BOSTON — The board that oversees the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has outlined its vision for the future of the agency’s commuter rail service.
At a Monday meeting, the Fiscal and Management Control Board unanimously approved a series of resolutions supporting a plan to electrify some MBTA commuter lines and offer greatly increased train frequencies. A week earlier, an advisory group studying six options to prepare the MBTA for the future had recommended a proposal to electrify all commuter lines and offer service on 15-minute headways [see “Advisory group recommends ‘transformation’ plan for MBTA,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 30, 2019] but the board did not select that option, or follow any of the six alternatives.
Instead, CommonWealth Magazine reports, it approved a first-phase project that would upgrade the Fairmount and Providence/Stoughton lines, along with at least part of the Newburyport/Rockport lines, with the goal of offering rapid-transit-like service at subway-service prices.
The board’s resolutions called on the state legislature to pass a transportation bond bill proposed by Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, and for the creation of teams to oversee the system’s transformation. But the resolutions are broad rather than specific, more designed to begin the process than outline its specifics, the magazine reports, and final wording on the resolutions that passed may not be determined until today.
Still to be determined, along with the specifics of the project, are its costs and how to pay for it. The Boston Herald reports that Baker said, “There’s a lot of work that has to be done to figure out which pieces and when would be pursued under this.” The Herald said the board directed MBTA general manager Steve Poftak to return by February with a staffing plan to oversee the projects and a timetable for the first two years of work, and told him the MBTA should prioritize $1.5 billion on the Fairmount and Lynn lines.
As a former Boston resident (Brookline), I’ll be simply amazed when the Green Line project is completed. Toronto has the TTC and the streetcar system is excellent. Boston should have never closed the A line (Brighton), or the E Line to Arborway. And I’ll bet Mr. Landey will agree, a rail tunnel should have been part of the big dig project.
Pipe dreams by pie-in-the-sky part-time planners. Average voters outside of Rt 128/I-95 ring road around Boston thinks the T takes way too much public cash already for the services it provides. AND it’s true.
CHISTOPHE _ Peace. My post was tongue in cheek. I love my home state, which I left the year you were born. We were just there in September (my native Boston – Providence suburban zone) and had a great time.
My problem (other than kidding around) isn’t the state. It’s the wacky process of this citizens advisory panel. Citizens advisory panels create far more problems than they solve. (Policy should come from those accountable to the voters – the Governor and the General Court.) MBTA can’t afford electric locos where there already are wires (Boston South Station to PVD Theodore Francis Green State Airport). How can MBTA possibly afford to string new wires for hundreds of miles?
As for the Fairmount Branch, sorry, there’s no money. MBTA can’t afford to do anything about the D-Riverside Branch of the Green Line, built on the cheap when America was broke after the Korean War. Turning the Fairmount Branch into a transit line is a great idea that’s several billion dollars down the list of more needed projects.
I have to agree with comments posted last week on the other forum, about the New York subways. Boston’s are better by far, especially to Red Line.
Charles, I live in Massachusetts now, and like it. The economy and quality of life is far higher than other places I’ve known and visited, such as Florida. In fact, I think over the last 50 years Massachusetts has come a long way and is a far better place now than then. In 1969 (when I was born), there was quite a bit of decay, crime, pollution, corruption and abuse. Now, that’s gone.
Only thing that comes to mind that hasn’t got better is the railroad network. Well, the Acela to Boston is better than anything the New Haven ran. But Penn Central and Conrail destroyed New Haven and the Boston & Maine was destroyed too.
Skip most of the article. Read the first sentence of the last paragraph. Then read the words after the second comma in the third paragraph.
If you still believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy after these reads, I appoint you, regardless of your place of residence, an official Bay Stater.
Or as we heard in school at the end of each official proclamation from the Governor and the Secretary of the Commonwealth, “God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!”.
In my own case, God told me, fifty years ago, to move away, the place couldn’t be saved.
They have no idea of how to pay for it and the governor says no gas tax increase. Next as soon as all the abuttors find out all the trees along the route have to be cut down so they can put in the power lines plus power lines will be running in their back yard the NIMBYS will pour out of the wood work to stop it. It really has a zero chance of happening. Next the North and South station do not have the capacity to handle trains on 15 minute head ways.
I guess this means the end of the North/South Connection. As you know who would say SAD.