MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) discussion

[Brian Battuello]

News to me too. Funny, some transit systems don't seem to mind food and drink at all. Heck, the MTA (the New York City version) sells you a drink as you walk onto the train at Grand Central. OTOH, new residents or visitors to San Francisco are shocked when the BART police write them a ticket for food or drink without so much as a warning.

 

[Tlcooper44]

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/new-t-board-members-set-different-tone/

 

[Fenway]

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/new-t-board-members-set-different-tone/

It's a start - baby steps.

It's going to get worse for a couple of years mainly because of the CRRC debacle.





The Red Line is a ticking time bomb and everyone knows it.

 

[BlackDiamond]

It's interesting that they were discussing funding and the T's debt - the elephant in the room and the root cause of a lot of its problems. I'm wondering if rather than the T staffers, these issues really belong with the Governor and legislature (General Court as they call it in MA) who have the power of the purse.

 

[Tlcooper44]

I was driving through Lincoln MA today and was pleased to discover that preparations for the regional rail plan construction are actually being made.

https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/...Transformation Technology Board Update v2.pdf
By 2024, the Fitchburg Line (among the others) plans to have 30 min short turn frequencies through Lincoln, which is a major improvement. Boston at its fullest potential ought to function more like an S Bahn system. It has all the bones for it.

 

[BlackDiamond]

I was driving through Lincoln MA today and was pleased to discover that preparations for the regional rail plan construction are actually being made.

https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/...Transformation Technology Board Update v2.pdf
By 2024, the Fitchburg Line (among the others) plans to have 30 min short turn frequencies through Lincoln, which is a major improvement. Boston at its fullest potential ought to function more like an S Bahn system. It has all the bones for it.

Looking at that plan, I wonder how they plan to achieve double tracking on the Old Colony. There are a few places such as through Dorchester and Quincy where it will be hard to fit double track, where the original right of way was used by the Red Line extension.

 

[Tlcooper44]

Looking at that plan, I wonder how they plan to achieve double tracking on the Old Colony. There are a few places such as through Dorchester and Quincy where it will be hard to fit double track, where the original right of way was used by the Red Line extension.

I don’t think double tracking is required to achieve rail vision.

The Fitchburg line is still not double tracked near Waltham and I don’t see any immediate (before 2024) plans to do so

 

[BlackDiamond]

The Fitchburg line is still not double tracked near Waltham and I don’t see any immediate (before 2024) plans to do so

That is a very short section and should not limit train frequency even if they added more short turns,
The single track section they had between South Acton and Willows for many years was more of a factor but that has now been double tracked.

 

[MARC Rider]

As far as single tracking goes, when the Baltimore light rail opened in the early 1990s, there were lots of stretches of single track. Even with that, they managed perfectly well running trains with 15-minute headways. Even after the line was mostly double tracked in the mid 2000s, there's still a stretch of single track at the north end, and, for that matter, double tracking didn't result in increased frequency of trains.

 

[Tlcooper44]

That is a very short section and should not limit train frequency even if they added more short turns,
The single track section they had between South Acton and Willows for many years was more of a factor but that has now been double tracked.

The section between South Acton and Willows is not part of the urban rail plan (the freqency past lincoln will remain hourly); the waltham section is.

My point is that the section of single track you're referring to on Old Colony would not be the limiting factor for their urban rail plan.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Another example is in the UK, the line from London to Hastings. When originally built the contractors messed up and several tunnels on the line were narrower than the already small British loafing gauge, They dealt with this by having narrower than usual Diesel Electric MU's the famous "Thumpers". When they decided to electrify the line in the 1980s rather than having bespoke equipment, they instead made the tunnels single track so they could run standard EMU's. This did not impact the fairly frequent schedule run on this line due to the shortness of the signel track segments.

 

[BlackDiamond]

My point is that the section of single track you're referring to on Old Colony would not be the limiting factor for their urban rail plan.

It's just that the plan seemed to imply they were going to double track the Old Colony and I wondered how they were going to do that.
Under "no regrets projects":
• Double Track regional rail studies
• Old Colony hourly service (Quincy 20 min service)

 

[Tlcooper44]

It's just that the plan seemed to imply they were going to double track the Old Colony and I wondered how they were going to do that.
Under "no regrets projects":
• Double Track regional rail studies
• Old Colony hourly service (Quincy 20 min service)

Ah, now I understand what you were referring to. Perhaps the trains they're looking at have a smaller loading gauge. hah

They can easily achieve OC hourly service with what they currently have. Of course, 20 min quincy service would probably max out whats possible with single track. I image this to definitely be possible with EMU/DMUs.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Although "20 minute Quincy service" essentially duplicates part of the Red Line. Seems there are better places to add service that are duplicative of existing rapid transit service.

 

[Tlcooper44]

Although "20 minute Quincy service" essentially duplicates part of the Red Line. Seems there are better places to add service that are duplicative of existing rapid transit service.

Agreed. Perhaps this could be a service redundancy move intended to help with looming Red Line doomsday.

 

[Fenway]

NBC 10 in Boston aired this sobering report last night


https://www.nbcboston.com/investiga...hundreds-of-door-incidents-each-year/3047579/

 

[BlackDiamond]

The statistics on the slow zones and needed trackwork still look bad

https://www.rtands.com/passenger/mbta-lines-plagued-with-track-defects/

 

[Fenway]

The Boston Globe explains slow zones



On March 9, the entire T system was reduced to a top speed of 25 miles per hour after a Red Line inspection by the Department of Public Utilities revealed defects that the MBTA couldn’t account for.

While this systemwide slowdown was lifted the next day, at the time of publication, around a fifth of the total tracks still have speed restrictions in place. Many of the slow zones still in place have speed restrictions of less than 25 miles per hour.

So we wanted to know: just how slow are these slow zones and what’s being done to fix them? Watch the video above to find out.

 

[Fenway]

The Feds are fed up with the T

 

[BlackDiamond]

Not sure I understand why the T is unable to safely work on the tracks when every other transit system in the world seems to be capable of doing that.

 

[Fenway]

A man was killed at North Station after the Celtics game last night

 

[joelkfla]

A man was killed at North Station after the Celtics game last night

Rail rage? Was he watching the game at a bar over a half dozen or so beers?

 

[Fenway]

The never-ending saga chugs along

https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/0...line-cars-to-mbta/?share=ocninoo1acecis0ohocn
https://www.boston.com/news/local-n...turned-in-unfinished-cars/?p1=hp_featurestack

 

[Tlcooper44]

The never-ending saga chugs along

https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/0...line-cars-to-mbta/?share=ocninoo1acecis0ohocn
https://www.boston.com/news/local-n...turned-in-unfinished-cars/?p1=hp_featurestack

I give it at least 2 years before we see consistently better things in the MBTA.

 

[west point]

Who are the pols and others responsible for this fiasco?