container facility in southie

cowford- get better mileage, the trust fund goes down. i suspect we will see the trust fund diminish to zero in the near term. ok. so what does our obuse govenment do? as always, raise gasoline taxes. after all, how do low information voters respond? they look to govenrment to assuage their fiscal pain. your posts seem to me to put you in the latter category. i recommend you not take me on in the macro economics arena. it also would be nice to know your name. ken patrick

The gas tax hasn't been raised since 1993. If we continue to kick that can down our crumbling roads will the free market magically contribute the huge sums required towards their acute repairs?

IIRC, the last presidential candidate to advocate for higher gas tax was Paul Tsongas in 1992. Clinton demogoged that it would "hurt the little guy". Although Tsongas wanted the money to go to mass transit and energy conservation, not highways. http://articles.philly.com/1992-03-16/n ... ederal-tax

Mr. Patrick, as NR and BandA point out, fuel taxes have not been raised in over a generation - inaction contrary to your contention about "obuse" (sic) government reaction. (To be clear, it's the federal government that has taken no action. A few states have recently started increasing their own excise taxes.) It's a political third rail, man.

You are correct on one point: Improved fuel mileage with both autos and trucks, while otherwise a good news story, negatively impacts funding levels. And that trend is going to continue. (Semis are starting to get better mileage than the old family station wagon.)

I'm perfectly comfortable discussing macroeconomics, but please tell us: You've conceded that present road funding levels are, indeed, unsustainable. So how would you structure a funding model that IS sustainable?

Okay, so Boston is joining the big leagues and dredging its harbor for the new Panamax container ships. How does this change things for reactivating track 61?

How can you attract these behemoths and not offer rail service?

Single stacks to Worcester and then adding a second level would work.

Possibilities exist. It's not like the tracks don't exist, they are there to be activated.

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/06/1 ... pment-act/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/edit ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

bostontrainguy wrote:Okay, so Boston is joining the big leagues and dredging its harbor for the new Panamax container ships. How does this change things for reactivating track 61?

How can you attract these behemoths and not offer rail service?

Single stacks to Worcester and then adding a second level would work.

Possibilities exist. It's not like the tracks don't exist, they are there to be activated.

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/06/1 ... pment-act/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/edit ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think it's entirely possible that this has been the reason for much of the cursory interest/work around Connely and Track 61 to this point. While I can in no way confirm it, I think it likely that they were planing for this all along. If that's the case, then I would imagine rail would indeed be a part of the plan as I can't see trucks lone moving that much cargo over the effected roads as efficiently.

Isn't the benefit of using bigger container ships afforded by the enlargement of the Panama Canal that there would be many more containers per ship? If so, the high volume ports with access to many local and distant (via rail) destinations would seem to be better targets to handle such ships. From my understanding, Boston is a back water, low volume container port that wouldn't offer any advantages over relatively nearby NY/NJ. Plus the ports in the SE US that are closer to the canal would have a transit advantage to the current heartland of US manufacturing and thus likely be where these super container ships call.

This presentation says it''s cheaper to import NE cargo through Boston than through NY/NJ, but offers no other details:
http://www.ebcne.org/fileadmin/pres/Feb ... Hadden.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My 2 minutes of searching didn't find much else, though.

It's interesting to note that on any side of a political issue, conservative, liberal, or anywhere in between, people who disagree with one's viewpoint are "low information voters".

i thought that boston had higher labor costs and less efficient port operations, certainly when the ships unloaded by the Mystic/Tobin bridge. Has this changed?

johnpbarlow wrote:From my understanding, Boston is a back water, low volume container port that wouldn't offer any advantages over relatively nearby NY/NJ.

Yeah but what if you can be the big fish in the little pond? I would think a shipper who gets special attention in a smaller port (think Eimskip in Portland) would do well if they could avoid the congestion and chaos of a heavily used port like NY/NJ.

They could arrive almost anytime, go straight to the facility and get unloaded and reloaded and be on their way in no time compared to waiting for your turn to get into, serviced, and leave a busy port.

Add the geographic advantage of being closer to Europe and the Suez Canal and you could save a boatload

Time is big money for shippers and if you can run your ships more efficiently you might just consider Boston IF it had decent rail service of course!

bostontrainguy wrote:IF it had decent rail service of course!

DAMN! There's always a catch.

The points made by johnpbarlow are valid. Modern containerships are very expensive to own, and like any ship they earn no money while in port. Steamship operators today are looking to concentrate their cargo on as few ports as possible; they're not looking to add port calls. A steamship line that already calls at New York would be most unlikely to add Boston to its schedule unless it could cut out New York altogether, an unlikely eventuality for general cargo. The practice has been for many years for steamship lines to unload Boston cargo in New York and barge it or truck it to Boston. Port facilities in Boston are needed for handling barge traffic, but any cargo barged from New York has to be bound for somewhere close to Boston, therefore unlikely to be moved onward by rail. If it's going far enough inland for rail movement to be practicable, it will move by rail from New York.

Seems a good time to finally build the super sized Boston-Worcester canal. Seriously, in the event this place really greatly increases capacity and business, where could the rail go? Seems, the CSX connection out of Boston is increasingly "varnish" centric (at least the Worcester line).

I just don''t see rail service being all that feasible and its not just NR's "varnish-centric"
slant. Any route in and out given the infrastructure in place is just short of torturous.
Without a direct shot out the Worcester line, the alternative is the Fairmont line to
Readville, then Franklin line to Walpole, then north to Framingham? Really? You are
better off draying the stuff to Worcester.

NR's comment about "varnish" is nearly all the nails in the coffin, no matter what amount
of blather the state or whatever agency says. I mentioned infrastructure - money for a
realignment at South Bay would be hard to come by and the disruption to the MBTA and
Amtrak is significant. Operating windows would likely be heavily restricted.

I still says the state was never serious about this. All lip-service. If they were, they would
never have signed off on North Point in E. Cambridge (former B&M piggyback yard). The
perfect NS Road-railer facility. Now we have commuter rail about to be heavily compromised
by the Green Line Project & Somerville's desire to wipe out freight service. (Wait until they
get wind of the redirection of PAR's line in and out of Somerville all for GLX and the high & mighty
Community Bike Path!)

D