AMTRAK NEC: Springfield Shuttle/Regional/Valley Flyer/Inland Routing

[gokeefe]

91 miles is sufficient for regular MBTA commuter service.

Statistically true. Politically unlikely.

[jgeary27]

Please remember that the 'tier' assignments by MassDOT are, uh, not free of political influence. Consider:

Connect second (WOR) and third (SPG) cities in New England - Tier 2, Benefits 'TBD', Feasibility 'TBD'
(translation: despite NNEIRI we will pretend to not understand this route and continue to study it to death)

Connect second (WOR) and fourth (PVD) cities in New England - Tier 3, Benefits 'MED', Feasibility 'LOW'
(relatively receptive owner plus flat, straight route is... hard?)

And yet South Coast rail is still on there as Tier 1, Benefits 'HIGH', Feasibility 'MED'??!?!!?!?!?? I have nothing against New Bedford, my family's actually from there. But, c'mon, these prioritizations are wacky.

[gokeefe]

This is what rail policy looks like when you have an administration that is supportive but determined to look beyond the traditional urban centers.

They're building service in places that will never get it when the winds of change blow through.

[lordsigma12345]

It could be different with this study. Having gone to the initial meeting, there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm among the committee members. The majority of the committee members made clear that they want action out of this study and not something that will go sit on a shelf. If after this committee finishes it’s work MassDOT recommends a no build alternative I think there will be an uproar.

[Arlington]

^ Which committee? Which study? Link/URL?

[johnpbarlow]

Article in today's Worcester Telegram: "Nonstop bus service launched between Worcester and New York City"

Excerpt:

The trip from Worcester to the Big Apple is estimated to take 3 hours and 15 minutes, which the company said is shorter than other bus service that stops in Hartford between the two cities.

The bus leaves from Franklin Street outside Union Station and arrives at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Gate 21, in New York City. Departure times from Worcester are noon Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. Saturdays, and 11 a.m. Sundays, according to the website. Departure times from New York City are 6 p.m. weekdays, 12:30 p.m. Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays.

Fares between Worcester and New York City cost $15 each way on weekdays and $20 on weekends. Tickets are electronic and can be ordered through an app or online.

https://www.telegram.com/news/20190219/ ... -york-city

Hard to beat the transit time and price! By comparison MBTA charges $11.50 to go 45 miles from Worcester to Boston.

[Ridgefielder]

Mass is left with the problem of the best way to get "Greater Worcester" to NYC. Choices include bus (which an HOV Pike would help), or driving to PVD or NHV. The Inlands are Tier 2 because CSX (and the Worcester hills) make it hard by train.

You left out the P&W via Groton.

Joking aside- like I've pointed out before, this *was* a service that was able to last until "A Day" in 1971.

[gokeefe]

No joke on my part.

[Ridgefielder]

Article in today's Worcester Telegram: "Nonstop bus service launched between Worcester and New York City"

Excerpt:

The trip from Worcester to the Big Apple is estimated to take 3 hours and 15 minutes, which the company said is shorter than other bus service that stops in Hartford between the two cities.

The bus leaves from Franklin Street outside Union Station and arrives at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Gate 21, in New York City. Departure times from Worcester are noon Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. Saturdays, and 11 a.m. Sundays, according to the website. Departure times from New York City are 6 p.m. weekdays, 12:30 p.m. Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays.

Fares between Worcester and New York City cost $15 each way on weekdays and $20 on weekends. Tickets are electronic and can be ordered through an app or online.

https://www.telegram.com/news/20190219/ ... -york-city

Hard to beat the transit time and price! By comparison MBTA charges $11.50 to go 45 miles from Worcester to Boston.

Having lived in or immediately adjacent to NYC for ~20 years, I'll tell you that the 3:15 estimate is basically best-case-scenario for a NYC-Worcester drive.

It could easily take close to an hour for the bus to get off Manhattan Island from the Port Authority. The only two river crossings that point the right direction are the Alexander Hamilton (which carries I-95 over the Harlem River to the Cross Bronx Expressway) and the Triboro Bridge. Getting to either requires traversing 80-100 blocks on surface roads. Buses can't use either the Henry Hudson Parkway, which runs up the West side, or the FDR Drive, which runs up the East.

