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Left hand, meet right hand: MBTA warns commuter rail could quickly collapse if MassDOT demolishes Charles River bridge for its Allston turnpike project

Streetsblog Mass reports the MBTA is warning commuter-rail could come to a screeching halt "within weeks" if its parent agency, MassDOT, goes ahead with its plans to tear down the Grand Junction rail bridge under the BU Bridge as part of its plans to completely rebuild the turnpike where the Allston tolls used to be.

That's because the bridge is the only way to get locos from South Station lines to the T's main commuter-rail repair facility in Somerville - short of detouring them all the way to Worcester for the long haul over another set of tracks. Amtrak's also joined in the complaining, because the bridge is similarly the most direct route for its Downeaster trains to get to its repair facilities near South Station.

So what about that North/South Rail Link, huh?

Earlier:

The time one state authority sued another over Boston Harbor issues.

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Comments

The Worcester airport is nothing but a Massport pork barrel, sucking millions from the budget.
It would also be cool to see the C5-A fly out of Logan once a week.

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should do a reunion tour to raise money for MassDOT.

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was staring us in the face this whole time.

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MBTA service would cease within weeks, due to an inability to conduct required maintenance.

Let's take a trip all the way back to 2012. At that time, the Grand Junction bridge was closed with very little notice because of deterioration and trains were forced to make the 108 mile loop out to Ayer, down to Worcester, and back into Boston. This went on for two months of temporary repairs, then it was closed down again in the spring for three more months. So while there are definitely operational complexities, Commuter Rail service would not cease to exist; the T would have to spend additional money and time moving the trains around. (There was another several-week closure in 2018 for construction on the Talbot Street outfall in Cambridge under the Grand Junction.)

Additionally, the trip via Ayer and Worcester has gotten faster since CSX has bought out Pan Am and made upgrades to the Worcester Secondary the trains run along. This has increased the track speed for the 25-mile trip from 10 mph to 25 mph (theoretically passenger equipment could go faster, but likely would not) cutting down the trip time from about three hours to closer to one. On the other hand, there is increased freight service on the line, but Amtrak and MBTA equipment moves could be scheduled to take advantage of slots in front of or behind through freight trains. Given that, equipment moves would take about 4 hours to go "around the horn": an hour out to Worcester, and hour up to Ayer and an hour into Boston, plus additional time spent switching and waiting for track clearance. The marginal additional time is about 3 hours, since the trip across Cambridge isn't exactly fast (10 mph, plus a full stop at each grade crossing, plus switching).

So, no, rail service would not cease, but the T would have to spend more time and money moving trains around than it does over the Grand Junction. I'd estimate that between CSX trackage fees and crew time it would be somewhere on the order of $5 million per year. The question then becomes, how much would closing the Grand Junction for some period save from the overall cost of the Allston project? There might be a lot of things which become easier if you don't have to worry about threading through and around an active (if infrequently-used) rail line. If closing the Grand Junction for four years ($20 million) saves $100 million in project costs, that seems like a pretty easy analysis (especially if you can then leverage that time to rebuild the Grand Junction so that it can reopen with passenger service from the Worcester Line to Kendall Square, reducing traffic demand crossing the river).

This is the same sort of calculation the T made with the shutdowns of the rapid transit lines for major work. We could get spend $100 million getting this done piecemeal on weekends over the next 5 years, or we could get it done for $50 million all at once given economies of scale, and spend $20 million on buses. There is some temporary pain, but the project gets done faster and costs less. Seems like an easy call.

We can even look over at highways for this. Did shutting down the Sumner Tunnel for weeks on end (and weekends) suck somewhat bigly? Yes. Was it better than doing piecemeal closures over years that would cost way more in the long run? Probably, yes, as well.

It's all cost-benefit analyses which MassDOT and the T seems to be able to do for some projects (Sumner, rapid transit) but not others. They should. And if they do, an additional suggestion would be to cost/benefit the following:

Take the viaduct down all at once, rather than working around the Worcester Line, the Grand Junction, and a bunch of temporary structure to keep some traffic flowing at all times. Do it like the Sumner. Route three lanes of the Turnpike onto Soldiers Field Road and the Paul Dudley White bike path, killing off Soldiers Field Road, on the Saturday before July 4 (since Storrow is closed for much of the next week anyway). BU is out of session, their dorms nearby are closed. Build a temporary station for the Worcester Line in the rail yard, with buses providing service to Back Bay and South Station and a walking connection to the B Line (potentially even a spur down Malvern Street from Packard's Corner, which could be useful in the long run). The buses could use bus lanes to access bypass backups.

Then start hacking away at the viaduct 24/7. Use the rail tracks for gondola cars to haul away the debris (they're already using the yard nearby for construction materials). Have a team of bulldozers and jackhammers and welders cutting and torching the viaduct apart. I'd guess that by late July, the viaduct would be gone, the Worcester Line rebuilt, a new Grand Junction bridge in place and the Turnpike back in business.

Would that month be an utter, epic shitshow? Oh, yeah. But if it saved $500 million getting it all done at once and getting it done years faster, it would probably be well worth the shit.

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...why are we talking about building a 12-lane highway in 2024? have we learned nothing?

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That section of I-90 carries about 145 thousand trips per day while the SFR carries another 75 thousand.

The Green line carries about 100 thousand per day for comparison.

That may be why people who are west of Boston are really keen on keeping all 12.

It is also primary evacuation route and a major truck route in and out of Boston.

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For the last two years (maybe longer) one lane in each direction has been closed from Kenmore to Back Bay due to the new building construction. There has been no crippling traffic.

