Cape Flyer

[Safetee]

i'm willing to bet that Mr. Cahir will not shed a tear if the bourne stop disappears suddenly in the midst of a political explosion.

[BandA]

This stop is very close to the bridge, and the gallo arena is right nearby. I assume that if this stop is too busy that they will have to move the prefab platform to the gallo arena. How much did it cost to build this platform?

Anyway, those look like secondary streets, aren't they subject to basically the same traffic jams as the bridge?

[Falmouth Secondary to Otis]

As I recall, in 2014 MassDOT wanted to build a 400' high-level platform and some additional track. To the average person a 400' high-level means a lot of people are going to be using the platform.

If I lived in Bourne or Falmouth I would have been upset that the project was shutdown back in 2014 since without this stop people in these town were left with two bad options -- pickup CapeFlyer passengers in Buzzard Bay and then deal with the Cape-bound traffic jam crossing the bridge, or tell people not to use the train, because we don't want to deal with the bridge traffic.

Hopefully the voices of many will speak up against the voices of the few who fear the dozen or so cars, and a shuttle bus to the ferry, will mean when the train stops for all of 5 minutes on a few days this summer.

As a resident of Bourne I respectively disagree with that. The ideal site is the Gallo Ice Arena location which has unlimited parking and is not in use during the summer, with it only being a short distance from the Bourne Bridge location. The Bridge parking lot is small and is usually full of cars from people using the Canal area for recreation, which is what it was built for. But aside from that as I have said before, Cahir has once again left his local town out of the discussion about this which doesn't do the promotion of the Cape flyer any good.

[Train60]

As I recall, in 2014 MassDOT wanted to build a 400' high-level platform and some additional track. To the average person a 400' high-level means a lot of people are going to be using the platform.

If I lived in Bourne or Falmouth I would have been upset that the project was shutdown back in 2014 since without this stop people in these town were left with two bad options -- pickup CapeFlyer passengers in Buzzard Bay and then deal with the Cape-bound traffic jam crossing the bridge, or tell people not to use the train, because we don't want to deal with the bridge traffic.

Hopefully the voices of many will speak up against the voices of the few who fear the dozen or so cars, and a shuttle bus to the ferry, will mean when the train stops for all of 5 minutes on a few days this summer.

As a resident of Bourne I respectively disagree with that. The ideal site is the Gallo Ice Arena location which has unlimited parking and is not in use during the summer, with it only being a short distance from the Bourne Bridge location. The Bridge parking lot is small and is usually full of cars from people using the Canal area for recreation, which is what it was built for. But aside from that as I have said before, Cahir has once again left his local town out of the discussion about this which doesn't do the promotion of the Cape flyer any good.

I am very happy to defer to people who live in the area regarding the site of the station. The point I was simply trying to make was that the opening of a station in Bourne was delayed by five years because of the concerns raised by what appeared to be a small number of residents. They very effectively brought the station project to a stop.

This new platform is clearly a temporary structure. If the station stop proves to be successful this season all stackholders should then come together to decide on what should be done next to establish a more permanent stop for the train in Bourne, and that location could be at the Gallo site.

Also note that this issue has now been picked up by the local paper:
https://www.capenews.net/bourne/news/la ... e68d3.html

[Falmouth Secondary to Otis]

Cahir's comments in the article don't refer to the past opposition as the reason the platform was delayed along with no mention on the examination of the Gallo location as a alternate site. The Bourne Bridge stop was the objective all along, as for now it has been reduced to a pilot project with a used platform to gauge ridership numbers. If ridership counts can justify the expense of constructing a full platform then it should be placed behind the Gallo Ice arena, which has large empty parking lots to use in the summer season. It will be interesting to see what happens during the season at that bridge parking area, as it is always full of cars & people using the Canal.

[mgdemarco]

Before we move onto 2019, there is a point from 2018 that was not posted on here. The FLYER once again increased ridership from the previous year:

https://www.capecod.com/newscenter/as-c ... a-success/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2018 felt different though from 2016 and 2017. I don't have the numbers, but in 2016 and 2017 there were a number of large groups, often heading to Nantucket. I believe the 2016 4th of July Friday evening train was something like 750 people. Saturday mornings in 2016 and 2017 also had large groups of people and packed trains. 2018 didn't appear to ever really match those crowds. However, 2018 seemed to always be moderately busy, especially on Saturday evening return trains. 2018 felt like a lot of groups of two-three people on pretty much every train. I could be wrong, but this is how it often appeared.

[mgdemarco]

One thing for sure about the Steamship Bus connection from Buzzards Bay to Woods Hole is that it hurt ridership and turned people away from the FLYER. Most Saturday mornings the bus would be stuck in traffic from just after exiting the pick up location to the other side of the Bourne Bridge. The vast majority of the Steamship bus fleet do not have air conditioning and things got very hot, very quickly, often with seniors on the bus. People would complain and say they would never do this again before the bus even crossed the bridge! Sometimes the Steamship Bus would miss the 10:45am ferry, leaving people to wait in Woods Hole for the next one. Definitely not a good intro to the FLYER.

