Potential MBTA Southern NH Service

Disney Guy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 30, 2024 8:53 pm "" Those poor NH Taxpayers....will no one HELP them??? ""

They need to help themselves. To keep the New Hampshire tradition of electing a governor who will veto any broad based tax such as a sales tax or income tax.

We're all set.

Most of the chime ins here make me very grateful that our government is setup so that Northern MA ie Nashua cannot make decisions for the entire state.

wicked wrote: ↑Sat Sep 14, 2024 11:50 am Let the T run unsubsidized trains to Nashua, like MARC does to West Virginia. That’s the only way it’d ever happen. Even with the higher fare, I suspect there will be some cohort of New Hampshire residents who’d commute regularly.

BowdoinStation wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2024 9:26 am The other day, I drove past the Concord Coach bus terminal in Concord, and the main parking lot & overflow lots were about as full as I have seen them, which makes me think, "If they build it, they will come"..

In reality, NH is not set up fiscally to build and pay out for such an undertaking. Any politician running for office that runs on adding a sales or income tax will not get very far.. The Democratic Candidate for NH Governor wants to bring commuter rail to NH, however she fails to mention the big question.. How will commuter rail be funded & who pays ??

Went to Concord Coach website. Concord - BOS fare appears to be $20. Zone 10 MBTA Commuter Rail is $13.25. Lowell is Zone 6 $10.50. Concord to Lowell is 51 miles. Manchester Airport to Lowell is about 30 miles. Nashua to Lowell is about 17 miles. Pheasant Lane Mall to Lowell is about 12 miles.

What would the unsubsidized fare to South Nashua (Pheasant Lane) need to be to break even? To Manchester? The need to go to Concord is not as pressing as there is less traffic congestion, so leave that for later. Concord Coach says their buses are 51 passenger with a crew of 1. MBTA train with three double deckers, thats what 600 seats or equivalent of 12 buses. What is the minimum MBTA CR crew size? Two? Three? During the golden age of railroading from the 1830s to the 1910s this line made lots of money running unsubsidized trains and was in high demand despite much lower population.

I’ll precede this point by saying I’m a proponent of rail to Nashua/Manchester/Concord, but to be fair to your last point, fewer people owned cars in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and rail connectivity was a lot smoother.

Electric streetcars became a thing in the 1890s. Model "T"s came out in 1908. Buses and trucks became a thing roughly about the same time - Mack dates back to about 1900. Railroads and streetcar companies that didn't see the writing on the wall were still making investments in the mid teens. By the 1920s streetcar lines were being discontinued or converted and the Boston Elevated became a ward of the state in 1922. Then the great depression, then the reprieve for WWII, then things got bad in the 1950s - 70s. The B&M started receiving some subsidies in the 1960s. Massachusetts has built very, very little new highway since about 1971 while populations in MA & NH exploded. Boston and Cambridge signed a consent decree with the EPA about 1971 - so parking has been restricted ever since causing parking costs to explode. Parking + congestion + high fuel / charging cost + high automobile cost create an opportunity for Commuter Rail to take back a small percentage of the automobile traffic. The "Network effect" is still very much lacking.