Uh-huh.
Regional Rail (RUR) & North-South Rail Link (NSRL)
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Uh-huh.
JeffDowntown
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Really, when your unions are full of diesel mechanics?
F-Line to Dudley
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For the 4,397th time...commuter rail is not "their" unions like Carmen's Local on the rapid transit & bus side. The Purple Line workforce is the same exact federalized labor as Amtrak and every single freight operator.
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- Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen -- train crews (engineers, conductors, freight brakemen, etc.).
- Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees -- workers who build and maintain the track and structures
- Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen -- workers who maintain railroad signals in the U.S. (dispatchers, radiomen, maintenance of signals and switches in field, traffic modeling & management). Also includes track inspection services like doing track geometry or track defect checks with specialized high-tech equipment.
Other:
- Transportation Trades Division (AFL-CIO) --Catch-all for RR jobs not covered by the Big 3: yard personnel, some sub-conductor train crew jobs like diner staff & lounge customer service agents (though I think on Amtrak they're full BLET members), station attendants, and shop/craft workers.
- (craft workers) -- Also covered--sometimes with cross-membership--by their specialty unions. IBEW, for instance, has a huge presence in commuter rail because of the electrical requirements of signals, yards, and shops.
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Of those, BLET doesn't care if there's a pantograph on top of the train or not; they just run it. BMoWE would salivate at the chance for 20 years of guaranteed work erecting catenary towers all up and down hundreds of miles of track. BRS, which is already working overtime finishing up the PTC mandate and is salivating at the upcoming chance to install cab signals on the northside...would salivate at the chance to re-optimize signals across the system for RER service levels. The diesel mechanics in TTD are in no danger of losing their jobs before retirement because of how long it'll feasibly take to electrify the northside...which will in the interim see big diesel service INCREASES for RER, giving them more work to do. And most of the other trades folks are completely agnostic to propulsion type.
IBEW-Boston, however, is already lobbying the shit out of Alt. 6. And they throw their weight around locally like a boss.
It's irrelevant. Have legit criticisms of labor...fine. But it is completely and utterly irrelevant to the Rail Vision. These national organizations don't have skin in the Rail Vision Alts. selection...only whether commuter rail writ-large is growing or stagnating.
Equilibria
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I don't find this difficult to understand or believe. MassDOT hired a consultant, provided them with underlying data and direction, and the consultant modeled and costed out the alternatives suggested. The MBTA doesn't come into the picture except as an advisor.
The MBTA hasn't done its own planning since 2009.
The charitable reading of these alternatives is that MassDOT wants to set boundaries - "how much would it cost to do everything?" But if that was the intention, it was completely lost on Monday when the Secretary used the presentation to grandstand against electrification. When they present the EMU urban rail alternative we'll hopefully get a number we can actually use (as long as we remember to subtract the cost for NSRL that they've tossed into that alternative to make it artificially more expensive).
One issue with the NSRL is that the current bi-level cars really aren't great for subway like service. It takes a couple of mins to board and unboard all passengers from North Station with double decker sets.
I think the trains need wider doors, and ideally stations that can accommodate doors at both the upper and lower levels of the trains (so 2 level stations).
I think the trains need wider doors, and ideally stations that can accommodate doors at both the upper and lower levels of the trains (so 2 level stations).
Also interesting is that option 3, 5 and 6 include the Grand Junction line for commuter rail service.
I think that would be a great idea for the Worcester line, to actually have some Worcester/North Station trains with a stop somewhere near Kendall square. Would probably require the removal of some grade crossings though.
You also might get some reverse commutes of people going into North Station and on a reverse train out to Kendall. There is a bus route that serves this corridor though (not MBTA but one paid for by area businesses).
I think that would be a great idea for the Worcester line, to actually have some Worcester/North Station trains with a stop somewhere near Kendall square. Would probably require the removal of some grade crossings though.
You also might get some reverse commutes of people going into North Station and on a reverse train out to Kendall. There is a bus route that serves this corridor though (not MBTA but one paid for by area businesses).
