The official talking points on NSRL have been crap for about 20 years now, and don't capture the purpose-and-need well at all. Lots and lots about "One-mile gap!" as if one-seat to North Station from the south and South Station/Back Bay from the north is the be-all/end-all when people can't perceive not taking the subway to get around the CBD, and lots of very muddled prognostications about run-thru like "Worcester to Rockport! Fitchburg to Greenbush!" as if there's gigantic end-to-ender audiences hiding under a rock. Blame the loud Dukakis/Weld/Salvucci lobby for that messaging FAIL, as those old fossils simply can't perceive of a system that operates differently from the 9-5'er, suburban park-and-rides to CBD status quo. And then there's the equally loud Seth Moultons of the world who are all "Stub-end ops is icky and 19th century!" as if modernization can't be done without an $8B tunnel, when that just flies over the heads of nearly all constituents who can't even perceive what ops reform even looks like much less how it benefits them and whose only concrete reference point for the run-thru revolution is...SEPTA, which slashed its system to near-uselessness in coverage and frequency when it opened its expensive run-thru tunnel and saw ridership crater for 40 years as a result.
Not once are "Frequencies! Frequencies! Frequencies!" mentioned. Not once are "new intermediate-to-intermediate origins and destinations expanding the job market vs. housing options" mentioned. Not once is "new means of car-free or car-few living and working" mentioned, or "cascading wave of suburban connecting transit expansion" mentioned. Not once is "cascading wave of reconfigured downtown and radial transit to redistribute (over)loads" mentioned. Not once is "traffic relief for our daily living-hell commutes" mentioned. Not once is "new means of easy-grab non-work trips" mentioned. Not once is "expansion of the intercity map to new destinations in Northern New England and new trans-region access to an expanded Eastern Seaboard network" mentioned. Not once is "if you think Regional Rail as proposed is gonna be fan-fucking-tastic, just wait till you see what's in store for the encore!" mentioned.
No. It's all "same park-and-ride, same need to check-check-check that paper schedule, different landing spot in the CBD (where you still probably have to take a subway line or two to get to final destination), stars-align chance you might get to live in a different suburb or work in a different Gateway City if the right pair-match happens to come to your line (and if not...status quo)". And that's a shitty, shitty whiff on the messaging. I absolutely believe that NSRL is the most transformative transportation project the entirety of New England can mount. Easily. The East-West comparison is silly-trivial compared to the coattails of the Link. Like...shouldn't even be in the same universe. One is an incremental and lower-impact enhancement opening up of beneficial out-of-region opportunities several times a day, one is knitting Greater Boston (and out-of-region destinations) together exponentially tighter than ever before all day long at maximal economic impact. But we're reduced it to an unfavorable direct comparison because no one in a seat of power can @#$% explain what NSRL does. They can explain what East-West does more or less. They can't with NSRL. Therefore even with cavernous differences in scope and impact, NSRL pans out unfavorable.
It's not because the project itself is unfavorable. It's because nobody can give a straight answer on what it bloody is and bloody does. A purpose-and-need statement is the #1 step to mounting any initiative. And despite all the information out there (especially with the fast-rising Regional Rail talking points), those in leadership positions simply cannot get their stories straight enough to make a case. It's a colossal failure with a whole generation (or two or three) of Massachusetts leaders. And it's probably not going to get better until we clean house of all the old fossils like Lynch and the misguided Moultons and get some people who can straight-talk the run-thru and capacity-increase benefits like the Regional Rail advocacy has been able to straight-talk the general ops reform benefits. It's still a #1 transformational project target; that's never changed. The messaging needs to change, and who's talking about it clearly needs to very much change.
Well put. (I know you know I know all of what you've said, but it's good for someone to aptly resummarize it for those who are new to the convo.)
The distinction I would make (perhaps splitting hairs) is that NSRL may be the most transformative transportation project in New England, but that doesn't make it the most
important. Particularly within a Federal funding context where we're we're competing with projects, "importance" takes on a different meaning. In terms of priorities, it's cart-before-the-horse: the first step is Regional Rail; the second step is Electrified Regional Rail; the third step is the NSRL. Lack of messaging notwithstanding, an NSRL proposal that doesn't incorporate systemwide/sufficient electrification wouldn't pass muster on closer examination from a policy/planning perspective.
To understand all this, look at European cities with effective, frequent regional rail. Almost all have a cross CBD tunnel system used by multiple regional lines.
The Elizabeth Line in London is effectively a new cross CBD system connection of multiple regional rail terminuses West and East of London -- two years after opening it is already the highest usage line in the entire London system! 220 million unique trips in 23/24. The usage realigned that quickly.
In general I agree with you. That being said, we should be careful with the Elizabeth Line comparison -- the difference in scale is
enormous. Crossrail had multiple objectives:
- Relieve significant overcrowding on the Central Line
- Improve access to Canary Wharf, a new Seaport-esque CBD
- Faster connection to Heathrow
- Crosstown service and diversion of mainline rail passengers away from Tube transfers
On paper, some of this seems similar to NSRL. But there are pretty big differences. For example, the two mainline terminals that Crossrail was built between -- Liverpool St and Paddington -- are
four miles apart. In a Boston context, this would be equivalent to Roxbury Crossing <> Maverick, or South Station <> Wellington. (Further than South Station <> Harvard). Canary Wharf is a full three miles away from Liverpool Street, in the
opposite direction; that makes it equivalent to Longwood, not the Seaport.
The
journey time improvements are also pretty remarkable (especially for journeys to Canary Wharf):
All of which is to say, I would suggest that the Elizabeth Line's success should first be attributed to its enormous scale.
(Because I can't help myself, below is a sketch of what a project of vaguely similar scale might look like in Boston. Very off the cuff, really just for illustrative purposes. Much longer greenfield tunnel, substantially more direct mainline station placement in satellite CBDs of Longwood and Seaport, close hewing to our "Central Line" [Orange Line], service to the airport. This would be overbuilt for Boston, IMO, but again my point is just that Crossrail was
so much bigger than NSRL.)
