Charlie Baker made a rare visit to the SouthCoast Wednesday and unwisely used his time to deride the SouthCoast rail project and mock its supporters in the region for wanting to become ‘a spoke of Boston.’
Remember this is the same Charlie Baker who created the Big Dig financing scheme that sucked all of the money – like a giant vaccuum cleaner – away from projects like SouthCoast rail.
Interestingly when Jack Spillane asks Baker if he was referring to SouthCoast rail with his “mini-Big Digs” comment last week on Fox25 – Baker says 'no', and refuses to budge when pushed.
if Baker was not talking about SouthCoast rail with his “mini Big Digs” reference, which project(s) was he talking about? Hopefully someone will get an answer out of him on this … at some point.
(Full disclosure – I work for Lt. Gov. Tim Murray's Committee. Click on my profile to contact me.)
What’s with Baker’s either economic development or commuter rail? Why not both?
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p>How about setting up a “main street” region near the commuter rail stations, so that there’s a mix of housing, restaurant/commercial and office space, thereby encouraging folks to take the commuter rail to jobs in FR/NB? How about also creating good transportation opportunities into Boston, so that the areas nearby become more desirable, thereby attracting more stable taxpayer homeowner types into the area, stabilizing the local economy and reducing the need for expensive local social services?
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p>And really — worried about a swamp? Wetlands are important, and it’s not that rail has zero local pollution risk, but really? My bet is that the net environmental impact on reducing auto use (and hence runoff, particulates, etc) exceeds the risk that the commuter rail would pose.
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p>It always amazes me how NIMBYs suddenly worry about environmental causes when there’s something they don’t want — but they never see the irony of their living in 5000 square foot houses and driving to work every day while doing it.
The right-of-way through the swamp already exists, and homes have already been built alongside it. The bulk of any negative environmental impact has already happened, and far exceeds anything currently proposed. I’d love to know what, if any, wetlands mitigation efforts were enforced when those homes were built and what the reaction was — was the GOP an advocate of insisting on such mitigation? I somehow doubt it. Funny how one-sided our GOP candidates are when it comes to environmental issues.
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p>The negative environmental impact of rebuilding track on the existing roadbed and running trains on it pales in comparison to the environmental benefits of pulling cars off the local highways, allowing those highways to stay the same or be reduced in size, and reducing the burden those trips place on the local environment of whatever their destination is.
I noticed in the article he kept talking about the South Coast as “down here”. (eg. “I would much rather figure out some way to grow the local economy down here.”) Why not just “here”, Mr. Baker? To give you the benefit of the doubt, I will assume you’re using “down” in the sense of “south”, but even still, why is everything relative to Boston? Why does it seem as though the South Coast some sort of colonial backwater that you need to come “down” to?
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p>That being said, I do agree with the whole issue of priorities. Assuming there are limited resources to promote development of the area, it is good to examine whether $1.4 billion for com rail is the best use of those resources. However, I do not trust Baker, (or any politician, really) to actually deliver in that manner. If they were to cancel the rail project, what percentage of that $1.4 billion do you think the South Coast would actually see? (I would wager the answer is somewhere in the vicinity of 0%.)
no rail = sprawl
I think it’s more like
rail = growth
no rail = depopulation of the South Coast continues
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p>New Bedford and Fall River have been steadily losing population since 1920.
Fall River
1980 92,574
1990 92,703
2000 91,938
2007 90,905
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p>Fall River has lost less than 2% population in the last 2007 (est). That’s steady, not steady decline.
in the Dartmouth/New Bedford area of Southeastern (that’s what we called it, not the trendy, media hip SouthCoast) Massachusetts, so I’m familiar with Fall River and its surroundings. Looking at the pop decline of Fall River since 1980, without also looking at the pop change in the surrounding burbs doesn’t give a complete picture of the pop trend down there. That being said, the whole region has struggled for decades ever since the textile industry moved south to be closer to raw materials and cheap, non-union labor. It’s just so difficult to make a living wage that many people have to leave, which is a shame because it’s such a nice area.
“Southeastern?”