Consultants help organizations justify what they already wanted to do all the time. But you probably believe that "nation-wide searches" just happen to recommend the local candidate so much as well.
When state transportation officials inflate cost estimates over and over again on projects they don't want to do, it strains credulity. Fool me once, as the saying goes. ...
DominusNovus
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I’m no fan of unions myself, but when I went to an NSRL meeting, it was mostly union people eager for new work. And Dukakis trying to turn it into a political rally.
fattony
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I think a shuttle just pinging back and forth between West Station and North Station is more likely than routing whole Worcester trains to North Station.
stick n move
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With 15 or 30 min headways and electric trainsets like the septa silverliner the much higher frequency would allow and be perfect for single level cars. Subways do it everyday with much more passengers than these CR routes serve due to the higher frequencies.
F-Line to Dudley
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No, the opposite is true. Worcester-NS was studied and traffic-modeled already for a handful of alt-routed rush hour commute-direction slots, and checked out within the line's capacity limits. A dinky, or any bidirectional service whatsoever has never been studied in any way and has serious question marks about whether it could achieve baseline headways.
It's more likely the state drops rather than pursues it given the question marks.
F Line. I asked about a shuttle between the SeaPort and BacBay ,which would continue to N. Station via the Grand Jct. I believe it serves a couple of markets and could succeed. Your thoughts?
P.S. The Conductors and Assistant Conductors on commuter rail are represented by SMART (Sheet Metal, Air and Rail Transportation) Union, formerly the UTU.
P.S. The Conductors and Assistant Conductors on commuter rail are represented by SMART (Sheet Metal, Air and Rail Transportation) Union, formerly the UTU.
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I still think the idea of running regular locomotives along GJ at all is an unlikely proposition. It's frustrating that they're stuck on this idea rather than studying other transit uses for the GJ like BRT/LRT.
Charlie_mta
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The low cost of setting up commuter rail & stations versus a light rail line is what's driving its preference, I would think. The Federal and State money is scarce and getting scarcer, so the low cost option get the attention.
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I get it, but the grasping at perceived low-hanging-fruit that won't actually improve the transit environment due to the poor feasibility ends up being thumb-twiddling wastes of time.
F-Line to Dudley
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I have no doubt it would serve markets. The question is entirely about whether the line is able to sustain the headways for useful bidirectional service. The throughput on the line--even if double-tracked--is extremely limited by the junctions on each end. If it's to be a featured cog in Urban Rail frequencies, but it can't do 15-min. frequencies in both directions...that's a problem.
They have literally never ever studied this in any way, shape, or form despite it being featured on both the Patrick Administration's 2024 "Indigoes" map and now the Rail Vision. It's only been studied for 5-6 morning inbound and 5-6 afternoon outbound Worcester-North Station trips...strictly unidirectional service that only goes in the peak commute direction. The traffic modeling worked for that service, but the big points of concern were that speeds were so slow (1) they were scraping the upper limits of the line's capacity just running single-file in the same direction, and (2) rush was the only period of the day where travel times direct to Kendall and North Station offered any distinct advantage over Orange Back Bay-North Station or Red South Station-Kendall. All other non-peakmost hours of the day a Grand Junction train was living within the margin of error on travel time vs. the two subway lines, which evaporated off-peak demand. Third major issue was the grade crossing impacts to car, bus, and bike traffic at Mass Ave. and Broadway. It was within tolerance for the limited Worcester service, but only barely. The impacts project bad in a hurry the more slots added.
