuttle, not just the region of the TGV, ICE, AVE, and whatever the Italians call their as-tardy-as-Amtrak trains.

The city pairs where people ride trains are precisely the ones offering fast, frequent service. Nowhere in the US do these speeds exist: the New York-Washington Acela averages 130, but is priced as a premium service and has hilariously low capacity. When a North American city makes an effort to offer the same service quality that's routine in many cities this side of the Pond, it gets pretty high ridership. Just look at Calgary's light rail achievement - and that's a city that people elsewhere in Canada dismiss as a cow town and as the Texas of the North. Offer trains that reliably average 140 km/h from Boston to Portland, and charge fares that humans can pay, and suddenly people will ride it.

It's something I keep having to repeat about many things: FRA regulations, train capabilities, parking rules, bus plans, rail plans, investment priorities. Americans aren't special. The laws of physics here and there are the same, and so are the laws of economics. When Americans and Canadians do what the Europeans do, the results are similar. BART and the Washington Metro are okay S-Bahns, and have comparable ridership - they just aren't great at urban service, especially not BART. The same is true of commuter and intercity lines.

 

[tangent]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Pull into North Station, change ends. Pull into Allston Station, change ends. Pull into South Station, rinse-repeat. Besides the engineer walking from one end to the other, changing ends requires a full break test, recharging the break pipe, and a bunch of other checklist procedures. Doing this twice is insane, and would take for ever. Oh, and people would be riding backwards half the ride.

The Grand Junction's utility is for the daily CSX produce job to Everett Terminal, commuter trains from the west to be able to go to North Station, and for a restored Amtrak Inland Regional to be able to connect to Portland. If the link is ever built, it's use is in being converted to a light rail section of the urban ring, probably as a green line spurr. That's it. The end. Full Stop.

The important thing is being able to move the trains between the North and the South The people can change trains once or twice as long as another one will be along shortly.

Maybe it is thread crapping to talk about Grand Junction in a N-S link thread, but I am assuming the big dig tunnel N-S link is crazier than a crazy transit pitch for at least the next few decades. Which means Grand Junction has to remain available to move freight and commuter rail trains at night. Seems like we might as well go with it and see if Grand Junction might serve some overlapping purposes and in light of the West Station plan which appears to be quietly moving along.

is your obsession with replacing a high capacity system with a lesser one? Besides the fact that you'd have to replace the bridge over the Charles to accommodate buses, you are decreasing capacity, speed, and efficiency while increasing ROW width and emissions for... what, exactly?

First I am suggesting the best thing given the circumstances is expanding rail on Grand Junction not BRT. I was merely agreeing with BRT for Grand Junction if it were possible. But it isn't because the rail is needed.

But yes dedicated BRT would be better than a single track that can only be used at night.

 

[DigitalSciGuy]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Welcome, Alon! Us over at TransitMatters are huge fans.

This turned into a shouting match pretty quickly... I'd agree with imdjmichael:

I think many people believe that this seems like fantasy and that people won't use it to its full potential because we are so accustomed to what we have now. If we have better connections we will use them. They just need to be consistent. Personally I tried commuting from Salem to Framingham by train and to say it was a shitshow is an understatement. Be

None of this is happening anytime soon, especially without federal grants or loans. The struggle to get the federal component of the Green Line Extension funding shows that we'll also need the state to throw in its commitment. Federal grants will probably come from the FRA and possibly partly from the Amtrak capital budget - maybe even RI and NH - but NSRL isn't happening at all without some portion from the Commonwealth.

Considering this winter, my question is whether NSRL can add core capacity and satisfy trips to secondary destinations, as Alon mentioned, to permit more heavy capital investment in the existing network. With the T seeing upward of $7bn in backlogged capital investments, is it worthwhile to include the $5-7bn for NSRL if it means we can take down whole segments of the existing rapid transit network with light bustitution and accelerate the work on the backlog?

 

[Alon]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Welcome, Alon! Us over at TransitMatters are huge fans.