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p>Calling it “South Coast” without context would have me thinking Galveston, not Duxbury. With context, it would have me thinking “You mean the South Shore?” “Southeastern” would have me thinking “What?”
I think you’re searching for something not there with the “down here” phrase. It’s not just south of Boston, it’s south of what, 99% of MA?
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p>As for “priorities”, you’re absolutely right. The question is, what properties are considered in the equation? The environment? Economic justice? Impact on population and it’s distribution? Etc. Furthermore, how much of the $1.4B, how much would be paid by the Commonwealth? The MBTA? The Feds? The number “in a vacuum” isn’t so helpful without understanding who’s paying what.
Only goes “down”. He never goes west, unless he is on a schedule and doesn’t have to stay in one place very long. Re: “kickoff 4”. I can’t wait for him to answer questions in a live format.
To create that economic development, with only mixed success — and not nearly enough effort. Without the proper infrastucture, it’s very difficult to have economic development at all.
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p>It’s not just about building a rail in the hopes that people will get jobs in the Boston and Providence areas and everything will be peachy. Whenever you build rail, a ton of development is created all around that rail — especially if you plan for it. Stomv’s approach is absolutely right — not only could it open up access to jobs outside the region, but it could bring a heckuva lot of jobs into the region, through small businesses and start-ups, especially with all the affordable housing and property in the region.
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p>Once you get some of that development and there’s a modern-day infrastructure in the entire region, it could provide the kind of basis for things to snowball. It’s clear that something has to be done in the region that’s different than before — just laying down pretty bricks in the downtown area isn’t going to bring it back… you’ve got to build the kind of infrastructure that can bring people there and vice versa.
Baker lacks discipline. That interview had a ton of choice lines to pounce on.
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p>Like I love the connection he makes to the federal deficit as a reason not to support the project. Make that more like a poor excuse. I mean basically he’s saying nothing in Massachusetts can happen until that get’s resolved, which will take decades. Doesn’t sound like the type of governor who will advocate for our state.
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p>He wants to clean up brownfield sites but leave the South Coast region disconnected from the region’s main center of economic activity – i.e. Boston and its suburbs.
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p>Baker is a classic case of someone who has an opinion about everything, and because he’s smart, thinks he can debate them all – instead of doing what he should do – stay on message. Scott Brown could teach him a few things about message discipline.
Building the SouthCoast rail line will cost $1.4 billion. BILLION. For a rail line that will never come close to turning a profit, or generating the type of economic activity needed to recoup the money spent.
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p>Where is the money to build this going to come from? That’s not a fiscal conservative being snotty, that’s a real and legitimate question. The MBTA is broke. Even a healthy fare hike will not completely fix that problem.
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p>It’s like someone receiving fuel stamps placing a 1,500 square-foot addition on their home. How can they afford to build it, let alone maintain it?
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p>I don’t work for any candidate. But Charlie Baker is the first person in 15 years to be honest with these people about the future of this project.
What’s the profit of I495? I95? I195? 24? 3?
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p>What would be the cost of expanding them to keep up with the growth in vehicle miles traveled? What is the cost of that added pollution, dependence on foreign oil, asthma rates, etc?
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p>This is not at all clear.
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p>This is indeed a good question — two actually: cost to build and cost to maintain/operate. Common federal shares for rail project construction include 50, 80, and 100 percent, depending on the project. The state budget is $27B (roughly) and this project (local share $0-$0.7B) would be paid over the course of what, 20 years? That makes the cost something like $70M per year over the 20 years to build, if we got only 50% cost sharing.
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p>$70M isn’t chump change. But, in 2007 Massholes consumed 3 billion gallons of gasoline. A one-cent per gallon tax would generate $30M per year. So, assuming the worst case cost sharing, a 2.5 cent tax (for 20 years) would pay for the entire project. I’m not arguing that’s how the project should be paid for, but simply arguing that the project isn’t that expensive when placed in the context of the size of the region, the lifetime of the infrastructure, and it’s importance to economic, environmental, and social sustainability.