These are concerning for Urban Rail because if the line is geometrically so slow that they're running up on the previous train's tails on a strictly unidirectional rush hour shift, 15-minute Urban Rail frequencies are going to push things to the absolute limit both single-file on a 2-track line and at the junctions where there are train meets. DMU's won't make enough of a difference, and EMU's (if they can even go there...Memorial Dr. overpass is too low for hanging 25 kV wire) are going to have very muted advantage when they can't zip any faster than the line's very low 20-35 MPH geometric speed limit. So this could end up being where it gets ruled no-go and have to get scaled back to something less than those systemwide baseline frequencies to exist at all. And given that Orange is getting a much larger car supply to solve its crowding issues and Red is getting optimized to help its rush hour case...you need a real-deal Urban Rail frequency to keep the options ripe enough that the route will get true utilization. If, say, West-NS has to retreat to 30 minutes while a conga line of Worcester and Riverside trains give you 15 or better to BBY or SS...the two-seater to the improved subways is going to rule. Which is not to say there isn't natural demand...there clearly is if this corridor is bullseyed for the Urban Ring. But a sub- Urban Rail frequency target isn't going to tap nearly enough of that demand.
But at the end of the day it's not a debate about utilization vs. demand and whether your glass is half-full or half-empty. The Grand Junction has already been served up by the Rail Vision as the most disposable piece on the map...before it's even been studied. With the way this Administration looks for excuses high-and-wide to move goalposts in favor of never doing anything ever, it doesn't even take a "No" answer on feasibility to get the Grand Junction line sandbagged like so much else. It can just be a verdict of "feasible...with reservations", where a need to take additional risk assessment steps (any...even the cheap ones) to solve a couple lingering dilemmas gets the project slapped with a big "NOPE". Politics is what I'd be afraid of right now. A leadership coalition 10x bigger than the Kendall heavies calling for Grand Junction service was backing RER...and they got punked anyway. This one project is so small and lacking in study definition it's an effortless drop if they want it gone.
Semass said:
I was at the public meeting last night, for the presentation and as much of the Q&A as I could stay for. TL;DR: exactly what HelloBostonHi said, and I hope you don't have any vision of increased service on the inner Worcester line in the next fifteen years, minimum.
This was my first transit-related public meeting, I went in prepared to be disappointed, and I still managed to be underwhelmed. From the (late) start, it was obvious (as someone who has followed the process fairly closely) that the presenter was leading us towards the one-platform design as the preferred alternative. The entire process was run with the assumption that the only service increases currently on the table would be adding the reverse-peak trains. Everything else was casually dismissed with the bullet point "plan does not preclude future Urban Rail Vision".
They have three single-sided platforms scoped at something in the low-mid $40M range total (done in ~2024), three double-sided platforms at $43M per station (done in ~2027), and three island platforms at something like $75M per station (done in ~2030, would require stations to be closed for much of the construction period). Island platforms were eliminated almost immediately. Single vs. double was generally presented as "they're the same solution, but one gets you reverse peak trains and costs $80-some million more, so we're doing the cheaper one". The $43M per station number was compared against other similar projects, but only within the MBTA system and only a selection at that (e.g. did not include Lansdowne or Boston Landing).
The crowd questions were a mixed bag, but the general consensus seemed to be that it was pretty sad that they couldn't manage at least one double-platform station to add some sort of minimum viable reverse-commute option for the city. The co-chair of the commission on disability... I'm sure he's a very nice gentleman, but if my best friend gave a ten minute speech/rant during the Q&A of a packed session that was going to run double the posted time, I'd have words with said friend, so it's hard not to criticize. (He also went for a dig at TransitMatters during said rant, incidentally.) There were about ten city councilors and state rep Khan there, many of whom had some short questions but all of whom clearly already knew how the winds were blowing.
Hats off to the gentleman who got up about half an hour into Q&A and basically said, "I don't really have a question, but all these people are saying nice things, so I just want to say as politely as possible, everything you've said tonight is shortsighted and kind of BS, right?" I started the clap for that one. There were some other critical questions coming in at the end, but I had to take off around 7:30 (with no sign of things slowing down and a baby that needed to get to bed).
The PPT will be posted online at some point, and someone in the audience was taking video, though who knows if that shows up. Time to go send some futile messages to my elected officials.
Equilibria
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They aren't futile - Ari Ofsevit has already killed one version of this.