No...FR/NB half is pricing out about twice as expensive. Yes...that is a skull-crushingly astounding thing that should not be. That is the level of graft that is going on down there with those stations.
It's only 14.5 miles of abandoned track between Gay St. Stoughton at the end of the active storage track and
Winter St., Taunton at the end of MassCoastal's active track. With only 1 grade crossing at
138 in Raynham scheduled for elimination with a prefab rail overpass. Then 1.5 miles of active freight track where the single most densely-developed area on the line only needs signaling and a track speed boost, but no new track or crossing construction. Greenbush was 27 miles of abandoned track and 2/3 mile of active track. Very big difference. Even bigger than the almost 2x distance when you consider that the biggest cost bloat with Greenbush was @#$% Hingham tunnel, miles of ROW fencing, sound walls, trenching the ROW into a cut or elevating it onto an embankment, somewhere north of a half-dozen grade separations, relocated private driveways for further crossing eliminations, and liability payments (ransom) to the towns for the heavy number of reactivated crossings. All in the name of NIMBY coddling of homeowners who built and encroached on a ROW legally subject to at-will reactivation at the state's decision. That is absolutely not not not not not the reference point to reach for on cost of reactivating abandoned track. Not even by factor of ten
s. That's the sheer enormity of the Mass
pol tax being given away in this insanity.
The density's much lower on the Stoughton route. Most of the residential abutters and grade crossings are in Stoughton itself where the ROW closely hugs 138. After it splits off the residential clusters are +/- 3 blocks from the 2 Easton stops, +/- 3 blocks from 495 (yes...this is where the Raynham crazies all are, at the subdivision abutting the tranquil, sound barrier-free 495/138 interchange. Raynham is now the new champ of completely full-of-shit NIMBY 'burbs. Suck it, Hingham.). Or is buffered by >100 ft. of woodland between abutters, far enough to require no fencing or barriers. The rest is all conservation space. Except for the big swamp, most of it (like Pine Swamp, Taunton or Stoughton Memorial Conservation Land) the ROW frames the border of but doesn't pass directly through the wetlands.
The Greenbush stations really weren't that bad. They're all that prefab Old Colony generic construction with not many frills. Pricier than they should've been because they OD'd on parking per usual, but nothing like the insanity going on now with the South Acton and Littleton rebuilds. To Taunton there's only 4 stations: Easton Village (historic station, downtown square stop, limited Needham Ctr.-ish parking), Easton Depot (big-ass parking lot, neighborhood TOD), Raynham (huge-ass recycled Dog Park parking lot, bottomless-pit onsite TOD boondoggle), Downtown Taunton/Route 44 (on active track, medium-large parking, long but narrow station parcel, neighborhood TOD...probably want some aesthetics/shops lining the platform since it's not big enough to plunk something large on).
But compare that to the PALACES being sketched up south of there:
-- East Taunton/140 (parking, parking, parking, parking...TOD, TOD, TOD). In fairness, this TOD could actually work well if it were at 24/Silver City Galleria on the NB branch, but Taunton's digging in hard for Weir Jct. at 138 and the branch split...all of 1 mile from the other downtown stop. Which is stupid and a transparent ploy to wedge-issue a Silver City build as stop #3 in <3 miles.
-- 2 gold-plated Fall River stops with parking, parking, parking and onsite TOD, TOD, TOD. Possible waiting room at the downtown stop.
-- @#$% north bumfuck Freetown with a cosmically oversized parking lot and native pol running the SCR task force.
-- King's Highway, NB. Parking x8, TOD promised to the moon. Makes bad-news Raynham look like a cakewalk.
-- Gold-plated Whale's Tooth with its North Station-sized waiting room, parkingparkingparking, bicycle storage, and orgasmic TOD dreams.
6 (or 7) bottomless lard pits on the active-track branches vs. 1 bottomless lard pit (Raynham), 2 overbuilds...but with clear ceiling on possible scope of the overbuild (Easton Depot, Taunton), and 1 more or less as-is reactivation (Easton Vill.) with very finite costs because it can't be modified much.
There's where you get >2x cost on active track already used every day of the week. And, mind you, it ain't cheap where they are restoring because of the swamp and the Army Corp's ransoming for fun toys and bottomless over-charges on its EIS work (forget electrification...that's an overreach too far beyond the pale to legally stand vs. a lawful RR charter). But that's only spinning out of control because the planners won't get their heads out of the NB Mayor's ass for one second to challenge the Corps' overreach and stand their ground. Yeah, swamp thang is gonna have sticker shock. But they're giving such full and undivided attention to putting cherries on top of the sticker shock south of there that...you know, "effort = winning." For the right people at least.
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