USPS Complex | Fort Point

Equilibria said:
A pie-in-the-sky concept for this might be sinking all of the tracks so that air rights would be at street level (as it is at the Pru). Then you could conceivably expand the station all the way to the channel while keeping the original station building as a central ticketing and waiting area (unlike the renderings we've seen of the T's plan, which appears to include a new stationhouse).

Lower level tracks could also make SS into a through station if they connected to the N-S rail link. Stations in NY and Chicago already operate this way. It would be unthinkably expensive to execute, though.
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You must have missed the recent stories about the sinkhole involving the piece of the Big Dig which was tunnel-jacked under the frozen soil behind South Station so that the trains could continue to run while the tunnel was being excavated

There is no way you can lower the tracks with the highway underneath

By the way in case you didn't notice the stuff built on air rights at the Pru is "pie in the sky" built-on-top of a deck one big story above the ground
 
Yes South Station once had 38 million passengers a year and now only has 18 million. But one can imagine how with additional commuter rail extensions and additional bi-level trains that number will likely be around 22-24 million in the not to distant future. 2/3rds of the peak station traffic requires a station more than the slightly less than 1/4 of the size of the original station which exists today.
 
Lurker said:
Yes South Station once had 38 million passengers a year and now only has 18 million. But one can imagine how with additional commuter rail extensions and additional bi-level trains that number will likely be around 22-24 million in the not to distant future. 2/3rds of the peak station traffic requires a station more than the slightly less than 1/4 of the size of the original station which exists today.
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It's not so much the extensions as the existing lines. The Providence and Worcester lines have so outstripped their capacity on growth that it masks just how many people would start boarding the train tomorrow if schedules were substantially expanded and congestion mitigated enough to run them on-time. It's demand approaching Metro North levels, but on T frequencies. Uncap the SS bottleneck and the ridership is going to start sailing through the roof. Then factor in steepening Amtrak NEC growth and restored Inland Route NYC-BOS service via Worcester after they get the Springfield line upgraded.

Other big component is purely in-city service: Fairmount Line running at higher frequencies, and the general growth of the Waterfront area sending a lot more local commuters to that part of town. That effect cascades throughout the southside CR lines. And as long as Silver Line Phase III is still on somebody's 50-year plan SS is still envisioned to be the biggest single transfer point on the entire T.

Compared to that, stuff like Fall River/New Bedford is a drop in the bucket on ridership load. Ditto extensions like the Cape, or some of the secondary proposals like Foxboro, Millis, Milford that only gap-fill the southside back to a completed state. Doubled-up SS can handle all of those since the frequencies wouldn't be any higher than the existing Franklin, Middleboro, etc. lines. The state pitches the platform expansion as being a really big deal for South Coast Rail, but it isn't. That's a lot of justifying-its-existence spin for FR/NB by co-mingling a project that's really all about Providence, Worcester, Fairmount, Amtrak, and frequencies...frequencies...ever higher frequencies.
 
I heard this evening from a reliable source that USPS is closing on a deal for its Dot Ave and South Boston properties.

According to this source, USPS will announce in November:

1. Main facility will be moving from Dot Ave to Reserve Channel. Major layoffs in the works to streamline operations at regional facilities.

2. Sale of Dot Ave. parcels for expansion of South Station (I heard 9 new rail lines). Future development / air rights would have to await rail line expansion.

3. Sale of Fort Point parcel at Lower A Street (not large parcels near Melcher) are being sold to Brigham & Womens Hospital.

None of the above is confirmed but again, I trust my source. He works at USPS.
 
Sicilian said:
I heard this evening from a reliable source that USPS is closing on a deal for its Dot Ave and South Boston properties.

According to this source, USPS will announce in November:

1. Main facility will be moving from Dot Ave to Reserve Channel. Major layoffs in the works to streamline operations at regional facilities.

2. Sale of Dot Ave. parcels for expansion of South Station (I heard 9 new rail lines). Future development / air rights would have to await rail line expansion.

3. Sale of Fort Point parcel at Lower A Street (not large parcels near Melcher) are being sold to Brigham & Womens Hospital.

