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DeLeo backs north/south rail link
By adamg on Thu, 09/24/2015 - 9:44am
CommonWealth Magazine reports House Speaker Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop) has signed onto the Dukakis/Weld effort to build a tunnel between South and North stations.
Backers say the tunnel would not cost much more than the state's current plans to expand South Station and would provide far more benefits, including reducing the need for tracks at South Station, especially if the Postal Service decides to never move from its facility along Fort Point Channel.
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Comments
Build the N/S rail link
Build the N/S rail link
Build the extension of the Red Line to MGH
Build the Green Line extension
I think the Red Line already goes to MGH.
Do you mean the Blue Line?
Need coffee yes!
Need coffee yes!
Blue Line extension should've been done before Government Center
That would've been the best way to mitigate Govt Center being closed for two years. Right now (or two years ago anyway) I think it'd be safe to say that at least half of Govt Center's traffic was Green/Blue transfers for going between Red and Blue. You take out the need for that, and you inconvenience people far less by shutting down Govt Center.
Interestingly...
...at least as far as airport travel is concerned, people seem to find the substitute Logan Back Bay bus shuttle a heck of a lot more convenient than the Blue Line/Green Line shuffle. Those people would be more than happy to keep the bus and say a permanent good-bye to Government Center station.
In fairness, the there are an
In fairness, the there are an awful lot of times the Red doesn't make it to MGH.
Good!
Maybe now it will get done. If not, let's assemble a large group of volunteers with shovels and start digging it ourselves.
show me the money
Show me the money is what I say to that.
I like the idea and it would help greatly but show me how the state plans on paying for this
Oh that's easy.
Hold your wallet upside down out over your desk an shake vigorously.
Sounds like a great idea.
Forgive my ignorance, but it seems like this would have been a natural fit as part of the whole Big Dig project. I'm thinking maybe South Station wasn't fully restored, and the central bus station wasn't in place, when the Big Dig was conceived. But was the North-South link ever considered in the planning? And, if so, what happened? A new tunnel connection would certainly be welcome, but, oy, the disruption!
Big Dig Part Two
Someone on here a while back said that there's supports for this under/near the BigDig Tunnels.. so it may not be as disruptive as we think. (I think it was Elmer?)
Plus keep in mind much of the Big Dig disruption was moving utilities and keeping the elevated expressway open, which wouldn't need to happen again.
Part of the original plan for
Part of the original plan for the Big Dig was to do Rail also. But that had to be cut during planing as the cost estimates was ballooning (though it ended up costing a lot anyways). But they still did the future proofing action of building the slurry walls all the way down with all the utility documentation and realignments. So yes, it only needs regular excavation of the dirt, no need for energy and capital intensive support building and dealing with unknowns.
That said, it doesn't mean the project is cheap. I still don't understand why, I am just recalling my lurking on Archboston and their posts. For some reason I have not been able to process when people asked and other responded with their explanation. Despite the walls and stuff already there, for some reason, building the portals is still a multi-billion dollar effort with tons of engineering required. So it won't be that cheap despite how hopeful it sound to you.
Please note, I'm not saying this to dissent on the project. Projects can still be many billions and still be worth it. I'm just answering the question raised.
The portal connections are
The portal connections are the very expensive part.
It's not so much supports for
It's not so much supports for the NSRL, as that the big dig left space for it. Within the slurry walls for the big dig they specifically left room for a 4 track rail tunnel as future-proofing, so that a future NSRL wouldn't have to worry about finding a path around the tunnels or digging another excavation and potentially damaging the tunnels.
Thanks DTP and RhoninFire
I knew it was something like that.. either space or tunnels or supports.
Foggy memory.. Need.More.Coffee.
Insanley Dumb Idea
I love trains. I love seeing freight trains when I am travelling throughout NE. I love the Acela (as far as New London, then not so much). I have even taken the train to the Pats and to concerts in Foxboro.
I love my commuter rail ride. $18.50 round trip from the South Shore + $4 for parking. It is great. Nary a delay.