Once you're off Manhattan it's not much better. Buses can't use any of the New York State parkways in the NYC area- the bridges were (deliberately) built too low. That leaves you with effectively only two roads to the north- I-87 and I-95. Both of those can and do turn into parking lots. Particularly at rush hour.

There's a reason there's little-to-no commuter bus service into Manhattan from Long Island, Westchester or Connecticut.

[daybeers]

I agree that 3:15 is too short of an estimate.

[Arlington]

I agree that 3:15 is too short of an estimate.

Sure, but what does it matter?
1) Bus passengers are used to times that assume "everything goes perfectly"

BOS-NYC bus times are advertised in the 4:15 range. I've been burned by bus-in-Manhattan traffic every single time I've attempted a train-to-NYC-bus-home (only the "to NYC" leg was time-critical). My resolve never to take the BOS-NYC bus ever again can't be unique and yet doesn't seem to have lessened the overall market-effectiveness of buses.

Current Greyhound WOR-NYC trips are posted at 3:35, which is basically OurBus's "3:15" plus an extra 20 minutes for stopping in Hartford (call it 5 extra minutes on I-84 getting to the Hartford, a scheduled 10-minute dwell in Hartford, and 5 minutes of getting back on I-84). If OurBus also can use a little GPS-style flexibility in how it chooses to bypass Hartford (using I-91 as Waze often suggests), sometimes they'll do it in 3h15 midday or on weekends.

2) Even if the WOR-NYC bus' advertised times had to be "more honest" it'll still beat an Inland
If the bus uses Waze to choose between a 90-84-(87/684) routing and a 90-91-95 routing, it essentially is chosing between two Class 4 Quad-Tracked paths to the threshold of NYC. What's a "totally honest" bus time that the bus can make, say, 90% of the time? Maybe 4 hours?

What's your estimate for a train? Today, a decent estimate for a WOR-NYP train would be 4h50. Yuck.
The LSL takes 1h15 just to do WOR-SPG
The Vermonter takes 3h35 to do SPG-NYP
Double Yuck when you consider that CSX would want tens of millions just to allow that. And then how much would MassDOT have to spend to get that time down to 4 hours??? And then require an operating subsidy?

And what would the justification be, exactly, when a bus can do WOR-NYC nonstops on competitive carriers all day long? And if MassDOT is subsidizing any operations in the name of public benefit, why not just offer some (or all) operators a 5-tickets per bus subsidy?

3) And if MassDOT had $350m to improve WOR-NYC trip making what's rail's "pitch" for being the best value?
My pitch for $350m that could radically improve WOR-NYC? add a 4th lane to the MassPike between Auburn (I-395/I-290) and Sturbridge (I-84). Get me an 8-tracked Class 4 ROW (the MassPike). About 14miles* and, as bonus, much of the payback can be from tolls. The state might be out of pocket only $200m for widening I-90 and still have $100m to, say, expand HOV lanes at key choke points in the road network at SPG, WOR, & BOS.

*MassDOT just widened 13 miles of 128/I-95 for $350m, and for that money had to tangle with many more bridges and exits than the MassPike would.

[Kilo Echo]

The only two river crossings that point the right direction are the Alexander Hamilton (which carries I-95 over the Harlem River to the Cross Bronx Expressway) and the Triboro Bridge.

There's a reason there's little-to-no commuter bus service into Manhattan from Long Island, Westchester or Connecticut.

Some bus lines use the Macombs Dam Bridge and the Madison Avenue Bridge. The Bee-Line, for example, uses the latter to transport passengers between Westchester County and Manhattan.

[johnpbarlow]

Arlington, very eloquently put rebuttal. I agree 100% with your analysis and conclusion!

BTW, I don't know how many of you thread participants read any of Fred Frailey's blogs on Trains Magazine on-line but last November he wrote about a very provocative interview he had with Randal O’Toole, self-described passenger train lover, a senior fellow of the Cato Institute (Transportation Analyst) , and author of Romance of the Rails: Why the Passenger Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need.

A couple of excerpts relevant to this discussion:

[Frailey] You seem almost as uncharitable towards the short-distance passenger trains. [O'Toole] Amtrak does its best to deceive people about how well these trains do, for example, counting state subsidies as “passenger revenues,” in order to make itself eligible for more subsidies. I wouldn't mind short-distance trains if they worked, but the Cascades, the California service, those trains aren't really doing anything. A lot of money is spent carrying not that many people.

