Fall River Improvement Project & South Coast Rail

[LReyomeXX]

http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/route79project/FAQ.aspx

Weeks ago, I assumed that the upcoming South Coast Rail project had a little bit of something to do with this

Code: Select all

(12. What is the relationship of this project to the proposed South Coast Rail Project?
MassDOT Highway Division is coordinating with MassDOT's South Coast Rail Project team and the railroad’s freight operator, Mass Coastal Railroad. The interchange project will enhance freight and passenger rail service in the project area in several ways. The proposed interchange project will raise the Anawan Street Bridge over the railroad, which would benefit South Coast Rail trains and other freight service and will allow access to a proposed platform near the Gates of the City monument.)

Turns out I was right about the association between the two projects. South Coast Rail is part of MBTA's plans to expand Old Colony service, and the track through Fall River ran right under the viaduct, in fact, it was rail, bottom deck, and top deck for about 1/2 mile

[ebtmikado]

At the March 12 NARP regional annual meeting, held in New London, we were told that South Coast Rail is moribund.
That's too bad.

Lee

[deathtopumpkins]

It's not quite dead yet!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/ ... story.html

Another $148 million will go toward the oft-discussed South Coast rail project to New Bedford, with the money set aside for steps such as early design and permits.

[ohalloranchris]

It's not quite dead yet!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/ ... story.html

Another $148 million will go toward the oft-discussed South Coast rail project to New Bedford, with the money set aside for steps such as early design and permits.

Yes, but that Globe story is quite misleading. Throwing $148 million at the project, while the remaining $2.4 billion remains unfunded is a drop in the bucket (and the Globe failed to note that the vast majority remains unfunded).

The state is having a hard time funding its portion of the Green Line extension, and most of that project is federally funded, and its projected ridership is much stronger than SC Rail. (SC Rail has no federal funding.)

Time will tell, but SC Rail has a long way to go in my humble opinion (but I could be wrong of course)...

[deathtopumpkins]

It's not quite dead yet!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/ ... story.html

Another $148 million will go toward the oft-discussed South Coast rail project to New Bedford, with the money set aside for steps such as early design and permits.

Yes, but that Globe story is quite misleading. Throwing $148 million at the project, while the remaining $2.4 billion remains unfunded is a drop in the bucket (and the Globe failed to note that the vast majority remains unfunded).

The story explicitly said this money is only for

steps such as early design and permits.

It's even in my quote above!

I don't necessarily think that $148M is money well spent, but there's no denying that it will fund at least the majority of the design and permitting process, which is not insignificant.

[mxdata]

According to the FR Herald timeline published in 2009, the original cost of the ENTIRE project in 1991 was only supposed to be $136 million.

MX

[The EGE]

Even as late as 1995, the projected cost was $156 million including three miles of brand-new rail ROW in Attleboro. The Expanded Alternatives Analysis in 1997 bumped the cost to $426M (probably a more reasonable estimate); by the time Romney killed the project in November 2002 it was up to $600M.

When they restarted the project in 2005, that's when the free-for-all everybody-get-their-slice-of-the-pie truly began. $1,000M (1B) in 2005, $1,435M in 2007, $1,800M in 2011, and $2,300M in 2014.

[eustis22]

What "permits" and why do they cost $148M???? Isn''t this a rehab of an old ROW?

[deathtopumpkins]

What "permits" and why do they cost $148M???? Isn''t this a rehab of an old ROW?

Please read the quote the $148M is coming from.

The $148M isn't just permitting. It's also design.

[Teamdriver]

Could South Coast Rail stop in Middleboro?

"
By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter

Posted Jun. 23, 2016 at 12:42 AM
Updated at 8:44 AM


FALL RIVER — State officials have the long-delayed South Coast Rail project on the front burner amid speculation they may be considering an alternative tie-in to the Middleboro-Lakeville station stop, connecting south with Fall River and New Bedford.

Advocates for the Middleboro route say by upgrading existing bridges and rail lines, that route could be built for a fraction of the $2.3 billion projected cost, and it would be built far quicker than the adopted tie-in to Stoughton.

The region’s leaders invited the SouthCoast legislative delegation to an update and briefing on Monday from 10 to 11 a.m. with Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollack on this topic.

The co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation, Rep. William Straus, D-Mattapoisett, and state Sen. Michael Rodrigues, D-Westport, sent email invitations Wednesday afternoon to the SouthCoast legislative delegation for a PowerPoint briefing from Pollack. It lacked any details. ''

http://www.enterprisenews.com/news/2016 ... 1/?Start=1

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

Could South Coast Rail stop in Middleboro?

"
By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter

Posted Jun. 23, 2016 at 12:42 AM
Updated at 8:44 AM

. . .