That being said, The North / South Link is an such a stupid idea. How many gift bottles of Johnny Walker Blue did it take Weld to be convinced by the Sand Hogs union that this was a good idea? Dukakis is a great guy but I am convinced he has Lionel trains in the basement in Brookline and would built a train line thorough Forest Hills Cemetery if it saved 2 minutes in a commuting time for three people.
Who has ever said "I am getting on at Hanson and need to alight in Rockport on a daily basis?' Nobody. You may want to go from Hanson to Rockport maybe once every seven or eight years. That's nice but why would I want to spend $8 Billion for you to do that on a train? That is what you car / ZipCar/ Uber is for.
GLX would serve far, far more people on a daily basis an we don't seem to have the money for that over having us build a way to funnel Brooklyn people who think Brooklyn is done to Portland without having to stop in dreary old Boston.
DeLeo is off his rocker. Please stay true to your principles Charlie and put a pillow down and hold it over this whole idea before it can do more damage.
NS rail link opens up the
NS rail link opens up the south bath rail yards for redevelopment (recoup the $$$$$) by allowing consolidation of maintenance facilities to the north side BET. The ability to shuffle equipment without using the grand junction overnight would fix a lot of canceled trains and delays. This is on top of the congestion relief of crush rush hour crowds at South Station/the central subway between them.
If the MBTA ever gets DMUs the north to south through traffic could reduce a ton of highway traffic around metro Boston.
Spend the money on the Grand Junction
A few hundred million over billions to save very, very, few people a cab ride between stations? Think about it.
I'd rather see the Grand Junction fixed and possibly even thrown underground like the Greenbush line is in Hingham (Yes, I know the Red Line is an obstacle). We need to think about linking along between westbound traffic to North Station and future Cambridge development / access to Beacon Park before disrupting downtown Boston again.
As someone who worked on commuter rail land takings and Big Dig land takings, you are being naïve that the North / South rail link is worth it and the untold billions it would waste.
Boston isn't London and it isn't New York. We do not need direct rail through the middle of downtown for the sake of others.
Burying the GJ would be an
Burying the GJ would be an extremely technically sophisticated project, would run the State a multi-billion dollar tab, and wouldn't offer half the utility of NSRL. The future of the GJ is as a light-rail spur: NS-Lechmere-GJ at East Cambridge (new), Broadway/Main/Mass (new), Magazine Beach (new), and the western terminus can either be a) West Station or b) bury the B Line (and thereby start to unpack it's ridiculous delays) to Allston and punch out by the BU bridge for GJ loop service.
That isn't possible unless there's NSRL or until the MBTA builds a superfluous southside heavy maint center and purges the daily CSX produce train from the GJ. And with NSRL, you gain the umpteen benefits to be had by being able to operate a service-dense, S-Bahn style suburban EMU/DMU system with 495 expresses and denser 128 locals. NSRL alone won't make that a reality, but it's an absolutely necessary prerequisite. We're not London or New York, but many European cities far smaller than Boston has the foresight in the 1920s-1930s to connect their stub-terminals (as most terminal stations in Europe were built on either side of the old town, as was the case with Boston - and even with us the first inklings of a link date back to the late 1910s) so this sort of infra isn't only applicable to supercities.
I think you fail to see the
I think you fail to see the actual purpose of this. It serves to take people out of the central subway and connecting stations (commute from the north, but work in the seaport?) - anything that gets riders out of the connecting stations and off the overcrowded subway is huge. So, that is the first benefit. Second, it gives a nice lead in/push to electrification of the CR system (as diesels are not allowed in tunnels). This leads to EMUs that can operate on a more rapid transit like headway. So now, you start looking at the system and mixing and matching new EMU lines on the connected commuter rail network greatly expanding our rapid transit. The long term future with the NSRL is kind of crazy in terms of what it opens up. In the near term, probably Prov -> North Station, and hopefully an electrification of the Fairmont ROW which then could run subway like service between North Station -> Fairmont/Readville.
