Riders demand more commuter rail service

[wicked]

TOD in Middleboro is picking up some steam, but it's still unimpressive. They still haven't broken ground on the apartment complex that was supposed to open last fall. The town could also produce some more ridership with a better bus feeder system to the station; right now, the local GATRA route doesn't stop at the station because it doesn't sync up with the commuter schedule.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

To add to this, I want to latch onto the FRA PTC-by-2015 mandate:

What is preventing the MBTA/MassDOT from getting FRA certification and deploying ECTS, other than GSM frequency requirements, existing deployment of Amtrak's reinvent-the-wheel ACSES along the Providence Line, the sheer capital cost of implementation?

Have there been any recent attempts to even look into signal modernisation studies by MassDOT that have entirely flown under my radar in the past 4 years?

While I think a technical exploration of how signal, train control, and train protection systems would benefit the commuter rail is more suited to a conversation over at the railroad.net forums, I feel like a lot of the conversation gets mired in how it can't happen.

1) Because they are a founding member of the ACSES consortium and committed to it way back in 2001 with all the other NEC-sharing commuter railroads to deploy it on their equipment. That was before the PTC mandate so it wasn't expected at the time that it would go systemwide. It was, however, expected that the 3 Amtrak routes shared with the system--Lake Shore Limited/Inland Route on the Worcester Line and Downeaster on Lowell/Haverhill--would get it because of Amtrak. They picked it because they wanted it, were going to use it, and because it aligned them better as beneficiaries of the Amtrak funding spigot.

2) The F40PH locomotives being retired are the last pieces of equipment not equipped for ACSES. They're 100% equipped and paid-for in the fleet after 12 years of continuous installing. That significantly reduces the overall cost of deployment since the vehicles are all set. Make a break for a wireless system and they start from square one. And have to have equipment installed for BOTH systems.

3) Likewise, the entire southside ops staff is trained on it because every single Providence, Stoughton, Franklin, and Needham train must use it while on the NEC. No training necessary except for the northside crews. The only big expertise gap they have to close is at central dispatch, because right now it's the Amtrak dispatcher that controls all the PTC'd track...not T central ops.

3) ACSES works very well. It's proven nearly bulletproof after 12 years in-service. The Amtrak crews who post on RR.net are pretty much universally: "Just trust on on this: it...just...works."

4) The main reason the PTC mandate is collapsing on itself is because of the wireless systems. Lawmakers thought..."Oh, everything's wireless today! Shiny tech! This will be great." Only securing all the requisite wireless bandwidth has been nightmarishly difficult, to point where they still haven't got details settled allowing mass installations to begin. And because it's wireless your trains only move right when there's reception. Get a drop-out...train must crawl to a halt. Have poor reception coverage...must add new receivers you didn't think you'd need to. ACSES just piggybacks on the cab signals that have been there for 90 years in some places. Fixed hardware = max reliability. East coast is waaaaaaaaaay ahead of the rest of the country on being able to meet the deadline. The T is the only ACSES-member commuter railroad that is off-target and will need more than a year or two's deadline extension to wrap up.

5) It is cheap where you do have the pre-existing cab signals. It's only costing $8M in the stated budget line item to slap ACSES on top of the cab signals on the Springfield Line upgrades when all the other stuff is completed. That's ultimately 60 miles of double-track. It's very inexpensive for the T to do the installation on Fairmount, Stoughton, Middleboro, Greenbush, Kingston/Plymouth, and the Framingham-Worcester half of the Worcester Line where there are pre-existing cab signals. Price out the track miles from that Springfield Line figure and it's really not bad. The big hurdle is getting southside central control equipped to dispatch it. And that's where they've done bupkis.

6) It's not awfully expensive to do when you have the right kind of wayside signals pre-existing. The lines that have continuous track circuits that can sense the trains are set up to have cab signals slapped on top as the second layer, then ACSES slapped on top as the third layer. The Fitchburg upgrades are doing this and can have the extra layers added later. So are the Vermonter upgrades out west. The Newburyport Branch past North Beverly has this. Franklin and Needham have this. Haverhill/Reading Line from Somerville to Oak Grove and Reading to Wilmington have this. The Wildcat Branch has this. It's the lines that have old unidirectional Automatic Block Signals or no continuous track circuits (i.e. signals relayed by telephone pole instead of through the rails) that can't get retrofitted and require total tear-out/rebuild. Worcester Line to Framingham. Lowell Line to Wilmington and I think in immediate vicinity of Lowell station. Haverhill/Reading between Oak Grove and Reading + Wilmington Jct. to Haverhill. Most/all of the Eastern Route mainline. All of the Rockport Line. That's where they are in a world of hurt and have about 9 figures in catching up to do that are unfunded, unscheduled, un-discussed. In part because they are so far behind funding and scheduling their deployments in the easy spots.




