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People need to understand that high speed rail is different than commuter rail. It is for long distance travel from one large city to another. That’s how trains can build up and maintain high speeds. They can’t do that when they have to stop at stations every five to ten miles. Technically, we could build high speed rail from Boston to New York and then to Philadelphia and Washington DC. Adding stops between just slows the trains down and defeats the purpose of it. Jay
Right, which is part of why having Acela, and to a lesser degree, the Northeastern Regional Amtrak routes run on the CT shoreline tracks with commuter rail suboptimal. A separate, HSR track going from NYC to Boston via inland parts of CT would make a lot more sense and would also free up a substantial amount of capacity for commuter rail service, especially express services on the existing shoreline tracks. If done well, then the new set of rails in inland CT can also have services that have local stops where the HSR rails are quad-tracked for express trains to pass by. I would think a reasonable express / limited HSR route would be, with express in bold: New York City
White Plains
Danbury
Waterbury Hartford
Storrs Providence Boston
Right, which is part of why having Acela, and to a lesser degree, the Northeastern Regional Amtrak routes run on the CT shoreline tracks with commuter rail suboptimal. A separate, HSR track going from NYC to Boston via inland parts of CT would make a lot more sense and would also free up a substantial amount of capacity for commuter rail service, especially express services. If done well, then the new set of rails in inland CT can also have services that have local stops where the HSR rails are quad-tracked for express trains to pass by.
I think it depends though on the ridership. Hugging the coast isn't a good idea with climate change. When Bloomberg requested a report about this much of it was censored by the feds https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...rak-sea-level/
So technically a inland route is obviously going to make sense but are you going to get the ridership? If you are in Mystic are you going to drive to New haven to go to NYC? This is also why the rail between Springfield and Worcester is being improved. After that's done you can go from Worcester to NYC without having to go east. Long story short in Mass CSX owns the rail between the cities but they want to buy out Pan am rail. As a concession the state wants access to this line.
Going from boston to worcester, to springfield to hartford to new haven to bridgeport to NYC is pretty simple after this is done. Going inland say Boston to Providence to Storrs to hartford is going to take *much* longer with laying new track. I'm in Stafford and I hear the trains but there's no station. I wouldn't mind having a rail stop in the area but this is an area with fewer roads and if closed for a long period of time is going to get some pushback. The area is also a significant truck route between hartford, springfield and worcester (I91/I84, mass pike). Overall I think people will welcome the development but it has to be open, transparent and allow comments.
Transit planning is extreamly complicated. If you take the inland route in Mass you get Worcester and Springfield and don't have to deal with RI. Inland would get Providence and Storrs (both have hartford).
I think it depends though on the ridership. Hugging the coast isn't a good idea with climate change. When Bloomberg requested a report about this much of it was censored by the feds https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...rak-sea-level/
So technically a inland route is obviously going to make sense but are you going to get the ridership? If you are in Mystic are you going to drive to New haven to go to NYC? This is also why the rail between Springfield and Worcester is being improved. After that's done you can go from Worcester to NYC without having to go east. Long story short in Mass CSX owns the rail between the cities but they want to buy out Pan am rail. As a concession the state wants access to this line.
Going from boston to worcester, to springfield to hartford to new haven to bridgeport to NYC is pretty simple after this is done. Going inland say Boston to Providence to Storrs to hartford is going to take *much* longer with laying new track. I'm in Stafford and I hear the trains but there's no station. I wouldn't mind having a rail stop in the area but this is an area with fewer roads and if closed for a long period of time is going to get some pushback. The area is also a significant truck route between hartford, springfield and worcester (I91/I84, mass pike). Overall I think people will welcome the development but it has to be open, transparent and allow comments.
Transit planning is extreamly complicated. If you take the inland route in Mass you get Worcester and Springfield and don't have to deal with RI. Inland would get Providence and Storrs (both have hartford).
Hugging the coast is also a bad idea in CT because it winds quite a bit so speeds get lower in order to take the turns and total track length between two point get longer. It works pretty okay for shorter lengths though since the trains don't pick up as much speed since they need to stop and start pretty often which is why I think it's better to be dedicated mostly to commuter rail. It makes almost no sense for Acela or HSR-like service, but it's the tracks we have now so that's where the NYC-Boston route runs.
I can see an argument for an inland route that follows from Western Mass as an alternative, but what you're outlining just hugs the shore again from New Haven onwards which is the busiest segment and this would help fairly little for either HSR or commuter rail in CT.
Right, which is part of why having Acela, and to a lesser degree, the Northeastern Regional Amtrak routes run on the CT shoreline tracks with commuter rail suboptimal. A separate, HSR track going from NYC to Boston via inland parts of CT would make a lot more sense and would also free up a substantial amount of capacity for commuter rail service, especially express services on the existing shoreline tracks. If done well, then the new set of rails in inland CT can also have services that have local stops where the HSR rails are quad-tracked for express trains to pass by. I would think a reasonable express / limited HSR route would be, with express in bold: New York City
White Plains
Danbury
Waterbury Hartford
Storrs Providence Boston
To be honest, true high speed rail would skip Providence completely and maybe even Hartford. Providence is too close to Boston and is not on a direct line between Boston and New York. It’s unlikely that Connecticut would approve a high speed rail line through it without a stop so that is why Hartford has a decent shot at being a stop. Jay
W/O reducing stops, the half hour increase/ride will mainly stick. I will assume Lamont gets 2/3rd the 10 minutes desired, that still leaves an extra 25 minutes/ride, which is 230 days (assumes 6 weeks not riding, holidays, vacation, pto) * 50 minutes/day or 192 hours lost vs the 2012 commute.
8 extra days of life spent on Metro North every year.
