Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

UniWheel t1_iy1l45i wrote

Reply to comment by TywinShitsGold in Progress on the Mass Central Rail Trail in Waltham. Ultimately will connect Boston to Northampton by Exit_127

>Could you imagine a high speed train between Boston and Northampton?

No... because it would go to Springfield.

It should most definitely intersect with drastically improved service on the

[NY]-New Haven-Hartford-Springfield-Northampton-Greenfield-Brattleboro-etc

route, but realistically the Boston-Albany track routing that's viable for a train in this millenium goes via Springfield, not Northampton.

Keep in mind there's never been a route west from Northampton other than the little spur to Williamsburg. To get to Albany, after a reverse move south from the bridge to the Northampton station you'd then have to turn head north up to South Deerfield Yard, then go west on the freight trackage through the Hoosac tunnel and then turn south to reach Albany.

31

Nexis4Jersey t1_iy1t23z wrote

I believe Massachusetts is planning to have one train per day up to Quebec via Springfield & Vermonter route in addition to the proposed Amtrak Montrealer restoration. Ideally the state should fund and build the Electric option for the SPG-BOS East-West portion and then split Amtrak Regional with half the departures going via the Shoreline route and half going via the Inland route. The ALB-SPG segment should dump Pittsfield and offer a bus connection at Lee and continue on the I-90 ROW to the Hudson Line and connect into into the Proposed Empire Higher Speed line. I saw there was also 2 separate studies on routing a few intercity style trains along the Fitchberg line continuing onto Greenfield and North Adams and a VDOT proposal that adds another Ethan Allen Service to Boston via North Adams/Springfield.

14

CriticalTransit t1_iy2fovl wrote

Unfortunately the Worcester/Springfield route does nothing for people in the NW part of the region. At this point I would settle for a bus once an hour.

3

UniWheel t1_iy40vz4 wrote

>Unfortunately the Worcester/Springfield route does nothing for people in the NW part of the region.

Because it goes west to Albany by way of Pittsfield rather than North Adams?

> At this point I would settle for a bus once an hour.

It looks like the bus from Albany to Springfield currently runs just three times a week.

Yes, there's a feedback loop there - service so infrequent as to not really be usable means no one even thinks to check if transit is possible for a given trip, which means low ridership and no justification for running the service.

2

CriticalTransit t1_iy5ggfa wrote

The problem with existing service is it requires going through South Station or Back Bay which burns a lot of time. If you live in Somerville, for example.

2

UniWheel t1_iy5gxkm wrote

>The problem with existing service is it requires going through South Station or Back Bay which burns a lot of time. If you live in Somerville, for example.

That's inevitably true of transit routes - they're built where the peak demand is.

We're yet to even get our act together to have one cross state rail service that runs more than at most once a day and that only as part of the Boston split of the water level Chicago service.

Actually building one beats musing about a second.

Note that if you try to drive from Somerville to Northampton you're probably going to take 90 south of the Quabbin rather than route 2 north of it, which is to say, you'll be roughly paralleling the train.

2

SinibusUSG t1_iy3xwww wrote

Nah, Springfield will never fuck with any sort of train again after the monorail debacle.

3

GeeJimmy t1_iy8j1un wrote

But it put Ogdenville, North Haverbrook, and Brockway on the map!

2