Isn't it time we make it a requirement of the General Court that prospective members can only get on the ballot by first passing a literacy test? Third...fourth grade at highest.

Like Reps. Straus and Rodrigues, for example. Put the South Coast Rail DEIR in front of them...section flatly explaining why the M'boro Alternative was rejected as a total traffic management infeasibility that would destroy schedules on all 3 Old Colony branches (not that the I/me/mine interests down there give a crap about South Shore commuters). Can they read the topic sentence: Yes or No? If no, lose all privileges to drag the Transpo Secretary out onto your turf for an utterly meaningless meeting that rehashes long-settled impossibilities.


The stupid...it burns.

[GP40MC1118]

Former New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang is a major proponent of the Middleboro routing.
He was on WBSM-AM the other week for an hour yapping about this and how we could
get this going and not having to stop at Middleboro. Deal with the swamp later on.
Totally ignored the bottleneck above Braintree. Also claimed the MBTA was
extending service to Buzzards Bay like it was happening right now. Umm...let's not
confuse the Cape Flyer for the commuter train proposal.

I wish I could've called in and debate him on it, but I was ironically about to battle
RT 24 to work.

D

[Trinnau]

Either route is still going to be limited - the corridor isn't exactly brewing in excess capacity during the rush hour either. Extend from Stoughton and you still have those same slots on the corridor the Stoughton trains run in. Extend from Middleboro and its the same thing, you are stuck with the same slots inside of Braintree. The problem is these are goals and ideas that need to be brought into reality. Whatever they're talking about doing now will need to be tempered to match the existing operation no matter what. Either line is viable from a scheduling standpoint if you simply extend rush-hour service - assuming you have the equipment to handle it (and space to park said equipment).

Capacity aside, the Stoughton option might be appealing to more passengers for the simple matter of Ruggles and Back Bay stops.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

Either route is still going to be limited - the corridor isn't exactly brewing in excess capacity during the rush hour either. Extend from Stoughton and you still have those same slots on the corridor the Stoughton trains run in. Extend from Middleboro and its the same thing, you are stuck with the same slots inside of Braintree. The problem is these are goals and ideas that need to be brought into reality. Whatever they're talking about doing now will need to be tempered to match the existing operation no matter what. Either line is viable from a scheduling standpoint if you simply extend rush-hour service - assuming you have the equipment to handle it (and space to park said equipment).

Capacity aside, the Stoughton option might be appealing to more passengers for the simple matter of Ruggles and Back Bay stops.

Heh. You should get a load of the Stoughton option's schedule plan: all trains run express from Canton Jct. to BBY. No Ruggles or Route 128 for thee. And at rush hour, the only way to juggle train meets is for the Fall River Branch to always skip the Taunton stops while New Bedford Branch always skips Stoughton and the Cantons. But don't worry...running skip-stop only gets you in and out of Boston about 0-3 minutes faster than the off-peaks that run all-stops, because there'll be long schedule-correction pauses at the stops they do make to allow for train meets on that dozen miles of craptacular single-track bottleneck. Except on days when something's late and blows its impossibly narrow margin for error...then those schedule corrections will be agonizingly long.


Of course, if the Stoughton route hadn't been artificially crippled by the single-track design and been properly drawn up as end-to-end DT none of that would be a problem and it would be the objectively superior route meeting all sensible scheduling needs for the full corridor, but. . .

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ --> "I can haz electrification moneys!"

And so would the NEC suffice for feeding a full schedule down the Stoughton route if South Coast actually specced any capacity fixes whatsoever north of Canton Center. Like making Route 128 become twin-island/quad-track like the new station was actually designed to expand out to. Or for Canton Jct. to take a parking row and go 2 Stoughton x 3 NEC tracks so more Providence trains could load-balance the stop without blocking Amtrak, and both sets of side platforms were reconfigured set back of the junction so nobody's blocking anyone else's switch. Relief for meets at those two stops plus all the pre-existing Amtrak plans to quad up Forest Hills-Readville should've been enough to fit a full schedule a little snugly but without having to compromise much. But. . .

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ --> "As long as my friends get paid who cares if it's unusable, amirite?"

[The EGE]

And that yap-yap was the run-up to this announcement: the project is now up to an estimated $3.42 billion, with completion now estimated in 2029. I kid you not.

The state transportation department had estimated the project could cost $2.23 billion and be complete by 2022, but consultants for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority now say it could cost $3.42 billion and be finished by 2029. The increased costs and delays in the timeline have officials weighing alternatives to the project, which would include 75 miles of track, new locomotives, and 10 new stations.

Kill the project, already. It's the graftiest graft that ever grafted.