So...in a nutshell, it's cheaper and faster for them to just finish the job with the bulletproof system they're a decade-experienced using and ready to deploy cheaply on at least two-thirds of the southside than it is to supplement with the wireless that's so bogged down by unsettled spectrum details nobody's 100% sure it'll work without years on end of debugging. It's not about boondoggle vs. non-boondoggle technologies. What they've adopted is way, way more straightforward than the rest of the non-NEC tethered country has to use.

Their problem is delinquent planning and nearly no resources devoted to deployment save for nebulous "studies" items of $1-2M in the budget. Metro North/State of CT, Long Island RR, NJ Transit, SEPTA, and MARC have been nose-to-grindstone behind the scenes for the last 5 years getting ready. And are ready to start mass deploying. Granted, they started with more cab signaled lines than the T did. But they're gonna make their deadlines when it's not even certain the T is going to have done a damn thing by deadline with their 5-1/2 cab signaled southside lines that are ready for the finishing touches.



Not going too far off-topic here, but this goes to the confused priorities that the money is pouring into amenities while they're risking serious sanctions for blowing law-mandated investments. Both this and their stalled ADA compliance.

 

[DigitalSciGuy]

The issue with a Newton Corner stop is going to be similar to the problem at Waltham/128: road access to the site SUCKS. I've always been intrigued by the engineering feasibility of cutting a hole in the floor of the Gateway Center and using the existing hotel lobby as a pedestrian bridge to get people in there from both sides of the highway, since there's really no way to walk across the Circle of Death. That doesn't really address the bus access issue, though. How many buses do you really want flowing through that rotary all the time, pulling over to the curb to access a station?

The capital cost of a separate bus overpass for connections to local buses feeding commuter rail would be significant, but well worth it. You still could build the transit center into or with Gateway Center inside the Washington Street loop, especially if it offered marginally better transit access. With the number of bus routes that zig-zag through these neighbourhoods just to get onto the pike combined with all the existing parking at Gateway Center, you could cut out most of the cost of building parking and take advantage of any opportunity to build decking over the highway to build more TOD over and next to the busway and connected commuter rail station.

With such a significant transit improvement, it is entirely reasonable to pedestrianise the Washtington St loop and put it on a road diet with the expected mode-shift without necessarily hindering access to the pike for trucks, 'choice' drivers, and those who must drive to work from/to the area.

With respect to Waltham/128, I think you'll have people from Weston complaining well before plans could even be drafted.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

With respect to Waltham/128, I think you'll have people from Weston complaining well before plans could even be drafted.

Well, yeah, the only reason Weston has 3 barely-functional neighborhood stops today is because the old money kicks and screams whenever the T talks about cutting useless (and very dangerous) Hastings and Silver Hill with their couple-dozen daily boardings, zero parking, and front-door only boarding. And Kendal Green only has one platform; you have to single-file across the tracks to one door to get inbound. That's not transit, it's trophies for a town that likes wagging the dog.

I think the T has gotten sick enough of their bullshit. It's gotten bolder the last couple years about publicly calling out the need to whack Hastings and Silver Hill and move Kendal Green. Just not enough to pull the trigger. The ideal placement for this station would, in fact, be over the Weston town line even though it's more to Waltham's benefit. The industrial park off 20 by the exit has a pre-existing access road and plenty of expansion space. A bridge over the wetlands to the Microsoft campus gives it a second access road to 117 and a place for the 70 bus to loop. Trailing the Central Mass ROW between Main St./117 over 128 and connecting to the station gives an egress to the Polaroid complex. You can lay a trail from Kendal Green. The private driveway the station is on already stretches almost to the Central Mass ROW. It's like 800 ft. of gap filler and some signage and lighting to serve up ped or even bus access to Church St. and the neighborhoods served by KG, Hastings, and SH.


That's probably where it has to go because there simply isn't any road access to be had between the Brandeis stop and the 20 rotary. That's the one spot that offers max connectivity for a superstation.

 

[winstonoboogie]

1)

2) The F40PH locomotives being retired are the last pieces of equipment not equipped for ACSES. They're 100% equipped and paid-for in the fleet after 12 years of continuous installing......


