Once burned, twice shy.
Last edited by CRail on Thu Dec 13, 2018 11:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Unnecessary quote removed.
Railroad Forums
Rockingham Racer wrote:I'm not so sure that this project is about ease of commuting as it is about regional mobility. If it's not advantageous for the former, it certainly is for the latter IMO. It would be great to be able to get on a train in Andover and have the possibility of getting off it in Ashland. Just one example.Think bigger than that, even. A proper NSRL buildout with either a "central station" or a relocated "North Station Under" would instantly put every single point on the commuter rail network within a 2-seat ride of every single point on the red, blue, orange, green, and silver lines, and vice versa. Think: Andover to the Seaport with just one transfer, or Newton to Assembly Square with just one transfer, or Concord to the new Suffolk Downs developments, again, with just one transfer. Furthermore, as the areas inside 128 become even more cripplingly expensive, adding this connectivity to the city centers of Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill, Salem, Lynn, Worcester, Leominster/Fitchburg, and Brockton will make affordable urban living in those areas that much more attractive of a proposition and you would likely see things improve markedly in some if not all of them.
rethcir wrote:Other than for equipment moves n-s (which can be done via grand junction) I don't really see what the tunnel buys us that we can't get by just electrifying CR to 128. People who work in the city are willing to walk from NS to SS after commuting, or can take the OL. I mean, I see what we'd get, but I don't know if it's worth a the $15 billion or so this is going to cost us eventually.Working backwards (and building on Bramdeis' post), the notion of this tunnel being only two tracks is idiotic, and it's equally idiotic to not do all four while opening up the earth once. Just look at Philly and ask SEPTA if the Center City Tunnel could work with a 50% capacity reduction.
Also, the thought of making the entire CR system vulnerable to a failure on one of 2 tracks is straight up terrifying.
octr202 wrote:That's why Philadelphia insisted on a 4-track commuter connection. The Munich S-Bahn, which SEPTA studied in detail while planning their tunnel, works fine with just two tracks through the city center (and approximately 3-minute headways hour after hour), but SEPTA's decision to go with 4 tracks has been amply justified in practice. It's undoubtedly also relevant that Munich has 1) all high-level platforms and several sliding double-stream doors per car, and 2) wide center platforms for boarding and alighting and side platforms for alighting only, with escalators going up only from the side platforms and down only to the center platforms; with all doors open on both sides, dwell times are far shorter than can be experienced in either Philadelphia or Boston. U. S. maintenance standards would render a double-track tunnel an unacceptable risk.rethcir wrote:Also, the thought of making the entire CR system vulnerable to a failure on one of 2 tracks is straight up terrifying.Working backwards (and building on Bramdeis' post), the notion of this tunnel being only two tracks is idiotic, and it's equally idiotic to not do all four while opening up the earth once. Just look at Philly and ask SEPTA if the Center City Tunnel could work with a 50% capacity reduction.
octr202 wrote:Secondly, downtown distribution is a very real problem which limits commuter rail usage, especially at a time where "downtown" is spreading out. What do you think is a major cause of "under-performance" of Northside lines relative to Southside? North Station is within a reasonable walk of the Government Center and upper Financial District, but that's about it. Walks, shuttles, or subway connections to the Seaport, Back Bay, Kendall, LMA? That's a deal-breaker for a lot of people when their time from exiting the commuter train at the terminal to their office starts to rival or exceed their commuter rail travel time.While I concur North Station is not ideally located, I think you're missing that the geographic area the South Side serves has more population. In addition, about 2/3rds of the system is on the South - in terms of trains, lines and trackage. It also has had the more modern system, with 3 new lines since the late 1990s and the high-speed Northeast Corridor as a trunk for the rest of it's service save the Worcester Line. So the South is going to consistently "out-perform" the North. Despite the drawbacks you describe, it pulls it's respective weight in terms of ridership. If you modernized the balance of the North Side and increased parking I think you would see it's potential realized.