Southcoast Rail

That thing about the MDC is confused somehow. The MTA was predecessor to the MBTA. The MDC owned the Blue Hills, the Esplanade, Storrow Drive, some of the parkways, the Fells, and a bunch of stuff like that, until around 1990. So maybe the debt in question is from the late 80s parks improvements or some such--some 40-year bonds from 1985. Or maybe at some point the MDC took over MTA debt because they both covered the same towns, and then later they refinanced or consolidated (issued new bonds, anyway) so as to reduce yearly payments?

bostontrainguy wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:40 am And if they vote no?

Then the MBTA cannot provide subsidized service to them in 2023. My question, once you join the MBTA district, can you ever vote to leave?

Arborwayfan wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 11:37 am That thing about the MDC is confused somehow. The MTA was predecessor to the MBTA. The MDC owned the Blue Hills, the Esplanade, Storrow Drive, some of the parkways, the Fells, and a bunch of stuff like that, until around 1990. So maybe the debt in question is from the late 80s parks improvements or some such--some 40-year bonds from 1985. Or maybe at some point the MDC took over MTA debt because they both covered the same towns, and then later they refinanced or consolidated (issued new bonds, anyway) so as to reduce yearly payments?

Now i am confused; The Boston Metropolitan District referred to the communities in the MTA, nothing to do with the MDC. The Big Dig debt was not transferred to the MBTA, but refers to unfunded budget-busting mandates like the GLX, Southcoast Rail, Red-Blue Connector, Silver Line, etc. that were supposed to mitigate the increased particulate and carbon emissions from the inevitable new traffic once I93 & the third harbor tunnel increased traffic capacity, yet were not funded by the Big Dig. I don't think MDC jurisdiction ever extended to the Hockamock Swamp that is the issue with straightforward Taunton Line service but that's irrelevant.

Oh, now I understand. Thank you, BandA. And trust the commonwealth to have created both a Metropolitan District (with its commission) and a Boston Metropolitan District (with it's MTA).

NEWS: New Bedford voters say ‘yes’ to South Coast Rail
https://newbedfordlight.org/new-bedford ... oast-rail/

The ballot question was one of the final steps before commuter rail trains can transport riders between Boston and New Bedford in late 2023. It passed in New Bedford with more than 80% of voters casting a “yes” vote.

Fall River had the same question on its ballot but as of midnight results were not available.

Fall River also approved at similarly high margins (77.68% for, 22.32% against).

https://www.heraldnews.com/story/news/p ... 633563007/

guess a lot of persons fed up withdriving Hard to believe that few persons fed up. and voted against!!!

From the article cited above:

MBTA charges its member communities an assessment, or fee, to maintain rail service; however, this fee is offset by any fees the community pays to other regional transportation authorities. Fall River pays about $1.5 million to SRTA for municipal and regional bus service, which is higher than its calculated fee to the MBTA, thereby erasing any bill for rail service.

This could easily explain the lopsided approval vote if it is true, or even if it is mistaken but widely believed.

Once a community joins the MBTA, what does it take to leave?

I don't know the answer to that, though I don't know why any sensible community would want to leave once they have MBTA service. It would be sensible for a town like Bourne to make such a move as they have been members of the MBTA District for years and still don't have any service at this point, and likely won't until Phase II of South Coast Rail is completed (if ever) to allow for Middleborough trains to be rerouted to Bourne.

Phase 2 is likely to die, service to Bourne is happening.

I know I'm a broken record on this, but if the MBTA could somehow get out of the electrification and trestle "agreements" (requirements would be a better word to describe it), then Phase II would be a lot more likely to happen, hell, it could have been under construction right now if the Army Corps of Engineers actually wanted the project to get done. I mean come on, the Greenbush Line was a similar case to this, brand new tracks being built over an old ROW that goes through some sensitive environmental areas, but nobody forced the MBTA to electrify it or build any excessive infrastructure to "mitigate" the line going through those areas (of course there was unnecessary infrastructure on the line, but they were to pacify NIMBYs, rather than for anything environmental).
Sadly, it seems as though there are no plans for having this happen anytime soon, and that will come at the cost of not having Phase II service at all, I don't know about you, but I would rather have faster Phase II service with Diesel than slow Phase I service being permanent, just because Phase II could be electrified.

About Bourne service, I assume that with Phase I it would run only between Middleborough and Bourne as a shuttle service with Phase I, as the Middleborough Main cannot handle any more traffic due to the single tracking, I fear that this will be unpopular amongst Cape commuters and will end up being unpopular along with Phase I, making both projects practically failures, this just all the more reason to drop the mitigation requirements and just get work started on Phase II, without any unnecessary and costly infrastructure for "mitigations".

Link: https://www.mbta.com/projects/south-coa ... nstruction

Construction for phase 1 is halfway done. In the picture looks to be one of the new stations. As of right now, I’m not sure how successful phase 1 will be based on the current middleboro line schedule vs stoughton line. The way the middleboro line sets up splitting into 2 south coast branch lines just doesn’t look feasible in the long run. I don’t think there will be enough train slots and evenly spaced times to support this ridership. For all I know, it could be successful I don’t know. We will have to wait and see what happens when this service opens up. It will be very interesting to see how the ridership opportunities change for the south coast communities. Let me know what your thoughts are.

In the short term, with all the bad publicity the t has had for its current services, I believe that current auto commuters despie the jammed local highways, will want to wait and watch the new service develop before they jump on board.

in the long term, if service turns out to be reliably good, priced right, and user friendly it should get better attendance. the big question becomes, if in fact the service pans out where growth is needed, the ability to expand is going to be severely compromised because of the choke points between Braintree and South Station.

Maybe, someday, they will figure out how to reactivate the existing double-track between South Easton and Taunton without requiring the gold-plating and yet meeting most of the real environmental needs.