Not going too far off-topic here, but this goes to the confused priorities that the money is pouring into amenities while they're risking serious sanctions for blowing law-mandated investments. Both this and their stalled ADA compliance.

The 1000-1017 series F40s were equipped with ACSES II equipment, it is the 1600 series Bombardier cab cars that do not have ACSES

The MBTA's most recent PTC implementation plans filings with the FRA can be found here:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FRA-2010-0030-0009

It includes this statement:
"All lines north and south have wayside signals for traffic control. All MBTA vehicles are FRA compliant ATC and ACSES II equipped and in full compliance with NORAC time table requirements with the exception of the Bombardier Cab Control Coaches. The Bombardier Cab Control Coaches are equipped with ATC but have not been equipped with ACSES II to date"

ACSES can be implemented as an overlay on wayside signal system through Wayside Interface Units (WIUs) , you do not need full cab signals to overlay ACSES. You can read the above linked document to see the MBTA's implementation plan, but here is a key quote:

"Wayside Interface Units (WIU) will be installed at every interlocking on MBTA PTC operating territory and at every automatic signal location in ABS territories without ATC. The WIU is a vital microprocessor controller that provides a direct interface to the existing vital wayside signal system, with an interface to the associated BCP for radio transmission to the onboard ACSES II system. The WIU will interface with three types of vital signal systems on the MBTA Railroad; vital relay, single vital processor, or zoned vital processor, consisting of multiple processors. The WIU reads the real time status of
all signals (Proceed Cab aspect status, Absolute Block Signal aspect status) and all interlocked switch positions (normal or reverse)."

As far as ADA compliance, when ADA was passed in 1990, rail transit systems had to put together a "key station plan". A list of specific stations were designated as key and had to be made ADA compliant. Any new station would have to be built to ADA standards. Any non-key stations would have to be made ADA compliant if they received extensive modernization. The MBTA has implemented all of their key station plan for all rail modes except for Government Center. Any rail station that is still not ADA compliant was not on the original 1990 key station plan and has not received a modernization significant enough to trigger the requirement that it be made ADA compliant. So while there are still non-accessible stations, and it should be a goal to make them accessible, they are not in violation of ADA

http://www.fta.dot.gov/12876_3906.html

http://www.mbta.com/uploadedFiles/documents/Accessibility_at_the_T.pdf

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

This has been your daily stalkerboogie ruler-slap about what a very very bad and evil liar I am. We now return to our regularly scheduled constructive brainstorming thread.

 

[winstonoboogie]

This has been your daily stalkerboogie ruler-slap about what a very very bad and evil liar I am. We now return to our regularly scheduled constructive brainstorming thread.

There is a lot of information in the links I provided. The MBTA's PTC plan and ADA station status were brought up in this discussion. If people are interested in getting more data on either, they can click the links. If they aren't interested, they can proceed on.

 

[Ron Newman]

The issue with a Newton Corner stop is going to be similar to the problem at Waltham/128: road access to the site SUCKS

How so? It's right at a Pike interchange.

 

[Scalziand]

As for Framingham State, a stop there could also function as a park-and-ride from Route 9. The parking lot at Maynard and Salem End even looks like it was built to be one and is just missing the station. An extension of that service to a park-and-ride at 90/9 might not be a crazy idea, if you're going to use that line at all...

Absolutely. There's already a park and ride lot in the office park area around the junction of 90/9, and if the CR got there, it should be great for reverse commutes. It would also be one step closer to getting CR service for Marlborough, but that's a crazy transit proposal thread thing. There's also that grade crossing on 9 to deal with though.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Absolutely. There's already a park and ride lot in the office park area around the junction of 90/9, and if the CR got there, it should be great for reverse commutes. It would also be one step closer to getting CR service for Marlborough, but that's a crazy transit proposal thread thing. There's also that grade crossing on 9 to deal with though.

Simple. Don't cross the grade crossing. Stick the F. State platform shy of Route 9 by the Salem End Rd. grade crossing and that large parking lot. Any increased train service of any kind on this branch beyond the 1 freight round trip per day is going to have an ironclad requirement of eliminating that truly scary grade crossing, and the T isn't doing that until it goes to Northborough umpteen places down the priority pile.

The idea here is that if Framingham's going to have a full-day's short-turn schedule to begin with, turning out to an additional Framingham platform on the wye then proceeding +1-3/4 miles to the campus is low-hanging fruit for buffing out that schedule. The town's downtown revitalization plans hinge on eventually acquiring the CSX North Yard for redevelopment along Farm Pond and Franklin St. (moving all that displaced freight back to the currently inactive south yard). F. State has interest in some of those yard parcels to expand its campus closer to downtown and MetroWest Med. Ctr. Most of the town and MassDOT docs re: the 135/126 intersection grade separation proposal and mitigating the Worcester Line crossings make mention of that yard plan. Although it's more a timeline-uncommitted goal than an action plan because CSX holds the cards and won't budge until someone overpays for the land.