[Frailey] Should the Northeast Corridor be paved over? [O'Toole] No. But be aware that the next technological revolution is not going to be high-speed rail, but driverless cars. Driverless cars are going to do a lot to relieve congestion, in the early stages by 25 percent or more. Eventually, they may double, triple or quadruple highway capacities.

[Frailey] That raises the question, does true high-speed rail have a role anywhere else in the United States? [O'Toole] I don't think it has a role anywhere in the world. High-speed rail has made an inroad into low-speed rail and into buses, but not really affected how much people drive or fly.

[Frailey] One last question. Pretend you’ve just become president of Amtrak. What do you do? [O'Toole] I would first try to contract out operations to private operators. When public transit contracts out bus service, they typically save almost 50 percent on operating costs. I would go after corporate sponsorships, to replace cars and locomotives that are worn out. Let’s have the Amazon Empire Builder, the Microsoft Coast Starlight, the JP Morgan Chase Acela, so that train riders pay only the operating costs.

Then there’s the Northeast Corridor, where Amtrak has a $51 billion infrastructure backlog. Most trains on the corridor are commuter trains, and I would insist that the commuter railroads and Amtrak, together, share those infrastructure costs amongst their passengers. The only taxes that I think ought to go to support those trains would be taxes from property owners who benefit from the density that the trains support.

Here's the link to the entire blog: http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/fred-frailey ... rinch.aspx

[Ridgefielder]

The only two river crossings that point the right direction are the Alexander Hamilton (which carries I-95 over the Harlem River to the Cross Bronx Expressway) and the Triboro Bridge.

There's a reason there's little-to-no commuter bus service into Manhattan from Long Island, Westchester or Connecticut.

Some bus lines use the Macombs Dam Bridge and the Madison Avenue Bridge. The Bee-Line, for example, uses the latter to transport passengers between Westchester County and Manhattan.

The Bee Line operates one commuter route all the way into Manhattan, the BxM4C. That runs down NY 100 from White Plains to the Cross County Parkway, then I-87 through the Bronx; inbounds cross the Macombs Dam Bridge, outbounds the Madison Ave. bridge. It basically replaces the NYC Putnam Division, whose trains used to terminate right by Macombs Dam. It uses the Madison Ave and Macombs Dam bridges but, importantly, it does not run into the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Southbound trips go down Fifth Ave and terminate at 26th St.; northbounds originate at 23rd Street and head up Madison to the bridge.

The broader point here is that, from a speed and timekeeping standpoint, a bus is not a great substitute for a train on a Worcester-NYC route. Lower Westchester and the Bronx are a funnel- broad at the top, narrow at the bottom- where Manhattan is. Traffic gets jammed up, and the train gets you around that.

[Arlington]

The broader point here is that, from a speed and timekeeping standpoint, a bus is not a great substitute for a train on a Worcester-NYC route.

Speed: A page back I estimated that a re-instated WOR-NYP Inland would take:
4h50 (LSL's 1h15 WOR-SPG + Vermonters' 3h35 SPG-NYP) (if you can find a thru slot)
5h00 for a timed connection to an Acela
5h20 for a timed connection to an NER

Timekeeping: The bus,in not having to make intermediate stops, has some flex in its routing (I-90-84-684/87 vs I-90-91-95/87)

Speed & Timekeeping
So if you padded the bus schedule to achieve 90% On Time, might the 3:15 grow to be 4hrs or 4:15? (still about 20% less time than the train). Bus is *better* than a train WOR-NYC.

Capital Cost
CSX probably wants $50m "just because" before we'd even get to any speed or timekeeping improvements, and I've seen numbers like $350m for what giving Inlands timekeeping priority would cost.

I also addressed that a $350m add-a-lane on the MassPike between Sturbridge (I-84) and Auburn (I-395/290) has (a) a friendly landlord (b) Class 4 speeds (c) toll financing (at least partial) already in place, whereas spending that with CSX has none of these.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be Inlands, but I am saying that WOR-NYC is better by bus now, and under any value-for-money scenario. Rubber tires climb steeper grades and allow straighter running. 55 seat coaches offer labor efficiency and high, convenient frequency. If Mass is throwing money at in-state infrastructure to boost its economy and mobility, widening the MassPike offers a better payback.

Inlands may end up being better for things like WOR-NRO, and probably should have an infill at Palmer to save the Worcester 'burbs the trouble of a drive into the center.