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But it isn't made obsolete you can't run the frequencies that the lines need and can support especially within route 128 without building both the surface station expansions and the station connection. The issue with the terminals that the expansions solve isn't even primarily the number of tracks it is getting rid of the conflicting moves, but to do that it is only possible with some minor expansion of the number of station tracks. By building both the ability to run 15 minute headways on the lines inside route 128 becomes possible without doing both the North-South Connector and the expansion I think the max is every 30 minutes for each line because of overlapping service. At every 30 minutes with seven mainlines coming in from the south that would mean a train going through the N-S Rail Link every four minutes in each direction which is possible but doesn't allow for fifteen minute headways that are desired on several of the lines.
what would be the point of having big terminals if the MBTA lines route through the city center?
It wouldn't have much of a point except to be an expensive stopgap measure. There is a cheaper way to do the initial buildout for the link and does not need to cost the full estimate from the get-go.
It's the link, an aquarium st station, portal buildouts for at least connecting to Providence / Stoughton line coming from Back Bay and another for North Station lines, electrification of one or two current North Station bound lines, and purchase of several EMU trains. There's probably a lot of fatigue leftover from the Big Dig, but this is a far simpler and less costly build out than the Big Dig as the Big Dig already did a good deal of the work for this and there is no crossing under a major waterway to be built. Electrification is a large part of the cost, but electrification is something commuter rail should be pursuing even without the link and the Northeast Corridor running on the Providence / Stoughton line already has built out the vast majority of the electrical infrastructure needed (and is currently so sparingly used)--plus, not all lines will need to be electrified immediately as the other non-electrified lines will operate as is in the near future after the completion of this line but will have a lot more berths opened up for higher frequency now that one of the busiest lines passes right through. Meanwhile, these lines can slowly be electrified and RER/S-Bahn/BART/Washington Metro type service can slowly be rolled out as more lines are electrified and the portals built as more funding becomes available.
What seems odd is the idea that this isn't going to be a particularly useful. For about a half century now, major cities in the developed world have electrified their old commuter rail lines and connected former terminal stations within the urban center to great effect. Even if Boston were unique in only seeing a fraction of the benefits these other cities have seen (and why would that be?), it'd still be a significant improvement over the current system.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 12-26-2016 at 03:21 PM..
But it isn't made obsolete you can't run the frequencies that the lines need and can support especially within route 128 without building both the surface station expansions and the station connection. The issue with the terminals that the expansions solve isn't even primarily the number of tracks it is getting rid of the conflicting moves, but to do that it is only possible with some minor expansion of the number of station tracks. By building both the ability to run 15 minute headways on the lines inside route 128 becomes possible without doing both the North-South Connector and the expansion I think the max is every 30 minutes for each line because of overlapping service. At every 30 minutes with seven mainlines coming in from the south that would mean a train going through the N-S Rail Link every four minutes in each direction which is possible but doesn't allow for fifteen minute headways that are desired on several of the lines.
That's interesting--where did you read that the connector plans won't solve this bottleneck, but the South Station expansion would?
One major disadvantage Boston has in the density department is that it has its airport in the city limits. Both cities also have a lot of parkland though so it might not make a huge difference.
Boston
Land area: 48 square miles (exact 48.4 square miles)
park area: 5,040 acres
airport: 2,384 acres
Land area excluding airport and parks: 36 square miles
Population: 625,087
Density: 17,364 people per square mile
San Francisco
Land area: 47 square miles (exact 46.8 square miles)
Park area: 5,384 acres
airport: 0 acres
Land area excluding airport and parks: 39 square miles
Population: 825,863
Density: 21,176 people per square mile
Clearly San Francisco is more dense but by ignoring the fact that Hyde Park and West Roxbury Boston's two least developed neighborhoods are less developed than Cambridge and are farther away from downtown Boston than most of Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea and parts of Everett distorts the reality of how the region is developed.
Right, I think San Francisco reaches a higher peak density, but Boston has a larger contiguous block of dense neighborhoods whereas many of the Bay Area's dense areas outside of San Francisco are actually on the other side of the bay itself.
That's interesting--where did you read that the connector plans won't solve this bottleneck, but the South Station expansion would?
The connector doesn't even touch the interlocking approaches for the terminal which is the bottleneck and to be able to increase service levels as much as appears will be necessary within the next 50 years based on the increased rate of transit usage in Boston the link even if it has four tracks will not be able to handle the number of trains that would have to be running through because each station can only have four platforms unlike Penn for example which with through running could handle huge numbers of trains because it has many platforms/tracks in the station area unlike what is going to be built/is possible to build for the N-S Rail Link in Boston. The point being not every train will run through plus many of the Amtrak routes will still terminate at the stations and as such the expansions are still necessary to allow for the service density that increased Amtrak and even the reduced surface terminating commuter rail lines would need.