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p>And really. The MBTA took on $4B in debt thanks to the Big Dig. Three times the cost of the South Shore rail project. As far as I’m concerned, motorists owe the MBTA $4B. $1.4B is 35% of their debt.
The project to widen 21 miles of Route 3 from 128 to the NH border was budgeted to cost $385 million. I couldn’t quickly find the actual cost. Note that the road is about as congested today as it was before it was widened. That is what usually happens: increasing pavement encourages more automobile use.
It’s nice going north, but southbound… all it does is dump a boatload of cars onto 128. Instead of adding two lanes of congestion onto 128, now you have three. Southbound, it’s clogged from 3 to Winter Street in Waltham every single morning.
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p>A Red Line terminal and park & ride at the end of Route 3 in Burlington is needed to make this work… or even better, run the Red Line up the median to Lowell.
Like, the “T”? Methinks Burlington is commuter rail distance, not subway distance. Thing is, they’re off-spoke… Burlingtonians need to go east a bit to Anderson/Woburn or Mishawum.
There was a proposal some years back to extend the Red Line to Lexington. The NIMBY Army mobilized, and the extension did not happen. The arguments used were eerily reminiscent of those used a century earlier, when the farmers of Lexington resisted a proposed streetcar line from Boston to the Bedford border. They feared that the Irish and Italian city-dwellers would ride out to the amusement park at the end of the line and come back with their families to stay. When the streetcar line and amusement park were built, the farmers were proved correct. The 1990s opponents of the Red Line extension were less blatant in their bigotry, but the subtext was there. “Undesirable elements” would ride the subway to the end and ruin the town. The NIMBY Army was, of course successful, where the farmers were not.
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p>The same NIMBY Army had earlier managed to stop Rte 3 at 128. As you can see in this aerial photo, the highway was going to slice through the eastern edge of Lexington and on into Arlington. (North is at the top of the photo.)
The widening of Route 3 is a classic example of why projects like this don’t work.
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p>I lived in Billerica and then Dunstable from 1979 through 1998. At various times in that period, I commuted that highway every day.
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p>Here’s what the bigshots missed. Route 3, before the expansion, was a parking lot from the state line to Rt. 128 every day. It was a parking lot southbound during morning drive time. It was a parking lot northbound during evening drive time. Every day.
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p>The highway was saturated, and yet there were many many more commuters who still had to get from the northlands to the real world every morning and come back every night. What did we do? We learned all the backroads, all the “alternate routes”, we counted stop lights and stop signs. Like most divided highways in New England, there are older roads that existed before the “big” road was built. Alongside Rt 3, there’s “Lowell Road”. There’s Rt. 3a. There’s Rt 4. There are little bitsy roads that nobody but locals and commuters know about. Beyond that, there were also commuters who van-pooled, who telecommuted, and even a few who took the sparsely-operated commuter trains from Lowell.
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p>So what happened when the multi-million dollar upgrade was finished? ALL that traffic that used to be on the side roads started using the extra lane (there is, after all, just one new lane when all is said and done). The new-improved route 3 clogged just like the old one. The jams at the exits moved around a little bit. The old Drum Hill rotary had a slightly different pattern from the new one, but I suspect it’s still quicker get off Rt. 3 south at that exit, cut through the neighborhoods, and join 495 south an exit or two west/south of Rt 3 than to slog through the southbound jam.
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p>But it doesn’t stop there. The new capacity caused even more commuters to give up on the commuter rail. The promise of even a tiny improvement was enough to pull more folks out of vanpools and carpools.
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p>The result? The new improved road is just as clogged as the old one, but now it’s three lanes of fume-belching single-occupant SUVs and pickup trucks instead of two. The congestion at the entrances and exits is worse now, because there’s 50% more vehicles using them (because the saturated 3-lane highway now moves 50% more vehicles than old saturated 2-lane highway). Route 3 is, in essence, and perfect (zero resistance) source of traffic congestion for local roads, and now it delivers 50% vehicles to those local roads. Towns like Chelmsford, Tyngsboro, Westford, Dunstable, Burlington and Billerica did not expand the capacity of their alternate routes.