None of the above is confirmed but again, I trust my source. He works at USPS.
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Hopefully, whater it is that USPS decides to build in the SPID is made of plywood so it'll be easy to take down when the whole downtown processing operation shuts in a couple of years
 
US Postal Service plan: Big Boston facility will stay open
By Casey Ross and Chris Reidy, Globe Staff

The US Postal Service’s massive Boston mail processing facility will stay open at its current location under a new plan released today that saves the plant from closure, but the plan affects other centers in such communities as Wareham, Waltham, and Shrewsbury.

A spokesman for the postal service said the Boston plant may eventually relocate to elsewhere in the city to make way for the planned expansion of South Station, but no final decisions have been made. Under the plan released today, the postal service will consolidate operations from central and northwest Massachusetts into the Boston facility, which will gain employees.

“Right now the facility is going to stay where it is,” spokesman Dennis Tarmey.

http://www.boston.com/Boston/busine...l-stay-open/RecUoLLQItDOGFmlYF5VlJ/index.html
 
Oh god. /facepalm

Well, here's looking to Worcester Line service out of North Station, and perhaps Lake Shore Limited, too.

On the plus side, they don't have the capacity for the South Coast Snail.
 
Although USPS will move like a slug when the time comes, I can't see why consolidating branches would change the schedule for moving from Fort Point Channel elsewhere.

If there's enough interest for South Station rail line expansion and also for redevelopment of the Dot Ave site, maybe Congress can get some motion on this. The endless conversation about a USPS move is a painful joke, and Fort Point's progress (along with BCEC expansion at the hotel parcel and beyond) really hinges on it.
 
Like they were ever going to pursue the money for South Station expansion in due time. That USPS facility would've sat vacant for 10 years before a damn thing happened. They have a design grant in the hands of a bunch of consultants to gorge themselves on, and the BRA borg has sunk its teeth into the the project. Surest-fire way to grind a project to a screeching halt as there is in this town.

SS will move when Amtrak starts throwing its weight around. The terminal space is necessary for them to hit their 2025 NEC service levels. And Amtrak has a lot at stake for hitting those 2025 service levels if it wants all the funding pieces to improve the entire NEC. They aren't fucking around there...as a service under constant threat from its political enemies they do not suffer fools lightly when the states are dicking around on their time. They will ram it through themselves if it comes to that, get the Executive override from the USPS's gov't bosses to move the facility, and do bare platforms with more tin-can metal canopies if they can't wait for things to get unstuck on the canopy design. It's a train station. Everything beyond the platforms, getting people on/off, and having the track capacity to get them into Boston is just details. All Amtrak cares about is having its terminal space online by the time its service levels require it.

Waiting for the T to do what's necessary for its own commuter rail ahead of the Amtrak deadline is a pretty futile hope. As is counting on the BRA to produce the goods. So I think this is going to be the feds' whip to crack. Hopefully they can pull their heads out of their asses in the next couple years and focus so we end up with something befitting a terminal and neighborhood anchor of that stature. But if we have to deal with bare platforms...meh, New York deals with Penn Station every day. Function wins over form every time when the goal is moving people around, and that's all the RR's ultimately care about. Whiffing away all the intangibles are the urban planners' loss.
 
Amtrak vs.the Post Office!

Battle Royale of the perennially-threatened federally-subsidized institutions!
 
czsz said:
Amtrak vs.the Post Office!

Battle Royale of the perennially-threatened federally-subsidized institutions!
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CZ -- I think you got this one -- right on the nose

Amtrak -- no money -- big dreams
USPS -- no money -- big union

So far the postal union has won -- that's why processing will move to the Boston facility from a much newer facility in Waltham vis the alternative

Contrary to F-Lines thoughts about Amtrak shaking the stick -- I think that we are looking at status quo at South Station until the U.S.P.S. is put out of its misery and Amtrak transitions into a lose amalgam of regional coridors which can be made financially viable with support from the states -- e.g. Downeaster

the next U.S. Congress in 2013 is going to have to face serious fiancial realities and one outcome is that they are going to put Amtrak on a strict diet -- no more gravy train (pun)
 
SS will be expanded by 2025. That's not in a lot of doubt. If left in a vacuum to the two federal entities to sort out, USPS will move out and Amtrak will move in. What's the price of inaction from the state? How about Ft. Point never happening and the feds taking the opportunity to consolidate the sorting facility out of existence, scatter it to the winds to other smaller regional facilities or moved out to cheaper digs in the 'burbs, and slash lots and lots and lots of local jobs that'll give Congress a warm-and-fuzzy feeling. Then tincan platform shelters outdoors facing unprotected howling wind off the Channel. All of that can be done rather quite economically at cost of razing more infrastructure than it builds.