But if F. State starts spreading out and making itself 'the' anchor destination throughout downtown that gives some push to leveraging the short-turn schedule accordingly and possibly grabbing that short stretch of Fitchburg Secondary track after the yard land swap. We know how the U's--public and private--like to swing the big stick on transit planning. They're a big reason anything gets built at all. And this is a ripe one for them to muscle in on.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

How so? It's right at a Pike interchange.

And since there's already been a study about improving traffic flow at that Pike interchange, it's a safe assumption that substantial improvements will have been made to the traffic flow by the time NC station gets built. Or, the station + rotary/exit reconstruction will be a package deal.

 

[whighlander]

....
The idea here is that if Framingham's going to have a full-day's short-turn schedule to begin with, turning out to an additional Framingham platform on the wye then proceeding +1-3/4 miles to the campus is low-hanging fruit for buffing out that schedule. The town's downtown revitalization plans hinge on eventually acquiring the CSX North Yard for redevelopment along Farm Pond and Franklin St. (moving all that displaced freight back to the currently inactive south yard). F. State has interest in some of those yard parcels to expand its campus closer to downtown and MetroWest Med. Ctr......

But if F. State starts spreading out and making itself 'the' anchor destination throughout downtown that gives some push to leveraging the short-turn schedule accordingly and possibly grabbing that short stretch of Fitchburg Secondary track after the yard land swap. We know how the U's--public and private--like to swing the big stick on transit planning. They're a big reason anything gets built at all. And this is a ripe one for them to muscle in on.

F-Line -- I don't think that Framingham State has a whole lotta clout at the level of DOT -- Framingham's overall clout is limited in the Legislature and F State's institutional standing is fairly low on the pecking order

The only real Clout in Framingham is Staples

 

[Equilibria]

How so? It's right at a Pike interchange.

Because pulling over to drop someone off there, or shunting even more buses into the rotary, would be a nightmare. It's easy to get there, but not easy to stop there. I'm not terribly optimistic about that study, BTW. It's the MPO, not the State, and the options they propose are pretty limited - a couple of traffic lights and some new striping.

I also wouldn't do a "road diet" or straight-up pedestrianization there. I'm all for rationalizing traffic flow and maybe that allows you to dump some lanes here-and-there, but frankly that rotary was built for the car and really should be off-limits to pedestrians. It's just not safe. It's unfortunate, but that's the reality.

The grade crossing of Route 9 is a good point in Framingham, F-Line. I forgot about that. F-State should happen, though.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

F-Line -- I don't think that Framingham State has a whole lotta clout at the level of DOT -- Framingham's overall clout is limited in the Legislature and F State's institutional standing is fairly low on the pecking order

The only real Clout in Framingham is Staples

This isn't springing from a vacuum of MassDOT charity, whigh. Town of Framingham's pushing downtown revitalization coordinated with the 126/135 separation project, the Bruce Freeman Trail extension to Route 9 and the F. State campus, and F. State is an interested tenant for spreading downtown if the freight yard parcels become available. That's all been on-the-record stuff percolating for several years and dozens of local meetings now. The stakeholders are going for wrapping a bunch of discrete but indirectly related improvements into a ball to give downtown a more conspicuous funding target and max stakeholder investment. Like any town with half a brain would do to up its profile. Plenty of documents online about this; I suggest you try reading some of them.



And it misses the overarching point of this discussion on how to encourage riders. The off-peak schedules are too thin, and the fares and parking fees too high for the T to be tapping its CR audience effectively enough. They've spent a lot of money trying to attract suburban park-and-riders and TOD, and the results have been very mixed and unevenly spread. Without them having a firm handle as to why. They need better focus, and to understand their demographics better.

Students are one of the largest captive constituencies of all-day transit ridership...if you give them the access and if they can afford it. Right now they are priced out to near-irrelevance in commuter rail ridership. Which should not be the case when there are such a huge number of commuter 2-year and 4-year schools in easy reach of commuter rail stations. Bolstering the student fare subsidies for the commuter rail and commuter rail parking writ-large matters the world for tapping this audience. So does having good free shuttle bus service from the nearest stop. The commuter campuses will offer up the ridership if the service is available and affordable...system-wide. So let's see a little sharpened focus on what they can do to stimulate this potentially large CR demographic and potential anchor audience for fuller off-peak schedules.

