Minimum passenger/rapid ROW widths in MA?

Does anyone know what the minimum ROW width is for Massachusetts, or if different from state regulation, for the MBTA? From what I've determined, the minimum is maybe 15 feet per track (or 7.5 feet to each side of each track's centerline) for commuter rail and rapid transit? For example, Minnesota requires 17 feet for all tracks (passenger and freight).

Also, does this mean that at 15 feet you could have 4 tracks in a 60 foot ROW, or is there some sort of "buffer zone" required once you double, triple, or etc. the tracks?

When I was working on the Green Line Extension, we were designing for 8.5' on each side of the centerline for Commuter Rail tracks and 7' on each side of the centerline for Green Line tracks. This was for general obstructions like bridge abutments, etc.

BostonUrbEx wrote:Does anyone know what the minimum ROW width is for Massachusetts, or if different from state regulation, for the MBTA? From what I've determined, the minimum is maybe 15 feet per track (or 7.5 feet to each side of each track's centerline) for commuter rail and rapid transit? For example, Minnesota requires 17 feet for all tracks (passenger and freight).

Also, does this mean that at 15 feet you could have 4 tracks in a 60 foot ROW, or is there some sort of "buffer zone" required once you double, triple, or etc. the tracks?

There's no regulations, but they shoot for nice round numbers whenever they can. 50 feet is more or less the average RR's have aspired to in medium-to-low density areas. 20 ft. where it's in cramped quarters like urban centers. 100 ft. the perfect ideal for maximum expansion, buffer space, and ability to throw down station platforms and sidings anywhere they want without additional land-taking. Although you're not going to get that in many places in this part of the country because of private property density and hilly geography requiring a lot of embankments and culverts. Obviously on legacy ROW's enroachment can whittle it down to the barest operational minimum, and tunnels by their very nature have to go with a tolerable minimum. I don't know what the narrowest single stretch of commuter rail is outside of tunnels, but Greenbush is generally the most cramped line in terms of overall substandard mileage. A lot of it has to do with sightlines for avoiding trespassers, as a 50 ft. ROW is going to give an engineer much greater advance warning of someone on the tracks than a tight squeeze. It's more fencing installation where it gets tighter, which drives up cost.

I guess the only absolutes with new construction or ROW renewal is that it be future proofed for over-wide freight sizes, because that just gets to be a royal P.I.T.A. to sort out when it's necessary. LRT and heavy-rail rapid transit isn't so constrained because there's no freight and that mode's got a whole lot more narrow tunnel- and street/reservation-running, but when they're repurposing a former RR ROW they always try to preserve dimensions and all-new above ground construction is going to try to keep it simple by standardizing dimensions as much as possible. Much like every new tunnel on the T post-1912 is always built to Red Line clearances no matter what's running through it.

I've always wondered, when the tracks are on an embankment or fill, does the ROW automatically extend to the edges of the embankment, or does it still follow the 50' standard?

Offhand, the narrowest RoW I can think of in the commuter district is the cut east of Waltham Tower. It had enough room for double track pre-1958, but barely, and I think the property lines are very close to the cut's retaining walls.

If the base of a fill is wider than the nominal RoW width in that area, the railroad would have had to either obtain a wider RoW for that segment, or get an easement from the abutters allowing dirt to be piled on their land.