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p>So the traffic problem in the corrider was made WORSE, not better, by “improving” Route 3.
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p>Anybody who has been suckered into buying a bug-zapper for their backyard has witnessed the same phenomena. The bugzapper kills lots of bugs with a satisfying “zzzZZZAP”. The trouble is, the black lights attract far more bugs into its vicinity than it kills. If you’re trying to sit outside and enjoy a balmy summer evening, you end up with way more mosquito bites after the zapper than before.
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p>We invested hundreds of millions of dollars and pessimized an already bad situation.
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p>Way to go, team democracy.
Well done – let’s raise the gas tax $1.00 and make $3BB in new “revenue” for more boondoggles…
“revenue” is in quotations.
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p>Unless you have a different definition of revenue that I do…
I will never vote for Baker, but I admire him for saying this.
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p>New Bedford is approximately 60 miles from Boston as the crow flies (and Fall River is over 50). By way of comparison, Worcester is 40 miles and Providence is 45.
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p>Bring up an MBTA timetable and Google Maps. You will see that commuter rail trains, with amazing consistency, average approximately 30 mph for pretty much any trip.
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p>To paraphrase Brian Schweitzer, you don’t need a $2 calculator to figure out that this is just way, way too far of a trip to serve as a legitimate “commuter rail” option.
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p>And please don’t tell me about how these trains will be so much faster. 1) any of the SCR plans will be added onto the end of existing branches of the system — there aren’t going to be dedicated SCR tracks until you get way outside downtown; and 2) all of the proposals include new stops along way before the terminus.
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p>This doesn’t mean I don’t hate the Easton NIMBYs and it doesn’t mean I think we should keep wasting money on highway projects. But looking at our transit options, I just have to believe there are other projects that would get more bang for the buck in terms of transportation efficiency, alleviating traffic, opening up housing options, etc.
It’s a but under 60 miles if you drive via the highways, but it’s more like 50 miles straight line distance. The current Providence service takes about an hour and ten minutes, sometimes a bit shorter. Even if the train takes an hour 20, it would still be an improvement over rush hour driving. (By the way, my co-worker who lives in New Bedford drives to Stoughton and takes the com rail from there.)
You can get the number a little under 60 if you play with the route. But not to 50, no way. Plus, the train routes proposed aren’t perfectly straight lines either. IIRC, one of the potential routes for this thing goes through Attleboro, which would make the trip more like 70-75 miles.
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p>Your friend is a warrior. And I would like to make his life easier. But I dont think there will ever be enough people like him to rationalize spending this money.
How many of the people who live in New Bedford also work in New Bedford?
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p>What is the net flux of car trips through a circle drawn around New Bedford any weekday morning, where do those cars go, and what does it cost all of us to get them there? I’m guessing that you’ll need more than a $2 calculator to figure that out.
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p>How many of those trips end up in Boston? Do you think a Boston commuter averages better than 30 mph on that inbound drive-time ride? What time do you think the average New Bedford auto commuter leaves home in order to arrive on-time at a 9:00a meeting at 1 State Street?
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p>I’m receptive to an argument that there should perhaps be a way to get to Providence by rail from New Bedford. I suspect that’s an issue for the Rhode Island government to handle, though, or perhaps the feds.
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p>Regarding the MBTA timetable and Google Maps, I do that quite a lot. I think there are several more immediate insights that jump out way ahead of yours:
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p>1. NO “Commuter” rail is going to move very many commuters with one or two departures per morning or evening, and with more than about 30m between departures, even during the day.
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p>2. The MBTA timetables are determined by equipment and crew availability. Timetable speeds (posted times divided by geographic distance) are influenced by all kinds of things. On many of the South Station routes, building a dedicated track for commuter trains — so that they don’t compete with commercial freight and passenger — would be enormously effective (and cost effective) at increasing service. Again, I think you’ll need more than a $2 calculator to work out the improvement in timetable speed, but I’m guessing it will be significant.
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p>I think we must come back to the root question: what are New Bedford residents doing right now, and is that sustainable?