Also, since neither terminal dead ends now and you can pass things through, you no longer need the huge rail yard at south bay, opening that up to development (and selling/land leasing gaining the T $$$ while helping the city to grow).
Basically, the one thing it is not is to get one person from Gloucester a one seat ride to Bridgewater, but to allow us to basically re-imagine the entire system, and take a large strain off the central subway (which will only get worse) while freeing up a large section of the City to redevelop into something other than an train yard.
Just one clarification -
Just one clarification - diesels absolutely are allowed in tunnels. There are even existing tunnels on the CR system.
The reason the NSRL would require electrification is because of the steep grades on the approaches, and because the faster acceleration would allow a greater throughput.
Correct. However, none of the current tunnels
on the CR system even come close to approaching (no pun intended) the length of the proposed NSRL. If diesel trains are to be operated, a ventilation system would be a necessity.
Personally, I feel that the MBTA should be looking to electrification of the CR system as a priorty, whether or not NSRL goes forward. Among other things, it would greatly facilitiate the transition from locomotive hauled push pull trains to EMUs, which would allow for shorter but more frequent trains. DMUs are generally fuel-inefficent when coupled into the longer trains normally required for rush hour service - this is the reason the Chicago and Northwestern went to push-pull trains in the 1950s after a brief experiment with Budd RDCs, and also why the MBTA went to push-pull when faced with replacing the ex-B&M Budd RDC fleet in the late 1970s.
Agreed, just looking at the
Agreed, just looking at the performance/reliability/lifetime/maintenance per mile lifetime of electric vs diesel motors is crazy - the electrics run forever without major maintenance/breaking down. The Providence line should be first (as Amtrak basically did almost all of it already), followed by Needham/Fairmont as short runs and branch out from there.
Fairmount, yes - Needham, no.
Fairmount, yes - Needham, no. Fairmount for obvious reasons: short (thus cheap), densely packed catchment district, opens up possibility of routing longer hauls (like Stoughton) via the Fairmount for service density saturation. Needham's problem is a single track segment and capacity crunch on the NEC mainline. Electrification won't solve those capacity constraints, any extra service that EMU-ification of Provi will be eaten up by an expanded Shore Line and Amtrak schedule. Needham will continue to be choked off, as it's clearly the least important of the lines that use the NEC main. Needham should get Green down the old Charles River branch and Rozzie/Westie get a short extension of the OL from Forest Hills, that's the future.
Another good reason to electfify
Fairmount is it will give Amtrak an alternate route should something go wrong between Readville and Back Bay.
And the T's rationale for not running EMUs, or even electric locomotives with the current push pull equipment, is pathetic.
Would love to see
the Orange Line come up into Ros/WR. Wouldn't the single track segment be an issue with that though?
The ROW can support the
The ROW can support the double tracking necessary for RT, it just make no sense to do so for CR when the single track is just one of many capacity constraints for that line. But, hey, it could happen, all it would take would be some serious advocacy in Rozzie and a receptive ear at MassDOT - the engineering isn't extreme, and the benefits are substantial for Rozzie/Westie and for cleaning up all those busses on Washington Street.
Ugh, yeah, I guess I mean
Ugh, yeah, I guess I mean that they wouldn't be allowed cause there is no way we would invest the obscene amount of money that would be needed for a ventilation system to allow diesel running in the tunnel ;)
Several travelers will make use of this.
I help people just about every season in getting from South Station to North Station. For some reason many people think they're right next to each other.
SS to Maine; NS to NYC
People don't ever say "Hanson to Rockport" precisely because it's not a plausible trip today. If the route existed, you would see folks who live north and work south, and vice versa. You'd also open up job and housing mobility for folks, because it would be easier to change jobs without changing homes, or change homes without changing jobs.
It also matters for non-daily but relevant trips. If you live near the Westwood/128 stop and you want to go to Maine, this opens up the Downeaster. Same for those Massholes who actually live closer to Providence RI. Live near Woburn or Haverhill, and you can take the train north to Maine, but not to Providence, NYC, or points south.