The connector doesn't even touch the interlocking approaches for the terminal which is the bottleneck and to be able to increase service levels as much as appears will be necessary within the next 50 years based on the increased rate of transit usage in Boston the link even if it has four tracks will not be able to handle the number of trains that would have to be running through because each station can only have four platforms unlike Penn for example which with through running could handle huge numbers of trains because it has many platforms/tracks in the station area unlike what is going to be built/is possible to build for the N-S Rail Link in Boston. The point being not every train will run through plus many of the Amtrak routes will still terminate at the stations and as such the expansions are still necessary to allow for the service density that increased Amtrak and even the reduced surface terminating commuter rail lines would need.
Can you point me towards the study though? N-S rail link is going to require some reconfiguration of tracks, that's a given, but I haven't seen anything where the reconfiguration actually won't be able to handle much higher frequencies. The N-S link require the building of portals for these lines into the link instead of the berths and are part of the cost estimates not a totally separate project. The portals for the N-S rail link are before the interlocking bottleneck, aren't they? The plans, as far as I know, are to start the approach to North and South Station almost a mile before they get to either.
I know that not every train will be through-running, and for a partial buildout, the majority of trains will not be through-running, but the N-S link doesn't necessitate the destruction of all the other berths which is why an initial buildout still maintains service on several lines as they are now, but with the possibility of greater frequencies since the lines that do go through the link now run-through with minimal idling which frees up the other non through-running berths for the other lines and thus greater frequencies on those as well. The initial build-out should start from right after Back Bay station on the way to South Station and that's before reaching the interlocking bottleneck. Anyhow, I'd love to see the plans / studies you're referencing where the interlocking is still an issue.
Anyhow, initial buildout:
- The link itself
- Underground South Station and North Station platforms
- Back Bay Portal (save the Old Colony / Dorchester portal for a later date)
- Lowell, Haverhill, Rockport, etc. line portal (save the Fitchburg line portal for a later date)
- Aquarium St station and connection to Blue Line
- Electrification of Providence / Stoughton (basically already done with Northeast Corridor, thankfully also among the busiest lines of MBTA) and at least one if not two North Station lines (electrification for the other lines for later dates)
- EMU traincars as necessary for service for the Providence / Stoughton to Lowell / Haverhill / Rockport (whichever of these is most cost-effective and gives good load-balancing, these over Fitchburg line portal because it goes towards Amtrak's end of connecting Downeaster service with Northeastern services so might get better regional and federal backing and because this portal would serve lines that collectively have a much higher ridership than the Fitchburg line has) that are at least as frequent as service now, but preferably higher such that it starts approaching subway frequencies
Effectively, the existing berths and diesel traincars at surface level are given over to all other lines that do not pass through the tunnels until more funding is available. This way you don't have to do the full build-out costs from the outset, but you still have your through-running line that allows riders on some North Station-bound lines to access South Station, the new Aquarium St station, and Back Bay adjacent employment centers without transferring and crowding subway lines, and give over both diesel traincars and berth / interlocking time on the terminal surface tracks from the through-running lines to all the other lines which can now increase their frequencies. Also, the electrified lines going through the link are now faster because EMUs have much better acceleration (along with generally lower operating costs). I'm curious as to how much this initial, smaller build-out would cost. Has anyone seen this number?
Anyhow, from there on out, other lines become electrified and other portals are built (probably with the path being more electrification for lines that can have access to already-built portals up until those are at capacity, and then create the other portals until all those lines are electrified, and so on) as the need grows and funding permits for higher frequencies and in a way that's a lot more extensible and future-proof than simply building more and more capacity at South Station and North Station terminal slots. By the time you get to electrifying the other lines serving the Back Bay and Lowell / Haverhill / Rockport portals, you'll have reached rapid transit frequencies for stops along the most interlined parts making the system a real S-Bahn / RER
This sort of massive increase in mass transit and linking of densely built commercial and residential centers isn't something that the Bay Area has readily available to it. There is simply no project in San Francisco and its environs that can do something like this because there isn't the kind of pre-existing infrastructure and dense commercial / residential centers to leverage that the Greater Boston area has--and in a lot of ways, the Bay Area is basically Boston's primary competitor so maybe the area should make use of the advantages it has.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 12-26-2016 at 06:21 PM..
Right, I think San Francisco reaches a higher peak density, but Boston has a larger contiguous block of dense neighborhoods whereas many of the Bay Area's dense areas outside of San Francisco are actually on the other side of the bay itself.
San Francisco seems to win every poll on C-D ...
Combo of boosters and many fake accounts
San Francisco seems to win every poll on C-D ...
Combo of boosters and many fake accounts
It wins polls because it's a terrific city. I just visited for the first time since 1989 and it didn't take long to realize that few U.S. cities could beat it in most categories. I would have voted for it here if the poll were still open, and I'm a Boston booster. Not everything is some conspiracy.
San Francisco seems to win every poll on C-D ...
Combo of boosters and many fake accounts
Having a higher peak density in its neighborhoods is a reasonable argument though, especially as the larger contiguous blob of dense neighborhoods in Greater Boston isn't that much bigger. I think you can have a reasonable argument for either actually.
As for other polls--well, SF and the Bay Area is actually very urban and influential compared to a lot of places in the US or Canada and there are a lot of nice things about the Bay Area like the topography, the climate, and the neighborhoods.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 12-26-2016 at 10:55 PM..
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