To say 12 lanes are needed is proven wrong without a doubt. 6-8 lanes at most are needed East of the Allston exit.

It is a massive mistake to rebuild the road as wide as it was before the construction started years ago.

For F's sake, at least use the extra space for more mass transit lines. If the Green Line can move 100k people in the same space as two traffic lanes, why do they need 12 lanes to move less than double that amount in cars?

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Yup, gotta make sure suburban motorists are catered to over the needs of transit commuters and residents of Allston-Brighton.

Couldn't we just remove Storrow Drive from the plan? I mean if you're getting 12 lanes on I-90, whats the need for Storrow?

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I'm against building so many lanes, but it's useful to understand what is actually proposed, which is an 8 lane Pike + 4 lane river road (Soldiers' Field Drive in this case).

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That may be why people who are west of Boston are really keen on keeping all 12.

This is Classic Massachusetts politics and politicians at its best.

The Eastern MA vs Western MA battle!

Oh dear *clutches pearls* someone from the berkshires might have to sit in traffic or re-route around the horrible crime ridden streets of Boston /s

So politicians roll over.

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There are nearly as many people on the Worcester Line as there are on the Turnpike.

Maybe a bit less now, since while ridership is up to pre-pandemic levels (or close) it's more spread out, but in 2018 there were about 4500 passengers on the trains arriving between 8:10 and 9:06, during which time the Turnpike can manage about 6000 (but, if it's congested, often carries less).

A full Commuter Rail train carries nearly as many people as a lane of traffic carries in an hour.

During most of the day (and, since Turnpike traffic is still down a few percent from pre-pandemic, nearly all the time now) the Turnpike "needs" only three lanes inbound. The fourth lane only carries "overflow" for about 45 to 75 minutes per day. Instead of building a fourth lane for a few hundred cars a day, we could improve transit service to cater to this demand, save money on the entire project, and not just inject more cars into the rest of the city and transportation system.

(Outbound never has enough demand to fill more than three lanes since when there would be enough demand—PM rush hour—there's so much upstream congestion in the Tip, Ted, 93 and Back Bay that the bottlenecks there meter traffic out such that it never really exceeds three lanes of capacity. The only time there is a backup is when the Newton Corner exit backs up past Allston. And even that isn't volume, but the bottleneck where the outbound onramp tries to merge onto the mainline roadway. Originally the outbound ramps there were designed for no more than 500 vehicles per hour; today they're trying to push 1500 onto the roadway. Traffic isn't just too many cars (demand) but also roadway bottlenecks which we have no hope of solving (supply) so … why are we trying to rebuild what doesn't work?)

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"A full Commuter Rail train carries nearly as many people as a lane of traffic carries in an hour."

If not, you are just stuck somewhere you don't wanna be.

I live 1/4 miles from a CR station but rarely use it. It really doesn't go most places I want or need to be.

Example:Framingham to BID/Milton is less than an hour by car, by CR/Transit it's a joke.

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That's sad. The train should be the primary route. With the sparse schedule, there's no way it could carry as many people as the Pike even if every seat was full.

And if all 6000 cars had 5 people, or were replaced by 6000 full buses...

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I generally like your suggestion, but

Build a temporary station for the Worcester Line in the rail yard, with buses providing service to Back Bay and South Station

Would this actually work? Amtrak needs to be able to get north-side trains to South Station for maintenance, and if the Grand Junction isn't available, they have to use the Worcester line all the way in to South Station because of course trains can't ride shuttle buses. Is there a third option for them that doesn't involve Connecticut?

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A lot of great ideas in this post.

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I don't see it as fear mongering, just laying out the risks.

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/2024-rail-and-transit-working-group

Little discussed is the $400+ million unbudgeted costs to build new maintenance facilities. This is on top of the $1.5+ billion of state funds already committed.

NSRL is looking better all the time.

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n/t

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Word added.

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It's such a an ugly bridge and stuff. And it's bad for the environment. And people in expensive condos or hotel rooms don't want to see ugly things when looking out their window. Not to mention the legions of bougie and upper class college students, most female, who want to see pretty things not ugly old bridges.

I mean yeah, I dunno....

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most female

....what? Are female students more likely to object to visible bridges than anybody else? Your weird 19th-century gender stereotype needs a Citation, Please.

Also, just letting you know that randomly mentioning gender in your post revealed something about you and completely undermined the sarcastic point you were otherwise successfully making.

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Sexist comment is sexist.

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While they have the tracks closed they can use that time to make caissons, or footing for the columns to support the to be (properly) widened Dudley White sidewalk and bike path, because I don’t imagine we can cantilever with what we have now.

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As long as the train doesn't collapse while they are removing the bridge. If any of the decision makers of the MBTA and MassDOT have a college degrees, then it is a perfect example of a waste of education.

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So much is wrong with this project.

Like, it's going to remove the Pike entrance/exit directly from Soldiers Field Road, and instead make all the cars sit at multiple traffic lights in the new neighborhood. I get that we shouldn't be bulldozing cities for motorist convenience. But this project was supposed to knit the city back together, and instead it's going to funnel traffic that's currently on the edge of the parcel right through the middle, perpetually subjecting the new neighborhood to an endless stream of stop and go traffic.

Also, the price tag. What better things could be done with that money if they found a cheaper alternative?

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The bridge that connects Boston to Cambridge is only one of three bridges in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane. The other two bridges are the Steel Bridge across the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, and the 25 de Abril Bridge in Lisbon, Portugal,

This is like tearing down the Bunker Hill Monument! /s

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