BostonUrbEx wrote:Cross-posting my earlier comment on the article:
Major flaws in this "vision". I realize it's merely a 2024 timeline, but they're still thinking small and irrationally. First of all, the BCEC shuttle is outrageous, and I can't believe they're still "visualizing" it.
The DMU 'Indigo' lines are pretty solid, and I have some adjustments, but hey, I'd certainly take what they're giving.
It's incredibly disappointing that the outrageously bloated South Coast Rail Project is depicted. That thing needs a garlic-soaked stake to the heart, pronto! Interesting that they still don't expect a stop in Plaistow, NH by then, however.
The lack of a Red-Blue connector is also disappointing. At least TRY to pursue it. It's critical to system-wide capacity and to regional mobility. Give me a break, MassDOT!
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BrandeisRoberts wrote:I'm kind of surprised by the lack of indigo service to Waltham. Its a city with a fairly low-income and transit-dependent population, as well as a dense city center that's ripe for TODs, not to mention all of the big high tech employers and the potential for reversed commuters from Cambridge.
Agreed 100%. I'd also like to see DMU's to Salem, but we need to expand that single-track tunnel. And DMU's on the Reading Branch, with the Haverhill Line relying more on the Wildcat.
I'm also wondering if a Campello - East Weymouth DMU line is possible, with the focus on the Braintree transfer.
The thing to remember is that where they plunked these arbitrary termini on the map correspond to
today's Zone fares. They did nothing that stretched beyond Zone 2, which is why the Eastern Route DMU stops at Lynn. Swampscott and Salem are Zone 3's. This map says nothing about how they're going to square the inequities in the fare structure and make the branded "Indigo" service some sort of semi-coherent pricing. On the North Shore that would require significantly dropping the fares at Swampscott, Salem, or (if they want to go that far) Zone 4 Beverly to make it work because the line has a steeper stop-by-stop increase than any other inside-128 service. And of course, since this document says absolutely nothing about how they're going to pay for it they didn't bother opening the can of worms about fare cuts or hikes on the Indigos.
Zone fares also play into the following which you would think would be study candidates:
-- Fairmount extension to Westwood/128: Zone 1 to Zone 2 jump.
-- Anything south of Braintree on the Old Colony: Zone 2 to Zone 3 jump. Plus the inequity of the Red Line-duplicated stops being a 1A to 1 jump @ Quincy Ctr. and a 1 to 2 jump @ Braintree.
-- Needham: Zone 1 from Rozzie to W. Rox inside the city of Boston to major bus transfer stations, not equitable with the Zone 1A Dorchester and Hyde Park enjoy on the Fairmount Line.
-- Waltham: Zone 1A to 1 jump at Belmont Ctr., Zone 1 to 2 jump at Waltham. Not too out-of-whack for commuter rail, but this is a very bus transfer-heavy corridor at all past-Porter stops so the difference between bus fare-->Zone 1 and bus fare-->Zone 2 matters the world at attracting patronage. Plus Kendal Green is a Zone 2 to 3 jump, so what does that mean if they replace it with a Route 128 stop?...is that a 2 or a 3?
-- Reading vs. Anderson: Zone 1A to 1 jumps at Wyoming Hill or Wedgemere; Zone 1 to 2 jumps at Greenwood or Mishawum. Pretty equitable overall, but West Medford is outside the rapid transit system and gets a Zone 1A while but Wyoming Hill is a Zone 1? When GLX puts both in the same walking distance to the last subway stop, how is that going to look?
-- Riverside: Note the conspicuous lack of a Newton Corner stop. Is that infill going to be the break between Zone 1A (Yawkey, New Balance/whatever-it's-now-called) and Zone 1 (Newtonville)? Is that going to work when the bus transfers here are going to so heavily weight towards Allston?
It's all little stuff, but you can see what sidestepping the fare question does to slice through all the sunshine and puffy clouds in this plan. Getting the Indigos equitable on the fare scale requires resolving all these inconsistencies. And resolving the inconsistencies can't be done without slashing fares to a lower Zone in most places. The stops that are disproportionately weighted to bus transfers have to be brought down so the bus-->DMU fare difference isn't so stark. They have to bring down all the ones with rapid transit overlap to Zone 1A. They have to decide how many zones Indigo will cover in total: 1A and 1? 1A/1/2? Which definitely means cleansing all the 3's, but probably some of the 2's. They have to decide how fast the Zones break intra-city, outside city limits, and in tough calls like Newton Corner where the stop is outside the city but most of the bus transfer ridership feeding the stop is bending back towards the city. And then these inner Zone recalibrations have to jibe with the full CR system so outside-128 trains whose routes and riders use these same stops aren't totally boned over by distorted rises in the Zones that are way more exaggerated on some lines than others. For example, if you fix the glitch at Salem and bust it done from Zone 3 to 2, does Beverly Depot stay a 4 or does that have to come down to 3? Doesn't matter if the past-128 commuters still have to pay much higher fares and higher per-zone rises than the Indigoers, they still have to pound out the big whoppers like Salem-Beverly...and the only way to do smooth that out is fare drops at the affected stations to even out the spread.
You get the idea. Every little fix weights to a fare cut and can't be solved by hiking elsewhere. With a mode that has much higher operating costs than all bus or rapid transit, they take on considerable new costs implementing this and have to find other means of bolstering their farebox recovery. All completely feasible with an agency-wide focus on exploiting efficiencies, but keep in mind that the Legislature has not reformed one bloody part of their agency-wide financing. These 4-year capital plans are still subject to year-to-year shocks in the economy and the same tax revenue shortfalls that have them annually begging for someone else's surplus to close a $20M gap here and threatening fare hikes + service cuts. And they're still strangled by the debt and these year-to-year variances impacted their debt service payoffs.
Yeah...a little premature to put out a pretty new spider map that requires considerable fare cutting to work at all as a service pattern...but assumes that the Zones stay exactly the same and says nothing about how the house of cards will hold up amid lower operating margins and the annual budget song-and-dance. Conceptually it's borderline-brilliant, but where's the beef?