I'm flattered, thanks!

None of this is happening anytime soon, especially without federal grants or loans. The struggle to get the federal component of the Green Line Extension funding shows that we'll also need the state to throw in its commitment. Federal grants will probably come from the FRA and possibly partly from the Amtrak capital budget - maybe even RI and NH - but NSRL isn't happening at all without some portion from the Commonwealth.

That's what I'm thinking, too. The state's going to have to cough up the majority of the funds. A transit-friendlier Congress could keep it down to 50% plus a few extras it won't fund. (I don't think Congress should be funding rolling stock acquisition, but it counts as capital and the federal government has funded it in the past.) The current Congress would make it much harder, although, given a sound operating plan, I believe the cost per rider and cost per minute saved metrics are going to be low enough to entice federal funding.

The problem is that it requires the state to actually fund something. There's only so much money you can raise by the creative means that governors use when they want to say they haven't raised taxes. A 0.5% income tax should be more than enough if I've done my math right, so a 0.5% sales tax should be fine too, but that's a political fight. Air rights over South Station and such are more popular, but won't be enough.

Considering this winter, my question is whether NSRL can add core capacity and satisfy trips to secondary destinations, as Alon mentioned, to permit more heavy capital investment in the existing network. With the T seeing upward of $7bn in backlogged capital investments, is it worthwhile to include the $5-7bn for NSRL if it means we can take down whole segments of the existing rapid transit network with light bustitution and accelerate the work on the backlog?

My usual line when an agency talks about a maintenance backlog is "you mean you've deferred maintenance all those years and didn't tell us?". Not sure whether it's relevant given MBTA politics, but at New York's MTA and Amtrak it is: in 2005 Amtrak fired David Gunn for prioritizing maintenance over on-paper profitability pending privatization, but once stimulus funding became available it discovered it had a backlog; New York has been making State of Good Repair plans since the 1980s, and has made a lot of progress, but somehow has a never-shrinking backlog in the tens of billions, just enough that nobody would think to say "here's the money, and if I see a rat on the trains again, you're all dead, dead, dead." The MBTA's situation might be different, what with the Big Dig debt the state foisted on it. But generally, I'd be skeptical of agencies that find these backlogs whenever someone dangles money in front of them.

Now, the NSRL would make it possible to shut some lines down for maintenance, but Red and Blue Line shutdowns would still be very painful. Service on the Grand Junction would help somewhat, but it would still be a roundabout way of getting from Downtown Boston to Kendall and Central Squares.

 

[anthonyx26]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Back in the news...

http://www.nashobapublishing.com/ci_28641260/baker-questions-north-south-rail-link-impact-congestion

 

[393b40]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I'm kind of with Baker on this one... South Station Expansion probably has a greater value add all around than NSRL.

 

[bigeman312]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I do not understand how simply connecting North Station to South Station - both of which everybody would agree are crowded - by itself does anything to solve my problem with respect to congestion,

Facepalm. Charlie, the link does not simply connect North Station to South Station. It connects 4408 station-pairs, including:

• North Station and South Station
• Salem and South Station
• Salem and Back Bay
• Salem and Providence
• Beverly and South Station
• Beverly and Back Bay
• Beverly and Providence
• Lowell and South Station
• Lowell and Back Bay
• Lowell and Providence
• etc, etc, etc

And on and on and on times 4408. I'd like it if his quote were more informed and he tried to claim:

"I do not understand how simply connecting North Station and South Station, Salem and South Station, Salem and Back Bay, Salem and Providence, Beverly and South Station, Beverly and Back Bay, Beverly and Providence.....(he spends 2 hours and 27 minutes listing off each of the pairs it connects, assuming two seconds per pair)... - by itself does anything to solve my problem with respect to congestion."

That would be amusing to me.

EDIT: Charlie, if you're reading, imagine if we got rid of the Central Artery Tunnel. I mean, all it does it connect the Financial District with the West End. Why do we need a highway to connect those two neighborhoods anyways?