The fed interests would be quite happy with that because Amtrak gets its capacity, they get a great excuse to seek the cheapest and most skinflint way to downsize the regional USPS to a bare minimal existence, and they can act free from any obligation to local partnerships or the BRA's sloth. This isn't a long-term threat to either agency's basic infrastructure needs. It's the state that wants to give them shiny things. They just want to run trains and mail delivery on-time. They can get that through other means (and I would argue Amtrak's got the rare upper-hand here comparing long-term revenue trendlines NEC vs. regional snail-mail).

This is a very lower-case version of the perpetually troubled NYC Moynihan Station annex on Penn Station. Amtrak is a partner in that, but they don't have a horse in whether it collapses under its own weight because it doesn't cost them one single schedule slot if their platforms are in a 'landmark' station or not. There are factions inside of Amtrak that would kind of prefer that to happen because it's less congestion they'd get from NJ Transit and MTA commuter trains who'd be main beneficiary. SS sans creature comforts is no different. If they get their platform slots guaranteed the T can expand as little as its heart not-wants.

It's wholly the city's and state's loss if their ineptitude and inflexibility costs them a one-time development bonanza for the city and lots of local jobs over the same. They shit their own bed here. Life and capital improvement planning trudge forward for the quasi-federal corporations. They're too big and far-flung to get their key initiatives upended by a city and local-yokel transit authority that habitually choke on their Meninomonument proposals...and they knew this going in.
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
SS will be expanded by 2025. That's not in a lot of doubt. If left in a vacuum to the two federal entities to sort out, USPS will move out and Amtrak will move in. What's the price of inaction from the state? How about Ft. Point never happening and the feds taking the opportunity to consolidate the sorting facility out of existence, scatter it to the winds to other smaller regional facilities or moved out to cheaper digs in the 'burbs, and slash lots and lots and lots of local jobs that'll give Congress a warm-and-fuzzy feeling. Then tincan platform shelters outdoors facing unprotected howling wind off the Channel. All of that can be done rather quite economically at cost of razing more infrastructure than it builds.

The fed interests would be quite happy with that because Amtrak gets its capacity, they get a great excuse to seek the cheapest and most skinflint way to downsize the regional USPS to a bare minimal existence, and they can act free from any obligation to local partnerships or the BRA's sloth. This isn't a long-term threat to either agency's basic infrastructure needs. It's the state that wants to give them shiny things. They just want to run trains and mail delivery on-time. They can get that through other means (and I would argue Amtrak's got the rare upper-hand here comparing long-term revenue trendlines NEC vs. regional snail-mail).

This is a very lower-case version of the perpetually troubled NYC Moynihan Station annex on Penn Station. Amtrak is a partner in that, but they don't have a horse in whether it collapses under its own weight because it doesn't cost them one single schedule slot if their platforms are in a 'landmark' station or not. There are factions inside of Amtrak that would kind of prefer that to happen because it's less congestion they'd get from NJ Transit and MTA commuter trains who'd be main beneficiary. SS sans creature comforts is no different. If they get their platform slots guaranteed the T can expand as little as its heart not-wants.