With the North/South rail link, it allows folks who live in MA to take the train past Boston, opening up convenient rail to NH and Maine to folks south of Boston, and convenient rail to RI, CT, NY, etc. to folks north of Boston.
You're missing the point if
You're missing the point if you think the benefit of the link is a one seat ride from Salem to Needham. It's about 1) expanded track capacity and train frequency because platform space at North and South Stations are no longer such a limiting factor, 2) ease of operation as trains are more easily moved between the north and south side (and Grand Junction gets opened for other uses), and 3) easing the number of commuter rail passengers using the subway because they need to go from Lynn to South Station, etc. All told, it's a great idea that makes tons of different improvements all in one project. I hope now that De Leo is onboard, we finally get rolling on it.
It's not about people going
It's not about people going from one CR endpoint to another. It's about people getting a one-seat ride and not clogging up the subways downtown for "last-mile" trips.
Although there would be a decent number of passengers traveling between intermediate stations on such pairings as Lowell and Providence, Eastern and Worcester. Can't you imagine people parking at Anderson/Woburn to take the train down to Providence?
Plus the NSRL opens up the possibility of things like Pats service from the north shore.
And then Amtrak would benefit too, from through-running Downeasters to turning Acelas and Regionals at Anderson/Woburn instead of South Station, which would allow them to relocate Southampton St yard to somewhere much more suited for it AND provide a way for people from North of Boston to catch the train without having to go into Boston or drive around on 128.
Is there any possibility of
Is there any possibility of using these proposed tracks to run subway service in addition to commuter rail? Just adding commuter rail is probably enough to get my support, but subway would knock it out of the park. My daily commute is north station to south station.
Walk?
Or if the fare structure stays the same, a NS-SS ride will cost the same as a subway ride (or less, as fares will rarely be collected on that segment).
There's room for four tracks.
There's room for four tracks. If you don't have a Central CR station (and I don't think you do), that means you could have 2 tracks of mainline (CR/Amtrak) and 2 tracks of subway. The subway part would add cost (you'd want to have an Aquarium Under station to connect to the Blue Line).
There are two candidates for a subway service: a downtown loop of the Orange Line that basically does Tufts - South Station - Aquarium Under (note that because the escalators to Aquarium Under are going to be so deep, you could viably have them coming from Rowe's Wharf for this station) - North Station - Haymarket - State - DTX - Chinatown, which would double frequencies on the Orange Line downtown. The other option would be Red splitting off between JFK and Andrew to South Station - Aquarium Under - North Station Under. From there, the Red Line would be able to go basically anywhere: rejoin the Red Line at Porter? Sure (but why?). Replace GLX to West Medford? Sure. Everett? Sure. Don't have to go any of those places right away, but it's straight shots along the existing CR rights of way.
to the best of my recollection,
this is the first time in my whole life that I've ever heard DeLeo in favor of something good.
He probably just got word
He probably just got word back from one his "connections" can they take advantage of this proposal and be a benefit for "everyone".
MBTA .com once had a pdf document on this project
They did a whole study on the tunnel that could be viewed on their site. I just tried looking for it under projects and couldn't find it.
If I remember correctly the only problem with the tunnel was the Worcester line had to start diving down right after Back Bay station and conflicted with the Orange Line tunnel.
I also once heard a rumor that Sandhogs purposely sabotage and damage the Tunnel boring machines so the projects last longer and they get more money in the end.
Project to replace the Olympic construction?
Now that the Olympics will not happen in Boston there needs to be a major project to keep the construction industry at full steam once the Seaport District is built up. What better project than a Big Dig 2?
It's a win-win. Construction companies continue to make more money to pour back into political campaigns, construction unions continue to provide plenty of jobs for members and public transit riders might even enjoy a benefit of some transit improvement. Win-Win and eventually (after how many years of construction?) a third win?