North-South Rail Link Discussion

While I can completely understand the reluctance of any public officials to want to sink more money into downtown tunnels, the growing issue of urban core mobility is largely being ignored. As pointed out above, the NSRL is one of the few projects that would take pressure off EVERY subway line and all of the major transfer stations.

Combine this with the relentless push for new residential development near North Station, South Station, etc., while the major job centers in the urban core push out to places like Kendall Square, the Seaport, the Longwood area, and it's no wonder we're facing an urban mobility crisis.

You're being much too logical.

octr202 wrote:While I can completely understand the reluctance of any public officials to want to sink more money into downtown tunnels, the growing issue of urban core mobility is largely being ignored. As pointed out above, the NSRL is one of the few projects that would take pressure off EVERY subway line and all of the major transfer stations.

Combine this with the relentless push for new residential development near North Station, South Station, etc., while the major job centers in the urban core push out to places like Kendall Square, the Seaport, the Longwood area, and it's no wonder we're facing an urban mobility crisis.

Maybe we should focus on adding tunnels to the subway lines and ignore Commuter Rail. Add a tax on all Boston/Cambridge/Somerville office space rent located near subway stations and on any new developments to finance the capital costs. Instead of a single through ride from Washington, DC to Brunswick ME spend a fraction of the money making the Orange Line faster and high capacity between Back Bay and North Station.

Rockingham Racer wrote:You're being much too logical.

I'll try to keep such sense to a minimum.

As to adding tunnels/capacity to the subway system - yes, but then that only provides so much access. And more than doubling up on existing lines, likely looking creatively at new routes. The existing tunnels downtown are so hemmed in that you're probably talking about the same magnitudes of money to add track space anywhere.

As one example, would it be better to quad-track the existing Red Line, or perhaps build a new subway under Mass Av from Central to JFK? I'm not looking at all the specifics of how that would work, but that's just an idea. It would likely free up capacity on the Red Line downtown (as well as Green & Orange) by moving a lot of transfers further out.

Could someone explain the need for this very expensive project:

Between 1901 and 1938, there was a NSRL in the form of the Atlantic Avenue elevated. It was abandoned for lack of use.

When I was a child before the Riverside line, the MTA had a bus that shuttled from North Station to South Station. It doesn't exist anymore.

If through traffic is the need, consider the following: There are about 200 trains per day from New Jersey to Manhattan. There are another 200 trains per day from Long Island to Manhattan. There are about 150 trains per day from Connecticut and upstate New York to Manhattan. There are through track from Long Island to all of these places, yet not one train, zero, carries passengers from Long Island to New Jersey, upstate, or Connecticut.

If there were a NSRL, I could walk to Wellesley Square and take a train to visit my parents in Wilmington. It would only take 90 minutes or so. But since I can drive in 25 minutes, and I don't have to wait for a train which only comes ever two hours, it's not gonna happen.

I think these pretty much establishes that there is not sufficient need for a NSRL.

And since Michael Dukakis is a proponent, I know it's going to cost more than he is projecting. Do any of you remember his 1974 campaign slogan?

Yellowspoon » Mon Jun 20, 2016 8:19 am
If there were a NSRL, I could walk to Wellesley Square and take a train to visit my parents in Wilmington. It would only take 90 minutes or so. But since I can drive in 25 minutes, and I don't have to wait for a train which only comes ever two hours, it's not gonna happen.

Twenty-five minutes? At what time of day?
The time of day -- rush-hours -- is a critical component in justifying the project. It may not fit your needs, but it can fit the needs of many others.

Yellowspoon wrote:Could someone explain the need for this very expensive project:

Between 1901 and 1938, there was a NSRL in the form of the Atlantic Avenue elevated. It was abandoned for lack of use.

When I was a child before the Riverside line, the MTA had a bus that shuttled from North Station to South Station. It doesn't exist anymore.

