[M II A II R II K]

This Tiny Boston Tunnel Is the Missing Piece to Finally Connect the Entire East Coast

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nat...outh-rail-link

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- If you look at the 457 miles of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) rail lines, you’d see what looks like uninterrupted service up and down the East Coast. The Acela Express line runs from Boston down through New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C., while the Downeaster line connects Boston to northern reaches of New England, through New Hampshire and up to Portland and Brunswick, Maine. But zoom in on Boston, over the North Station and South Station, and you’ll find a tiny hole -- just 1.5 miles -- where the two lines don’t meet in the middle, splintering East Coast transit, snarling commutes on Boston’s T subway system, and fracturing regional rail lines. For decades now, proponents of what’s known as the North-South Rail Link have been fighting to connect the stations with an underground tunnel that would run underneath downtown Boston, and simultaneously fix commutes while unifying the entire east coast rail corridor.

- People who live on the North Side don’t really have access to the large job market in South Boston. Let’s say you have a job opening on the South Shore right now, you basically just can’t take that job, because no one is gonna do a two-hour, three-hour drive to work. But if you could get there by 40 minutes, on a clean, fast, modern, European-style train, then absolutely. It doubles or triples the job opportunities and the housing opportunities for everybody in Boston.--- A fully linked-up regional rail system would make the Massachusetts housing market more affordable because it would improve access to housing in places where it’s is cheaper. It would connect all the T system lines except the Blue. --- To understand the fear of the North-South Rail Link, we have to talk about the Big Dig, a colossal undertaking to reroute the Boston’s main highway into a tunnel. --- But while the North-South Rail Link is indeed another big underground project, it is a less complicated project that doesn’t carry the same risks or potential for cost overages, especially with advances in tunneling technology.

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