Arborwayfan wrote:Maybe true, but a volume discount or annual pass on tolls (not restricted to people who live in a certain place, but open to any frequent traveller) wouldn't be unconstitutional, just politcally unpopular. It would be no different from selling 12-ride tickets and monthly passes.
I'm pretty sure the bridges can't be tolled without buying them from the Corps of Engineers, which might be illegal and would certainly be difficult. Rte 495 can't be tolled without buying it from the Feds. I suspect Rte 3 could be tolled because it's not an interstate and was built basically by the state. But even there politics, as you point out, would be against new tolls. Problem with tolls: people don't see them as a user fee for a service they should pay for, but as a kind of tax. And when the Tpk authority or equivalent shows that the tolls do pay for upkeep and improvement, people claim the upkeep and improvement isn't necessary, but some kind of plot to keep charging tolls.
And if 3 gets tolled it would only be to pay for the add-a-lane Duxbury (or at most 44 in Plymouth) -north. Because with the 128 add-a-lane in its final stages, 3 is the last place in New England that has that bonkers-dangerous rush hour breakdown lane travel practice. That's a big no-no, so even if you're the type who doesn't like the idea of highway capacity expansion that's a non-optional project.
But I suspect they can take care of the funding for that by doing what they should've done ages ago: applying to the FHA for permission to re-route I-93 from Braintree-Canton to Braintree-Sagamore and getting a replacement I-x95 designation for the little east-west jog on 128. I mean...3 is the continuation of 93's native north-south alignment. It's on the two-digit interstate network in everything but name and FHA blessing. Prior to the SW Expressway's cancellation MA 3 was the designation all the way north up the SE Expressway the Storrow Dr. exit, and still exists on some signage as a triple-concurrency with 93 and US1. That's probably how it's going to be for road improvements to the bridges, so there remains little in the way of angles for instituting tolls at the bridges (and I'm just assuming the new Bridge #3 proposal is as much a nonstarter as the last half-dozen efforts at a Bridge #3).
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Back to the trains...I think they can really help themselves by deepening their cross-promo bench. Consider these:
-- Single-pass train and ferry purchases. Hyannis terminal is right down the street from Hyannis station. People take the Flyer to go to the Vineyard and Nantucket. The Steamship Authority is a quasi-public agency; coordination with the public MBTA/CCRTA joint that operates the Flyer should be a natural thing. When you buy your Flyer ticket by smartphone or at the South Station tix counter, you should be able to buy a ferry ticket rolled up in the same purchase. I know the Steamship Authority does reservations, but I don't know how much of their ticketing is first-come-first-served. It should be S.O.P. to be able to buy a weekend pass for however many ferry round-trips you need with your train ticket on a single transaction. That feature, if they promoted it well enough, would really get riders in. Car-free from Boston to the Islands...set it and forget it.
-- Zipcar partnerships. A lot of the Cape isn't accessible by car. Especially if you're renting a cottage or visiting someone's cottage. Even the biggest funding dump in the world to expand CCRTA bus routes isn't going to cover every nook and cranny people need to go. A bus by its nature has to stick to a shortlist of mainline nodes, even with more routes added. Short-duration, point-to-point car trips via a Zipcar grab-and-go rental are a lot less cumbersome than taking out a Hertz rental at the airport. Say the mainland track is a realistic bet for 79 MPH within 5 years as prep for real Buzzards Bay commuter rail (I think we're in agreement that's a lock within +/- 2 years of that target). That's enough of a time reduction head of steam on the mainland to open up the fully ADA-accessible Sandwich and West Barnstable intermediates on the slower on-Cape track. Both have modest
parking lots. Get some Zipcar spaces in there. Get some Zipcar spaces at a few major CCRTA bus stops away from the rail corridor that would generate adequate traffic. Now you've got the door-to-door travel needs covered for folks who just have to get to a residence or some small destination on a local street. Or once they get to their week's vacation spot on the beach they don't even need the car and can return it to another Zipcar lot until they're ready to go home, work back to Hyannis/Sandwich/West Barnstable station, and need to grab another Zipcar a week later.
Much like the Zipcars all over Boston those grab-and-go rentals are pretty much just for local trips. They're generally not going to be worsening the traffic on 6 and 28. This is the public-private partnership that might have the most bang-for-buck at filling in the last-mile gaps that no amount of public transit funding is going to close.