If through traffic is the need, consider the following: There are about 200 trains per day from New Jersey to Manhattan. There are another 200 trains per day from Long Island to Manhattan. There are about 150 trains per day from Connecticut and upstate New York to Manhattan. There are through track from Long Island to all of these places, yet not one train, zero, carries passengers from Long Island to New Jersey, upstate, or Connecticut.

If there were a NSRL, I could walk to Wellesley Square and take a train to visit my parents in Wilmington. It would only take 90 minutes or so. But since I can drive in 25 minutes, and I don't have to wait for a train which only comes ever two hours, it's not gonna happen.

I think these pretty much establishes that there is not sufficient need for a NSRL.

And since Michael Dukakis is a proponent, I know it's going to cost more than he is projecting. Do any of you remember his 1974 campaign slogan?

First of all, you can't compare through-running with a route that requires 2 transfers, one of which is to a different mode of transit with a different operator and different ticketing. That will always crush any potential for use. The ATlantic Ave El was not in any way, shape, or form equivalent to the NSRL.

Second, you can't compare to the situation at NYC for a variety of reasons, chief among them the fact that there are three different commuter railroads and three different states involved here, with very different politics. Boston and its immediate suburbs are all in the same state, MA, and all commuter trains are operated by one railroad, the MBTA.

Third, as has been explained time and time again in this thread, the intended purpose of the NSRL is NOT suburb-to-suburb trips like Wellesley to Wilmngton - it's for suburb-to-city trips with more spread out endpoints. It's to allow northside commuters to get to Back Bay or Ruggles without having to change to the orange line. Sure, there's the added benefit of allowing suburb-to-suburb trips that aren't currently possible for people who, unlike you, do not have the luxury of affording a car, but these will be a fairly small portion of the total number of trips, except for a few special cases that are more intercity travel, e.g. Providence to Lowell, or Worcester to Salem.

The intent of the NSRL is to relieve crowding on the subways downtown, increase the accessibility of areas outside of downtown, relieve congestion at the downtown terminals, and reduce the need for trains to layover in Boston during the day, freeing up space for development. There also would be benefits for Amtrak if NEC service were extended through the Link to, e.g. Anderson/Woburn, but I won't get into that here.

For one, the Great Depression destroyed business on the wharves, and that plus the completion of the Sumner Tunnel vastly reduced usage of the ferries that were the Atlantic Avenue El's bread and butter. The Depression, plus the 1928 Beach Street wreck that reduced it to a waterfront shuttle, were the reasons for the end of the AAE. Like the BRB&L, had it stayed in service until 1941, it probably would have stayed in use until well after WWII.

Commuting patterns were also completely different in 1938 than they are today. Most workers lived in the urban areas or the innermost suburbs; train traffic was higher than today but car traffic was much lower, so there were actually fewer commuters. Many of the valuable run-through destinations and connections didn't exist as they do today. The LMA didn't exist, Assembly Square was a Ford plant with most workers arriving by streetcar and bus, Kendall was a bunch of warehouses, the office towers of the Back Bay didn't exist, the Seaport was rail yards and an Army base....

Even while the AAE did exist, run-through commuter rail plans were already being considered. (Actually, the earliest was from the 1850s.) During the brief period where the New Haven and the B&M were under common ownership, several different tunnel plans were strongly considered.

octr202 wrote:While I can completely understand the reluctance of any public officials to want to sink more money into downtown tunnels, the growing issue of urban core mobility is largely being ignored. As pointed out above, the NSRL is one of the few projects that would take pressure off EVERY subway line and all of the major transfer stations.

This is my sales pitch for the NSRL:

While it will probably end up costing in the region of $5-10 billion when all is said and done (factoring in the cost of electrification, new rolling stock, station upgrades inside 128 to support EMU service, and the construction of a new yard or two), it will completely reinvent transit in this city by transforming the inner commuter rail lines into an RER or S-Bahn style regional rapid transit network and essentially doubling the number of subway lines in this city.

When seen in that light, as getting an additional 70+ miles of rapid transit service for less than 5x the cost of the 5 miles of GLX, even that $10B estimate starts to look like the bargain of the century.

