Is the Commuter Rail "Inequitable"?

[OT] Cheaper to tear down the General Mail Facility & re-lay the tracks than to build the N-S Rail Boondoggle.

I'm no fan of the word "boondoggle", but I'm even less a fan of the North-South Rail Link, especially when compared to expanding North and South Stations, I'm with you on this one.

If you look in the dictionary under inequitable, you would find a picture of The Big Dig, sponsored by MassDOT, with the present governor the architect of the financing plan. The N-S Raillink is Big Dig Under. There is need for more tunnels, but the price tag cannot be justified, especially for Commuter Rail.

A rule of thumb: If you build it they will come. But they are unwilling to pay for it, so you will. That is inequitable.

Who is "they" and who is "you"?

Us would be all the taxpayers in the state, and they would be only the Commuter Rail and Amtrak passengers using the N-S Raillink

And if Amtrak uses it then the Entire country pays for it. There are many things that I pay for in my taxes that I will never use, but I'm willing to pay for the Common Good of All. If you take say 100 cars off the highways that's less wear and tear on the road, less pollution and a faster commute for those that are on the highways, so even if you don't ride that train it would still benefit people breathing the and other commuters.

Red wing,
Exactly!
If only the folks fighting texas HSR could understand that just because they won't directly use it, they won't get benefits of less pollution, runoff, and less traffic for them using the roads as a result.

Please. Take 100 cars off the road, and you reduce wear and tear by no measurable degree of statistical significance....

Time saved would be measured in thousandths of a second.

Hardly worth a 1% tax.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

100 was a number pulled out of thin air and no research put into this, but if the whole country helped well it would be less than 1% of our collective taxes.

The dated 1950's American thinking on this thread is so depressing.
In London, Thameslink (N/S) and Crossrail (E/W, rather late, but far far more extensively engineered than a N/S link would ever be) will be running 24 tph each way on double track, with 2 platforms in each of the 12 underground city center stations they pass through. With 15 minute headways on most routes, with 12 car EMU's, they will attract far more than the "poors".

As a link between two sides of the current CR system, and between the NEC and the Downeaster, the N/S rail link would make no sense. As the link that turns a downtown-focused CR system into a real regional rail system that makes it easy to live one one side of greater Boston and work on the other, the N/S link might just make sense. I've said before: Lynn to Quincy; Canton to Medford. Brockton to Waltham. Etc. Eastern Mass is a crowded place. More stops than now would slow trains down a bit, but frequent trains timed for easy connections, not to mention automatic doors and high platforms for all-door boarding, would mean shorter total trip times, greater convenience, much greater ridership. TOD both residential and business could transform the remaining semi-derelict ex-industrial zones that exist next to most CR lines.

Equitable for eastern Mass commuters: yes, because better transit for transit users and less crowded roads for car users.
Equitable for Mass taxpayers: yes, because even if the state paid for a lot of it, that payment wouldn't be out of proportion with the fraction of state tax revenue that comes from the area where the service would be.
Equitable for Federal taxpayers: yes, because any federal contribution wouldn't be out of proportion with the fraction of state tax revenue that comes from the area where the service would be.
Equitable for Pike and Tobin bridge tollpayers: yes, because unlike with the Big Dig, they wouldn't be asked to pay for it.
Equitable for different economic classes, races, etc.: yes, because it would tend to reduce the divisions between different parts of the metro area, make more jobs and more housing accessible to more people, etc.

Worth the cost even with all of that? I'm really not sure at all. I'm just sure that dividing the cost by the number of pax on today's CR who get to BOS and really want to be at BON, and vice versa, is a lousy way to decide.

stevefol wrote: ↑Wed Feb 09, 2022 3:07 pm The dated 1950's American thinking on this thread is so depressing.
In London, Thameslink (N/S) and Crossrail (E/W, rather late, but far far more extensively engineered than a N/S link would ever be) will be running 24 tph each way on double track, with 2 platforms in each of the 12 underground city center stations they pass through. With 15 minute headways on most routes, with 12 car EMU's, they will attract far more than the "poors".

This. Obviously, the transit and rail usage rates are far higher in the UK than they are here, but you have to start somewhere. The US default position is to just not try anything "because Americans are wedded to their cars." A lot of them are, but many more are wedded to their cars because there's no viable option.

Keep in mind that these London systems (ThamesLink, Crossrail/Elizabeth Line) are exactly what could be done with the MBTA commuter rail system. They're running close to US rapid transit frequencies on lines that are 45-50 miles out of the city. Now imagine what that kind of access would do for Haverhill/Lawrence/Lowell/Fitchburg/Worcester/Brockton/Framingham/Lynn/etc.

A reminder for those likely to step in and talk about how the US "is far less densely populated than Europe". If you take a line just North of Portland from the coast to the Appalachian Trail, then follow the trail down to Roanoke VA, and back across to the coast, inside that area are 65 million people living inside an area about 1/3 the size of Germany (pop 85M).

One thing that doesn't help the folk living in that area is that over 1/3 of their federal tax revenues are spent elsewhere in the US. And that share has been growing steadily since the 80's. If MA alone could get back the excess tax revenues it would have an extra $35bn a year. Or about 5x the estimated cost of N/S rail, electrification, and updates. Every goddamn year.

I'll point out that when the Red Line has new signals and all old cars are retired they'll be at 3 minute headways - or 20 tph. I'd like to see the performance, track speeds, station spacing, signal requirements, train control system, etc, of that 24tph system. Is it pretty isolated, like a US transit system?

The reality behind the US rail system is that it still is heavily favored toward freight traffic which can't be displaced, and wants to be put on trains as much or even more so than passengers in terms of emissions reduction. US trains are heavier and longer. PTC starts to erode headways. And those high-headways can't be consistently carried at higher speeds because of the "slinky" effect as headways bunch and part around station stops. Trains at higher speed need more distance to stop so have to be further behind the train ahead of them. Too many other outside factors can influence train performance in an open right-of-way. Crossing malfunctions, broken rails, trees down, police holds, you name it, it'll delay trains.

Yes, there's a lot of differences between the British operating environment and the US, however, I also don't think we'd be looking at London-like frequencies right away. It would be smart to make sure future capacity improvements aren't designed out in the early stages, but yes, we're unlikely to see those right away.

ThamesLink (the north/south services in London currently running) do use their own dedicated tunnel route though the core of the city, but otherwise run on shared (and often very busy) main lines. My understanding is the 24 tph occurs on that Central London trunk, where the trains use some form of automatic operation. They're operated manually though elsewhere, since they're sharing the lines with other operating companies on the national network. I'm not as familiar with it, but I believe the same will be the case with the Elizabeth Line (crossrail), just with a much longer dedicated subway route across central London.

Interesting footnote is that the ThanmesLink franchise is operated by a joint venture between a British transport operator, and a French firm called Keolis.