It's wholly the city's and state's loss if their ineptitude and inflexibility costs them a one-time development bonanza for the city and lots of local jobs over the same. They shit their own bed here. Life and capital improvement planning trudge forward for the quasi-federal corporations. They're too big and far-flung to get their key initiatives upended by a city and local-yokel transit authority that habitually choke on their Meninomonument proposals...and they knew this going in.
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F-Line -- under normal circumstances you would probably be right -- BUT these are not normal circumstances

Germany just agreed to bail out Greece which was spending out of control for decades -- the cap is supposed to be Debt to GDP of 125% by 2020

While the US is not yet Greece -- our current debt is only 100% of GDP and luckily we owe most of that to ourselves -- there is no Germany out there to bail us out -- indeed if you take the about $100 T in debt and worst case unfunded libabilites the entire world couldn't ball us out (world GDP is about $64 T)

The result is that there will be very very severe cuts (not just trims of the rate of growth) in many domestic programs as entitlement spending is now 60% of the total Federal Budget and the Budget is about 30+% out of balance

I would not be surprised that after the current FY 2013 budget is enacted that there will be no more subsidy money for operations of Amtrack -- that will force Amtrak to prioritize and make substantial restructurin -- e.g. all the long-hault trains will be privitized, shut down, or they will need to seek state funding 9e.g. Downeaster)

Of course I could be wrong -- we might just decide to be Greece while things last
 
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So? What do Eurozone's foibles have to do with whether the party with a political jones for nuking both agencies off the face of the earth out of spite gets elected in November? Or the other one that...doesn't?

Not a whole lot.

What do sweeping austerity measures substantively do to reduce those debt numbers?

Not a whole lot. At least according to the CBO's basic arithmetic laugh test of all the swill debated in Congress last year and most dissections of this Euro deal's actual effects and prospects for success.

The motivations of who's in power are absolutely open to interpretation, but let's please not equate that with $X billions vs. Y% of GDP when the Masters of the Universe themselves don't even buy that premise with a straight face. Political will, who's pushing what interests for whom, and framing that push with a meme rules the day.

All we know for sure is that 1) Massachusetts has precious little motivation with its present leadership to do much of anything, and 2) the fed-owned corporations are a straight binary electoral choice on ideological grounds whether they get eradicated or stay/linger/get shored up (I think Amtrak's a *very mild* shore-up and USPS a confused lingerer in that case). Neither of those are going to break one way or the other because of math. Let's drop the pretense that "solving for X" has any sort of primary bearing on how public investment/disinvestment policy gets shaped.
 
BOTTOM LINE: It's all about money -- regardless of levels of ignorance, malfeasance, etc.

#1 South Station Expansion
If a USPS vs. South Station track expansion becomes an issue of significant $$$$ to Congress, the option bringing in the $$$$ wins. I'm interested in F-Line's point of view, favoring Amtrak in this battle. If I'm not mistaken, track expansion also streamlines the path toward South Station tower development.

#2 Opportunity Cost of USPS Not Moving
If the land value on which USPS sits rises significantly, the underutilization of USPS land will be -- and I'd suggest it already is -- a factor. To a fiscal conservative in Congress, USPS could help fund its own operation going forward through the sale of underutilized waterfront properties. Fort Point and Dot Ave land value appreciation is not a matter of speculation anymore -- there has been too much public investment in the area over the past 20 years to deny USPS is sitting on bags of cash.

#3 Convention Center Expansion
The Convention Center expansion is a factor that (whether one agrees or not) is perceived by Congress to impact the vitality of Massachusetts. MCCA/BCEC want to build a hotel on a USPS parcel. They want to expand on other USPS parcels. And ultimately, BCEC wants conventioneers to find a neighborhood -- not parking lots.

These are three obvious factors involving fiscal issues that I think will catalyze a move by Congress. I'm sure there are others.
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
So? What do Eurozone's foibles have to do with whether the party with a political jones for nuking both agencies off the face of the earth out of spite gets elected in November? Or the other one that...doesn't?

Not a whole lot.

What do sweeping austerity measures substantively do to reduce those debt numbers?

Not a whole lot. At least according to the CBO's basic arithmetic laugh test of all the swill debated in Congress last year and most dissections of this Euro deal's actual effects and prospects for success.

The motivations of who's in power are absolutely open to interpretation, but let's please not equate that with $X billions vs. Y% of GDP when the Masters of the Universe themselves don't even buy that premise with a straight face. Political will, who's pushing what interests for whom, and framing that push with a meme rules the day.