North-South Rail Link would be an investment in core MBTA system, Dukakis says

Full Article here:
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/ ... kakis-says" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's a big pipe. It needs to be filled up quickly. 96,000 trips/day, completely unknown cost, say $5Billion.

$5B at 3% for 40 years is $17,899,221/yr. 96K * 260 work days/year = 24,960,000 trips/yr = $0.71/trip. People will pay that for express service between those two stations. Seems reasonable IF all the assumptions are correct.

Orange line has 203,406 riders (trips?) per weekday. So we are assuming attracting 50% as many riders without cannibalization. Worth studying.

Meanwhile, lets expand South Station, more storage yards and maintenance facilities. These will be needed whether or not NSRL is built, replacing facilities which were foolishly destroyed. $2B is too much for South Station expansion; put canopies over the track and build a steel shed for waiting space. Lash together surplus Amshacks.

Start studying electrification of Providence line and other lines with the highest ridership. Will it save money? Electric locomotives presently cost more than diesel, Massachusetts has some of the highest electricity costs in the nation, and MBTA suit against Amtrak needs to be resolved first. If it won't save money don't do it. Electrification makes it easier to sell air rights, even over storage yards.

The "bad" memories of the "Big Dig" cost overruns are making the local critters think twice,
and possibly the Feds as well.
For now,there's still a chance to save some of the Beacon Park yard land for a running repair shop and storage yard
for southside based equipment.

The MBTA was (very?) angry when the Turnpike Authority sold the entire interchange and freight yard to Harvard University. Harvard University property is exempt from eminent domain as part of Massachusetts state constitution, although it's not clear as it has never been tested, whether this is all eminent domain or takings without compensation.

Cost overruns, prevailing wage laws, agreements preventing non-union labor.

BandA wrote: Start studying electrification of Providence line and other lines with the highest ridership. Will it save money? Electric locomotives presently cost more than diesel, Massachusetts has some of the highest electricity costs in the nation, and MBTA suit against Amtrak needs to be resolved first. If it won't save money don't do it. Electrification makes it easier to sell air rights, even over storage yards.

Electric locomotives are slightly cheaper than diesel (not surprisingly, since they're dramatically simpler; though the reduced market size means more fixed costs are involved in building them)

ACS-64: $7.05 million (averaging Amtrak and SEPTA costs)
Charger: $7.08 million (averaging Amtrak and MARC costs; I haven't seen a figure on what AAF is paying)

On top of that, every railroad that operates both diesel and electric (LIRR, NJT, MARC, Metra, Amtrak) reports far better reliability for the electric equipment, combine with faster acceleration and you get more revenue miles per year per locomotive, thus needing fewer electric locomotives to provide a given level of service.

deathtopumpkins wrote: ... Third, as has been explained time and time again in this thread, the intended purpose of the NSRL is NOT suburb-to-suburb trips like Wellesley to Wilmngton - it's for suburb-to-city trips with more spread out endpoints. It's to allow northside commuters to get to Back Bay or Ruggles without having to change to the orange line. ...

Is EVERY train from Fitchburg going through to BackBay/Ruggles. What about EVERY train from Lowell, Haverill, Newburyport, and Rockport? And I mean EVERY train. If I catch a train in Concord and it doesn't go through to Back Bay, I'm gonna have to change trains anyway. Will through trains to Back Bay leave as frequently as Orange Line trains. You want to spend eight billion dollars so 200 people save about 8 minutes a day? And that doesn't include electrification. Should we electrify all the way to Fitchburg et al? All the way to Worcester or just to Framingham?

Rail travel is great for the hub-and-spoke system of travel. If I have to stop every 500m, it puts a damper on "rapid transit". If "it's for suburb-to-city trips with more spread out endpoints" why do NJT and LIRR and MetroNorth have only one station/terminal in downtown?

If it's through service to BackBay/Ruggles that you want, wouldn't it be cheaper to extend the Orange Line to Concord/Wilmington/Haverill? We could extend the Orange Line to Canton and it's already electrified.

I like to play with trains, too. However, I don't enjoy spending money just for the hell-of-it.