They aren’t driving to Boston every day, that’s what they are doing right now.
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p>I’m sure very few people average 30mph in a car coming into the city every day. That’s why the train works for people who live within 15 or so miles from downtown. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I am willing to bet you a beer that a huge percentage of riders are within 15 miles, even on tracks that extend out further
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p>I think Portsmouth, NH is a beautiful place. And it would be really cool to live there and commute to my job in downtown Boston. But it’s just not feasible, either via road or rail.
Portsmouth is another great example where a modest ($35M) commuter rail investment can revitalize an entire region. That’s why such a project is under consideration.
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p>It isn’t feasible by car. It most certainly can be by rail.
The other upshot of that is that the more commuters or others who are using the Downeaster line, the more support there will be for projects which improve it’s tracks so that it runs faster.
Heh. I used to do the commute into Boston from Somersworth. Drove to Wellington and took the orange line in. There are a couple of people in my office that still do that commute (from Newmarket). Truth is, when looking at the wage rate possibilities that were more local, the gig in Boston looked like they wanted to throw money at me. I wound up doing that commute for 6 or 8 months before I wound up moving closer. My colleagues that still do it have been doing it for years. Of course they also make really big bucks compared to me.
It would seem that as many people might commute there as do to Boston, but I honestly have no idea. Rhode Island doesn’t really have a commuter rail system though, so there would be nothing else to link into.
other than having our state capitol in Boston, our whole focus was toward Providence. The radio we listened to was often out of there, and the TV we watched (in the pre cable era) was 1 New Bedford station and 2 Providence stations. I worked for a Providence based company. We did, and they probably still do, feel pretty much ignored by the Boston power center.
One of the poorest regions in the state, the train would do wonders for the entire region. It wouldn’t just link them to Boston, either, it would also link up with the much-closer Providence. The train would create jobs and an influx of people interested in making their home in the greater region. It’s well past time this state ensure that it’s not just Greater Boston which enjoys the economic prosperity — Governor Patrick has been doing his part to make sure that happens; the Republicans for 16 years before him… including Charley Baker… have done almost nothing for that region, except ignore it.
That big terminal in downtown Lowell has certainly helped the Mill CIty’s fortunes. Walk from the lofts to the rail terminal, easy ride to North Station.
there isn’t enough space to park there, and you certainly can’t drive to it from anywhere.
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p>On the other hand, those lofts truly are spectacular homes in a city that is very nearly livable. I love Lowell, and really hope it regains critical mass to get back on the trajectory it had during the (Paul) Tsongas years.
I know some people who drive into Cambridge who would take the com rail if the parking lots did not fill up by 6 in the morning. It’s not reasonable to expect all suburbanites to walk, bike or take what little public transportation is available to the rail stations. Building parking garages or large lots, while expensive, genuinely increases ridership.
But those lots ought not be free as the suburbanites clamor for, and the zoning around the train stations ought to be changed to allow for multistory mixed use, thereby allowing some people to move into the area and not drive to the commuter rail they’re riding every day. Of course, that’s in addition to making sure that the area around the train station has good sidewalks, safe crossings, street trees, and the like.
I’ve never had a problem parking in the Gallagher Terminal garage and its easily accessible both from the Lowell Connector and downtown.
I’ve never seen the garage completely full. It’s not hard to get there, even from the north.
Like many commuters, my parking rates doubled last year.
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p>From $2 to $4 to park in Woburn and take a 25 minute ride into North Station.
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p>For me, the calculus is a real game changer. I can park one block from my office for $225 a month. That is roughly the same as my parking pass ($70) plus the T-Pass ($151), but my commute time, (I leave early) goes from 1 hour 25 minutes each way to 45 minutes each way.
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p>I like the train – I’d like it more if there was a dependable way to get from North Station to South Station (where I work.
Tolls? Gas? Wear and tear? Inability to read the paper/a book/some work report? It’s a different calculus for each person, and I don’t understand much of it — I’d much rather just live nearby where I work. Easier said than done in many cases, of course.