All we know for sure is that 1) Massachusetts has precious little motivation with its present leadership to do much of anything, and 2) the fed-owned corporations are a straight binary electoral choice on ideological grounds whether they get eradicated or stay/linger/get shored up (I think Amtrak's a *very mild* shore-up and USPS a confused lingerer in that case). Neither of those are going to break one way or the other because of math. Let's drop the pretense that "solving for X" has any sort of primary bearing on how public investment/disinvestment policy gets shaped.
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F-Line -- you seem to think that this is an intelectual exercise -- It's not!

There comes a time when the politicians wont be able to kick the can down the road -- that time is well nigh

Very soon the US taxpaying voters wlll either enforce discipline in DC or the courntry will inexorably follow the path of Greece, Portugal, etc., and go down the tubes.

Despite what you want to believe -- you can't keep covering the deficit between taxes and spending by printing money -- at the presenent time every day the deficit grows by about 4B$ on an annual basis and since we don't do any repayments -- so does the total debt. Worse -- the priciple buyer of new debt issed by the Treasury is the Federal Reserve -- i.e. we are printing money while Rome Burns"

Finally, part of the way-out from huge deficits -- getting the economy running on all cylinders just is not happening -- this is the slowest rate of growth of the economy for any recession since WWII -- hence the appellation the "Great Recession"
 
This discussion has been going on for the last 30 years. It's like Communism...people keep saying the current system is going to reach a boiling point and revolutionary changes will occur(for the worse here) but it never happens...so the argument keeps shifting the goal line back and it's continually used as political capital...

Righting our debt ship would probably be far too reverbative in this country to be a realistic outcome...we're in and we're in deep...we need to just keep working to stabilize the dollar even at the expense of American industry.
 
whighlander said:
F-Line -- you seem to think that this is an intelectual exercise -- It's not!

There comes a time when the politicians wont be able to kick the can down the road -- that time is well nigh

Very soon the US taxpaying voters wlll either enforce discipline in DC or the courntry will inexorably follow the path of Greece, Portugal, etc., and go down the tubes.

Despite what you want to believe -- you can't keep covering the deficit between taxes and spending by printing money -- at the presenent time every day the deficit grows by about 4B$ on an annual basis and since we don't do any repayments -- so does the total debt. Worse -- the priciple buyer of new debt issed by the Treasury is the Federal Reserve -- i.e. we are printing money while Rome Burns"

Finally, part of the way-out from huge deficits -- getting the economy running on all cylinders just is not happening -- this is the slowest rate of growth of the economy for any recession since WWII -- hence the appellation the "Great Recession"
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So the state should only build pyramids or do nothing at all? This is adding track space and relocating a trucking warehouse. Function, function, function...not form. The city and state are giving up the ghost on this because it can't build two pretty things way above and beyond their function. Not because it gives a shit about the purpose the two sites serve or the most economical means of achieving the function goal. Does it even matter that the Post Office relocate to that particular Ft. Point site at that particular price for that particular monument?

This is my point. The decisions being made have nothing to do with debt. Nothing. Whatsoever. Anyone can cite debt statistics until they turn blue in the face. And the argument and counterargument can go on for days by citing warring economists. I'm not interested in a circuitous argument.

The decision-makers aren't making decisions based on finances. That's the reality. Take up the world's debt situation with them and tell them they should be focusing on that instead of sulking because they can't build pyramids and make their friends rich doing it. I think it's its own brand of wishful thinking that they're going to start caring about debt or start making decisions motivated by "solve for X" instead of "I must be right and my enemies must be wrong."
 
Looks like there may be some forward motion on USPS parcel and South Station expansion:

******
MEETING
Monday, 3-26 meeting for redevelopment/expansion of South Station and the
USPS sorting facility, 5:30 at MiFP, 12 Farnsworth Street. Co-hosted by
FPAC and FPNA. With Kate Fichter of MassDOT presenting/leading the
discussion. BRA staff also attending.
*******
http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/southstationexpansion/
 
Re: South Station Tower

Looks like there may be some forward motion on USPS parcel and South Station expansion:

******
MEETING
Monday, 3-26 meeting for redevelopment/expansion of South Station and the
USPS sorting facility, 5:30 at MiFP, 12 Farnsworth Street. Co-hosted by
FPAC and FPNA. With Kate Fichter of MassDOT presenting/leading the
discussion. BRA staff also attending.
*******
http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/southstationexpansion/
 
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