A disproportionate amount spent dropping 2 people off at too many stations too many times per day.
Pre covid, Milford had 7 or 8 trains STOP by 7 a.m. (I had forgotten the 3 earliest ones.) That is far too many. Most, even in Milford, did not feature busloads boarding. It could be handled , if not by 1, by 2 trains/hour just as it was before we started adding stations every 2 miles. We have emulated the worst traits of NJ rail doing that. (I lived in Somerville NJ 2 years and we could see our train coming, stopped at the prior station under 3 miles away. That is silly.)
We have too many stations on the New Haven line, getting full service, instead of logically less premium service in terms of number of trains, in many stations.
MTA needs to study quantity getting on and off, and cut quantity of trains, using 80/20 rule, to stations in bottom 20% of people coming and going. And keep doing new 80/20s until they recapture those extra 192 hours of annual ride time lost since 2012.
MTA has no say on the service on the New Haven Line. They are just a service provider through their Metro North Railroad division. The NHL service is owned by the Connecticut Department of Transportation. CTDOT contracts with Metro North to provide the train service. CTDOT decides what stations are where and the number of trains that run. CTDOT owns the track between New Haven and New York.
CTDOT realized a long time ago that they had a problem getting riders to their existing stations. They know bus service to their stations does not work to attract riders and only parking at stations does that. They did a comprehensive study of their stations for parking and accessibility. The study found the need to add 1,200 parking spaces in Fairfield and 1,000 spaces in New Haven. They got a lot of opposition to both.
In Fairfield adding those spaces would have building a massive parking garage at Fairfield Station that would been the tallest building in town. It would have literally hovered over the Center’s mostly two or three story structures. That is when Fairfield Metro Center was proposed and approved in conjunction with a mixed use redevelopment of the former Bullard Company foundry on the east side of town.
CTDOT also received strong opposition from the City of New Haven for adding 1,000 spaces to the existing garage there. The city has been working hard to rebuild the area surrounding a Union Station and improving walkability between the station and downtown. The addition to the garage would have meant a long stretch of blank parking garage along Union Avenue which is not very hospitable to pedestrians. To placate the city and to address political pressure from the Town of West Haven (West Haven and a small section of Orange are the only towns on the New Haven Line between New Haven and New York that did not have a Station),the state built West Haven Station.
Both Fairfield Metro and West Haven have the best ability to expand parking along the line so they aren’t going to reduce service. If anything, they will increase service at these stations. Jay
To be honest, true high speed rail would skip Providence completely and maybe even Hartford. Providence is too close to Boston and is not on a direct line between Boston and New York. It’s unlikely that Connecticut would approve a high speed rail line through it without a stop so that is why Hartford has a decent shot at being a stop. Jay
That's true. I remember reading a proposal for a stop in RI as Woonsocket instead and only as part of the local service (so quad-tracked at this point and allowing express trains to overtake locals).
Both Fairfield Metro and West Haven have the best ability to expand parking along the line so they aren’t going to reduce service. If anything, they will increase service at these stations. Jay
which means we will likely end up with service New Haven-GCT 45 minutes or more longer than we had in 2012. It will just take 2 or 3 extra stops to get this "progress".
That is why I know of no actual people who ride the New Haven line who would rate it favorably, or not be dismissive of Lamont's reduce the run time by ten minutes plan.
192 extra hours/year more time on train now vs 2012, for those riding daily, then and now. 8 days/year lost from time with their families, or to simply relax.
It will be interesting to see what post covid MTA weekday ridership plateaus at. It is still barely bumping 100k, vs 300k pre covid, and on the MTA ridership stat grouping, the NH line trails all others in unfavorable ridership variance to same week, pre covid.
Train Departs
NEW HAVEN Notes Arrives
GRAND CENTRAL Notes Travel Time
In Minutes Transfer(s) Fares
3503 4:00 AM 6:09 AM 129 THROUGH TRAIN OFF-PEAK
6503 4:38 AM 6:48 AM 130 THROUGH TRAIN OFF-PEAK
3505 5:14 AM 7:19 AM 125 THROUGH TRAIN OFF-PEAK
3595 5:31 AM 7:23 AM 112 THROUGH TRAIN OFF-PEAK
6505 5:38 AM 7:50 AM 132 THROUGH TRAIN OFF-PEAK
3507 6:02 AM 7:57 AM 115 THROUGH TRAIN OFF-PEAK
3509 6:20 AM 8:19 AM 119 THROUGH TRAIN OFF-PEAK
3511 6:29 AM 8:22 AM 113 THROUGH TRAIN OFF-PEAK
6509 6:40 AM 8:50 AM 130 THROUGH TRAIN OFF-PEAK
6511 7:18 AM 9:20 AM 122 THROUGH TRAIN OFF-PEAK
For those not needing peak, I suggest Amtrak. As short as 93 minutes New Haven-Penn and as cheap as $16 coach fare, which is lower than Metro North's $17.75.
Bridges and tunnels, btw, measured on MTA ridership site, are within a single digit % of pre covid now.
Perhaps people are opting to drive instead of use the New Haven line.
That’s true but MTA bus, subway and train service is still WAY down overall, -20% to -63%. I’m sure a lot of that relates to high numbers of people working from home. That from what I’m seeing is coming to an end for some with workers being called back into the office starting after July 4th to after Labor Day. We should see these numbers go down. The big question is how much? No one knows. I doubt the numbers will fully go back to the pre-Covid numbers. Will see. Jay
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This is also why the rail between Springfield and Worcester is being improved. After that's done you can go from Worcester to NYC without having to go east. Long story short in Mass CSX owns the rail between the cities but they want to buy out Pan am rail. As a concession the state wants access to this line.