[Falmouth Secondary to Otis]

Before we move onto 2019, there is a point from 2018 that was not posted on here. The FLYER once again increased ridership from the previous year:

https://www.capecod.com/newscenter/as-c ... a-success/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2018 felt different though from 2016 and 2017. I don't have the numbers, but in 2016 and 2017 there were a number of large groups, often heading to Nantucket. I believe the 2016 4th of July Friday evening train was something like 750 people. Saturday mornings in 2016 and 2017 also had large groups of people and packed trains. 2018 didn't appear to ever really match those crowds. However, 2018 seemed to always be moderately busy, especially on Saturday evening return trains. 2018 felt like a lot of groups of two-three people on pretty much every train. I could be wrong, but this is how it often appeared.

Looked at Cape Flyer ridership on MassDOT tracker and while it had a good start in 2013 with 16,586 riders it dropped off to 12.625 in 2014 recovering since then to 13,781 in 2018. Seems like the interest has leveled off.

https://massdot.mghpcc.org/tracker/2018 ... pcapeflyer" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[BandA]

There was a lot of criticism last year in this forum about the marketing of the train. There is the weirdness that this is a train, that is "authorized" by an RTA that runs buses, not trains, running over tracks owned by MassDOT but operated by the MBTA. And since it is a cobbled-together CR extension it gets no marketing from Amtrak like "hey, take Amtrak to Boston then take the Cape Flyer"

[BandA]

That platform is ugly-cute! Where did it come from? But where is the ADA ramp? What were they using to shim it in place?

Looks like it was delivered by train!

[mgdemarco]

Before we move onto 2019, there is a point from 2018 that was not posted on here. The FLYER once again increased ridership from the previous year:

https://www.capecod.com/newscenter/as-c ... a-success/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2018 felt different though from 2016 and 2017. I don't have the numbers, but in 2016 and 2017 there were a number of large groups, often heading to Nantucket. I believe the 2016 4th of July Friday evening train was something like 750 people. Saturday mornings in 2016 and 2017 also had large groups of people and packed trains. 2018 didn't appear to ever really match those crowds. However, 2018 seemed to always be moderately busy, especially on Saturday evening return trains. 2018 felt like a lot of groups of two-three people on pretty much every train. I could be wrong, but this is how it often appeared.

Looked at Cape Flyer ridership on MassDOT tracker and while it had a good start in 2013 with 16,586 riders it dropped off to 12.625 in 2014 recovering since then to 13,781 in 2018. Seems like the interest has leveled off.

https://massdot.mghpcc.org/tracker/2018 ... pcapeflyer" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks for the official numbers and the correction on 2013-2014. In 2013 though it ran through Columbus Day with about 1,500 riding after Labor Day.

https://www.boston.com/news/business/20 ... n-2014/amp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[frigidlight]

Here's a couple better photos of the new platform in Bourne taken earlier today.

IMG_2830.jpg (366.69 KiB) Viewed 2161 times

IMG_2831.jpg (435.21 KiB) Viewed 2161 times

The ramp is still half built but I wonder if that's to keep people from playing on the platform?

I'll be very curious to see how many people use this station. I do think it will be much better from a traffic standpoint than the Buzzards Bay stop, however. A large amount of the traffic going across the bridge continues on to Falmouth and the backup is caused by the rotary. Sandwich Road (the road coming from this stop to the Bourne Rotary) can get backed up but nowhere near as bad as the bridge approach.

The ice rink parking lot does have a significant hill from the parking lot to the train tracks and any platform location. This would require much more work to build the necessary ramps and platforms for a full station than dropping on pre-fab platform on some crushed gravel.

[BandA]

Parking will be a problem for folks trying to take the Flyer TO Boston & back. Most people using this stop will be arriving to the cape or leaving. Connecting to buses or Lyftubers.

[Falmouth Secondary to Otis]

Here's a couple better photos of the new platform in Bourne taken earlier today.

IMG_2830.jpg

IMG_2831.jpg

The ramp is still half built but I wonder if that's to keep people from playing on the platform?

I'll be very curious to see how many people use this station. I do think it will be much better from a traffic standpoint than the Buzzards Bay stop, however. A large amount of the traffic going across the bridge continues on to Falmouth and the backup is caused by the rotary. Sandwich Road (the road coming from this stop to the Bourne Rotary) can get backed up but nowhere near as bad as the bridge approach.

The ice rink parking lot does have a significant hill from the parking lot to the train tracks and any platform location. This would require much more work to build the necessary ramps and platforms for a full station than dropping on pre-fab platform on some crushed gravel.

All it would take for the Gallo site is some tree removal and a bulldozer to level off the site as it's not really a big issue. The main advantage of the Gallo location is a large parking area that is not in use during the summer with easy pickup / drop off for car & bus traffic, with no impact on the local neighborhood.

[bostontrainguy]

Just read that 87 people got off the train at the new platform! I think that is rather successful.