Boston Transportation Thread

[TowerDude]

Is there any serious talk about re-activating the North-South Rail Link project? I think it should be much much higher on Amtrak and New England states priorities. I could see inviting New Hampshire and Maine to pitch in some of the money to finance the tunnel in exchange for enhanced train services, like running some Northeast Regional trains all the way to Concord and Portland.
Meanwhile you could extend the Downeaster all the way to Bangor and/or Augusta.

[Busy Bee]

To be completely honest I'm not sure the single-seat benefits of a link would outweigh the extreme cost. I see Boston as the logical northern terminal of the majority of east coast travel and I'm not convinced the lack of Boston through running is really THE impediment to better north-of-Boston service. A better invesment would be bread and butter investments between Boston and Maine like track speed increases and an exploration of electrification.

[TowerDude]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

To be completely honest I'm not sure the single-seat benefits of a link would outweigh the extreme cost. I see Boston as the logical northern terminal of the majority of east coast travel and I'm not convinced the lack of Boston through running is really THE impediment to better north-of-Boston service. A better invesment would be bread and butter investments between Boston and Maine like track speed increases and an exploration of electrification.

Boston to Montreal via Concord, White River Junction and Burlington would be a worthwhile route to study too. Being able to have every other train for that service (or the Downeaster for that matter) originate at either Boston South or Boston North would allow for a lot more frequency of service northwards than what happens now.

Also the benefits for local commuters in terms of flexibility of residence would also be a massive game changer in and of itself ... connecting Boston North and South would open up vast new work-home commute options in the region.

Southern NH would benefit enormously from having those two stations connected. And Maine seems to be fairly bullish on train expansion so to be able to have more direct connections to the rest of the Amtrak network with the connector would seem to be good for Maine residents and visitors too.

You could also maybe even have some DownEaster trains go down as far as Providence too.

[Busy Bee]

The benefits to MBTA commuter rail would obviously be a conversation worth having, but again I think the amount of passengers passing through downtown Boston wouldn't be enough to justify it's extreme cost. Plus a transit connection in the form of Green Line trolley/Orange Line/Red Line already connects them, even if it is less than ideal.

[Busy Bee]

https://www.mbta.com/news/2024-10-30...ity-hall-plaza

Unfortunately these "trolleys of the future" will look virtually nothing like the sexy Euro trams like we were teased with. Yet another example of the persistently bizarre lack of prioritizing good design in US transit vehicles.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

https://www.mbta.com/news/2024-10-30...ity-hall-plaza

Unfortunately these "trolleys of the future" will look virtually nothing like the sexy Euro trams like we were teased with. Yet another example of the persistently bizarre lack of prioritizing good design in US transit vehicles.

I am going to disagree. These CAF trains are as modern functionally you can get. Look at all the advance features in the trains, and in their cabs. Although some artists drawings made 7 years ago, yes as early as 2017, had more streamline cab fronts, these are certainly more streamlined than what the trains they will be replacing.
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/10...-arriving-2027

[Nouvellecosse]

Not sure if you two actually disagree or not. BB seems to be saying that the new trams don't look good while EL seems to be saying that it doesn't matter if they don't look good since they'll be well engineered and therefore aesthetics don't matter. So EL doesn't seem to be disagreeing with the claim that they don't look good; and only on whether or not that matters. But I guess there are some people who whom aesthetics just aren't important. They just don't care what things look like.

I think it's true that function is the most important but it's also true that aesthetics do matter to a lot of people and affect public perception. So how much it matters I don't know. But the design in the link definitely isn't what I'd call attractive.

[TowerDude]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

https://www.mbta.com/news/2024-10-30...ity-hall-plaza

Unfortunately these "trolleys of the future" will look virtually nothing like the sexy Euro trams like we were teased with. Yet another example of the persistently bizarre lack of prioritizing good design in US transit vehicles.

The world needs fewer Value Engineers.