 

[George_Apley]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Facepalm. Charlie, the link does not simply connect North Station to South Station. It connects 4408 station-pairs, including:

• North Station and South Station
• Salem and South Station
• Salem and Back Bay
• Salem and Providence
• Beverly and South Station
• Beverly and Back Bay
• Beverly and Providence
• Lowell and South Station
• Lowell and Back Bay
• Lowell and Providence
• etc, etc, etc

And on and on and on times 4408. I'd like it if his quote were more informed and he tried to claim:

"I do not understand how simply connecting North Station and South Station, Salem and South Station, Salem and Back Bay, Salem and Providence, Beverly and South Station, Beverly and Back Bay, Beverly and Providence.....(he spends 2 hours and 27 minutes listing off each of the pairs it connects, assuming two seconds per pair)... - by itself does anything to solve my problem with respect to congestion."

That would be amusing to me.

EDIT: Charlie, if you're reading, imagine if we got rid of the Central Artery Tunnel. I mean, all it does it connect the Financial District with the West End. Why do we need a highway to connect those two neighborhoods anyways?

He understands perfectly. I guarantee that he's being deliberately obtuse. Smart, wonky, old-school conservatives like Baker play up the stupid to stall things that cost money, or to force advocates to retool proposals, clarify their intent, and force feed it.

I don't necessarily support the tactic, but it's a media tactic and a negotiating tactic nevertheless.

 

[whighlander]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Facepalm. Charlie, the link does not simply connect North Station to South Station. It connects 4408 station-pairs, including:

• North Station and South Station
• Salem and South Station
• Salem and Back Bay
• Salem and Providence
• Beverly and South Station
• Beverly and Back Bay
• Beverly and Providence
• Lowell and South Station
• Lowell and Back Bay
• Lowell and Providence
• etc, etc, etc

And on and on and on times 4408. I'd like it if his quote were more informed and he tried to claim:

"I do not understand how simply connecting North Station and South Station, Salem and South Station, Salem and Back Bay, Salem and Providence, Beverly and South Station, Beverly and Back Bay, Beverly and Providence.....(he spends 2 hours and 27 minutes listing off each of the pairs it connects, assuming two seconds per pair)... - by itself does anything to solve my problem with respect to congestion."

That would be amusing to me.

EDIT: Charlie, if you're reading, imagine if we got rid of the Central Artery Tunnel. I mean, all it does it connect the Financial District with the West End. Why do we need a highway to connect those two neighborhoods anyways?

Bigeman -- I doubt that you could find more than 2 people who would commute for most of those pairs

As an example -- I have a good friend who commutes daily [well 4 times a week] from home in Lexington to job in West Warwick Rhode Island -- even if he could get on the Red Line at Alewife take the Commuter Rail to North Station from Porter and go through the N-S Tunnel to get to TF Green Station -- then what

That's why we have cars and will for the foreseeable future depend on them for most of our commutes

 

[underground]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I doubt that you could find more than 2 people who would commute for most of those pairs

I'd put money on there being more than two people from Lynn, Salem, Lowell, or Waltham who work in the Back Bay or around South Station.

 

[citylover94]

Re: North-South Rail Link

At this time sure because that commute would suck, but with the rail link it would open up working in Back Bay or around South Station as a more reasonable choice. Why would it be a bad thing to provide more mobility to the region. If Boston was willing to bury the Central Artery to improve car travel why is it so hard to justify a much cheaper rail tunnel? Yes I realize it is still very expensive but even if it does cost $8 billion thats still a lot less than about $24.3 billion.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I'd put money on there being more than two people from Lynn, Salem, Lowell, or Waltham who work in the Back Bay or around South Station.

I would agree, and the big wins in all of this are getting North Shore and Northwest commuters to South Station and Back Bay directly; and South Shore and West Commuters to North Station directly.

This is really not about today's train commuters. It is about the people who do not commute by train today, because these routes are too long with subway and bus connections -- and getting those people out of their cars onto trains via more effective through running service.