Off-peak ridership must also exploit--in addition to 128-in--those denser downtown 'tweener stops in the larger trans-128 suburbs that already provide an above-average base of all-day walkup. Framingham and Norwood are two of the most prominent examples. These places are better exploits for off-peak revenue than the smaller 'burbs and park-and-rides that are 9-5'er oriented. The T needs to be on-point for how to grow those stops if it wants any justification for expanding off-peak schedules.

Framingham happens to be one that crosses both streams of all-day audiences: it's a 'tweener downtown stop with any-hour walkup demand and a campus town serving a large commuter school. It has some of the highest potential on the system to reap good ridership from a better off-peak schedule. It doesn't matter so much if students are getting off next to Route 9 or taking a shuttle from the existing Framingham stop. F. State has 6000 enrolled students, most of them commuters. A flush-full Worcester Line schedule offers up frequencies to tap this. But ONLY if the students can afford to get to and take the commuter rail.



That's it. Those are the two big overarching points. Any ideas of an on-campus extension stop are just that: ideas thrown at the wall in a thread whose expressed purpose is throwing ideas at the wall. It is such a tiny footnote that no one has proposed it, and no one has or will have the ability to propose it until the North Yard land swap proposal is consummated. Which could take years for meeting CSX's price. And CSX isn't going to let the T through its busy yard before then; it's utterly moot till the yard's gone.

Where it registers as an idea is its cheapness. It's easy to throw that into the 'ball' of downtown improvements when:

-- It gets the full Framingham short-turn schedule, which projects to grow denser than some end-to-end schedules. So this isn't some Cordage Park reach where the TOD fairy has to wave magic wand; it's high-frequency from Day 1 to a built-in audience.
-- There is no operational or schedule change for regular Framingham riders, except that when they're on a short-turn train they end up turning out on a new adjacent platform on the wye instead of using the main one. Big whoop...LED sign says "Next inbound train departing on Track 3". Mosey down the sidewalk and over a pedestrian grade crossing at the front of the platform to board.
-- Negligible capital costs. Less than 2 miles of active track to upgrade, 1 wye platform at the main station, 1 bare platform at a side street grade crossing, 1 pre-existing large parking lot to repurpose or land-swap over to serve the station. No layover yard required; any trains not immediately going back inbound in revenue service just go to the same idling spot in the western freight yard they do today.
-- It's ops-cheap. No schedule schedule increases whatsoever beyond what's already planned to flush the Worcester and short-turn schedules full. Responsibility for maintaining the new station + parking can get offloaded onto the school. Only 1 early afternoon outbound + 1 late-evening inbound freight movements per day to schedule around after the North Yard land swap. Negligible need for weekend service to F. State when school's out and more of the schedule is running thru to Worcester instead of short-turning.


That's it. Rank the merits accordingly. Nobody said this was the first or only idea for serving schools and/or downtowns for all-day ridership. And take it up with Town of Framingham and the state whether their F. State-centric downtown 'ball of proposals' is worth their while. They're the ones who've gone on record pushing that. Mayor Staples...I don't think he's been asked for comment on this one.

 

[HenryAlan]

I can tell you exactly why ridership is declining - after the fare increases a couple years ago it's now more expensive to ride the commuter rail than to drive in and pay for parking. I used to take the commuter rail from zone one, but since they raised the rates it became cheaper for me to park at the office - and the time difference between the two was negligible since the red line is so unreliable.

I've since started biking in because I found it was actually faster than driving (and T) - and I don't have to pay for a monthly parking pass.

my family would also gladly use the commuter rail on the weekend (maybe twice a month) - but they stopped weekend service on my line. so it's beyond useless for me.

I know other people with similar stories - one guy in my office is way down on the providence line and after they raised rates and a week of 30 minute delays on the red line he just gave up and started driving in.

Yep, it used to be worth it for me to have a zone 1 pass, but when the last rate change made Zone 1 cost $5.50 one way, the bus/subway combo became a much better financial choice.

 

[The EGE]

For reference, here's what the zones looked like in 2010 when I compiled a huge dataset for a stats project. Fairmount (8 miles) still in 1 (now 1A), no T.F. Green (52 miles / Zone 9), Wickford (62 miles / Zone 10) or new Fairmount Line stations (2-7 miles, 1A), and old fares. But still fundamentally the same situation.

Outliers are marked for the higher fare zones.