-- Bikeshares. Think the fabulously successful Hubway in Boston. Cheap bikes, unattended pay-as-you-go rental stations. Have a boatload of them at Hyannis. Have a fair number of them at Sandwich and West Barnstable when they open. Put a kiosk at a couple of the higher-traffic CCRTA bus stops at major destinations. The trail coverage on the Cape is excellent. You just need to facilitate the access to bikes for the people who 1) don't have one to take on the train, 2) can't transport theirs onto the train for some reason, and 3) wouldn't have even considered taking a bike to the Cape (or Islands via their ferry pass that they bought with their train ticket) until they actually got there and saw what nice riding there is in easy reach.
Also, that trail coverage is getting a lot better soon:
* The rail trail extension from Dennis to Yarmouth that's been stalled for years has finally gone into design and gotten a schedule pinned to it. Demolition permits have been issued for pulling up the abandoned rail. New Bass River bridge is finally in design to replace the rail deck that was ripped out years ago. And staged path construction starts next summer with a simple 1-block extension from Route 134 to Main St. Then the new Bass River crossing and N. Main across the Yarmouth town line. Then the final 1.4 miles to Station Ave. where the active tracks end.
* From Station Ave. there it's a 2-block zigzag to Old Town House Park where a preexisting paved bike bath starts, goes through the golf course, then joins a power line ROW to Higgins Crowell Rd. on the far outskirts of Hyannis. It's maybe a cycle track's worth of construction on the north side of Old Town House Rd. where there's nothing but light industrial property set back from the road to close that 2-block gap between trails.
* Extend the power line trail from Higgins Crowell Rd. 3/4 mile to Yarmouth Rd. right across the street from the end of the airport runway and you're in the heart of Hyannis density. The dirt power line access road is already used on daily basis as a semi-illegal trail with local authorities playing live-and-let-live. So they just need a little money to do the obvious and pave over what's already a contiguous dirt pack. Put a cycle track off to the side of Yarmouth Rd. between the train tracks and the street and this completes the link to Route 28, train station, airport terminal, ferry terminal, and car rentals if you're going to transport your bike to the outer Cape later on.
* I don't know if there's been any recent movement on extending the north end of the rail trail past its somewhat abrupt end in South Wellfleet @ Lecount Hollow Rd. I know it's high-priority. 2 miles of pavement on likewise somewhat illegal "unofficial" power line access trail gets you to Route 6 in downtown Wellfleet. +1/2 mile from there and another missing rail bridge deck infill gets you into the heart of downtown at Railroad Ave. and a CCRTA bus stop on the P'town route.
Boom...there's a contiguous grade-separated paved trail link from Hyannis to anywhere else on the Cape and Islands. One transit super-node fans out to the whole region by train, by air, by ferry, by bus, by bike, by car rental. The bike part really isn't far from being reality. The last stretch of rail trail in Yarmouth was the expensive one because of that missing bridge and trickier EIS'ing, and that's finally getting fixed. The power line easements and roadside improvements elsewhere for bike traffic are relatively quick and simple infills to close the last gaps.
-- Bolstering the
other Cape Cod Bay local ferry and
other underutilized train line along Cape Cod Bay. Hyannis to Provincetown is always going to be a slog unless you're up for a 98th percentile bike nut up for a vigorous physical challenge on the trails. Buses and car rentals still have to deal with Route 6. And the Boston-P'town ferry, while direct, is a long 55-mile ride that that'll set you back a stiff $88 per person for an adult round-trip. Hope you're not taking the spouse and your 2.5 kids because that'll set you back $300. The outer Cape really needs some redundancy in the transit options to make it more accessible, affordable, and schedule-convenient to get to.
Well...the Plymouth-P'town ferry currently costs half as much as the Boston one, although its schedule is even more meager owing to an even smaller private operator. The Plymouth Line can't find any use whatsoever for Cordage Park so it's mothballed on the weekend. There might be some opportunities here for similar ferry cross-promo deals with
that commuter rail ticket if the Plymouth ferry schedule got bolstered. It would require a free shuttle bus from Cordage Park or Kingston to the ferry terminal coordinated with the ferry schedule because the stupid tracks end 1.2 miles short of the ferry terminal. But otherwise if you just get some more ferries running it's just a matter of selling the same unified ticket package at South Station and the T website that you would with the Steamship Authority. Without requiring any sort of special train beyond a regular old Kingston/Plymouth weekend schedule (at long last!) with a bike car attached. That's the full and total extent of the T's involvement. Have enough follow-through on your pan-Cape transportation strategy for the bikeshare and bus enhancements on the P'town end to be adequate, and the only question mark that has to get answered is whether the expanded ferry schedule studies out as a winner. It might not be a winner and thus this option is pretty much moot. But it's worth crunching some numbers on the options. For most of the stakeholders other than the ferry operator and funding for the ferry operator, all of the action involves little more than promotional optics and getting Greater Plymouth roped in to the pan-regional party when it comes to encouraging weekender transit.
