Category: Regional Rail
Troll Rail Projects
In lieu of a real post, I want to discuss a few possible rail projects that are not completely thought-out. By this I mean rail projects that probably have critical constructibility and cost problems, but not obvious ones. They lie somewhere between true trolling – say, transcontinental HSR from New York to Los Angeles – and projects that are difficult and not yet proposed but need to be seriously considered, such as new train tunnels to Lower Manhattan or a Geary subway.
The projects are roughly ordered from most serious to most frivolous. The projects for the Northeast may well be feasible and should be at least considered, and the first was probably originally not done due to agency turf issues. The rolling stock projects are the most speculative – they suggest things to be done by competent rolling stock manufacturers that probably would’ve done them already if they could. The non-Northeastern infrastructure projects are somewhere in between. Make of this what you will. Just, please, do not use any of this as the basis for any alternative proposal, and do not link with a description like “Why have transit agencies not thought of this?” unless you know what you’re doing.
Northeast
ARC-North: the proposals for cross-Hudson tunnels that connect to Penn Station, including ARC Alt G and now Amtrak’s Gateway, would have the new tunnels connecting to the south of the main intercity through-tracks: ARC goes to the southern tracks, currently used by New Jersey, and Amtrak eventually wants to add tracks to the south. I propose that when they eventually build such a project, they build the new tunnels to the north, connecting to the existing northern pair of East River Tunnels; a connection to Grand Central could then be built from one of the two East River tunnel pairs, the one not used by intercity trains.
Right now, the northernmost tracks have the most access points and the southernmost tracks the fewest. The system would take advantage of the reduction in demand to Penn Station after East Side Access opens. In case the present-day North River Tunnel diameter is too narrow to allow for higher speeds, the new tunnel could then be used (also) by intercity trains at 200 km/h while letting commuter trains go to Grand Central without reducing capacity there.
Northeast Corridor to Market East, on the cheap: a short connection between North Philadelphia and North Broad, similar to that proposed for the Chestnut Hill West Line but used for the Northeast Corridor instead, would let intercity trains serve Market East or Suburban Station, in addition to 30th Street Station. Trains continuing down to Washington would probably not want to use such a connection, as it would slow them down because of the sharp turn in the SEPTA tunnel, but trains continuing on the Keystone Corridor would emerge from 30th Street oriented the right way. Right now trains to the Keystone Corridor have to either reverse direction (as they do today) or use a connection that skips 30th Street Station (as the fastest New York-Chicago trains did in the Broadway Limited era). It could be useful for local HSR trains if there ever were HSR from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.
Philadelphia Bypass: also on the subject of HSR from New York to the Keystone Corridor, if express trains skip Philadelphia, it would be useful to build a bypass roughly along existing freight routes and I-276, starting at Trenton and ending somewhere between King of Prussia and Exton. The cost may not justify this in terms of cost per minute saved on New York-Pittsburgh (and New York-Cleveland, and New York-Chicago).
Providence Downcity Station: using the East Side Rail Tunnel, trains could continue west to Downcity, and then connect to the legacy tracks by hopping over I-95 in Federal Hill. For commuter trains, an underground station at Thayer Street is necessary. This is a pick-your-poison project in terms of takings: there are tradeoffs between curve radius, i.e. noise, and takings, and also between both and centrality. One option would be a curved station over City Hall Park, which would become the new Kennedy Plaza, and then what is now Kennedy Plaza would be landscaped and turned into the new City Hall Park. Another would go straight west, cutting through Citizens Plaza, and have a station elevated over Memorial Boulevard.
To troll even further, trains could use abandoned trackage starting from East Providence and then go to Fall River (reconstructing more abandoned trackage) and Newport (building new tracks through Bristol and over the Mount Hope Bridge).
Old Erie Line Revival: New Jersey Transit’s Main Line trains do not use the Erie Main Line south of Paterson, which is abandoned, but instead go along the Lackawanna’s old Boonton Branch. The right-of-way for the original Erie line is still intact, and serves the center of Passaic better. It might be useful to rebuild the tracks, which would require viaducts, and realign the Main Line. Service on all lines would probably require too many outlets – not even a dedicated tunnel to Lower Manhattan, combined, could be used for all lines serving that part of North Jersey, so some would have to be severed and turned over to light rail (maybe the Northern Branch) or the subway. The old Erie line is actually the best candidate for being part of a subway extension, since it serves dense communities and has a natural terminus at Paterson, where it would probably have to go underground.
Steinway Tunnel Widening: the Steinway Tunnel was widened from trolley loading gauge to IRT loading gauge when what is now the 7 was built. Since the rest of the 7 is built to the wider BMT/IND loading gauge, widening the tunnel is a useful capacity reliever to spend money on. It’s probably supremely expensive – I’m sure the MTA has studied it in the past; it’s also far from the most crowded Queens-Manhattan crossing point. But the cost may compare favorably with other means of providing extra capacity, and it may also be beneficial to let some Flushing Line trains serve Broadway and some Astoria Line trains serve 42nd Street.
West Coast
Subway to Burbank: Los Angeles’s Red Line does not go straight north along Vermont to Burbank, but swerves west to swerve more of Hollywood and serves Universal City and North Hollywood on the Valley side of the mountains. Since Downtown Burbank is a major secondary employment center, soon to be served by HSR, why not extend the city’s transit system in that direction? The Orange Line there should be a no-brainer, but more speculatively, the MTA could find money (another ballot measure, maybe?) and program another a subway branch off the Red Line that serves Burbank, with excessive splitting prevented by a new Vermont subway, or even (to troll further) an entirely new line that follows Western south of the mountains.
San Jose – Almaden Street Station: San Jose has a medium-sized CBD, roughly comparable to Providence or Burbank, but Diridon Station is separated from it by a freeway. Since there’s already a plan to spend large amounts of money of turning it into a multi-level train station, which the local technical activists have dubbed Diridon Intergalactic (or Pangalactic), why not also move the station? Trains could go on an alignment like this, elevated over Almaden, on a viaduct dedicated to Caltrain and HSR so that only four tracks would be needed. It would also bypass the current reverse curve between Tamien and Diridon, obviating the need for an iconic bridge. In a realistic, cost-conscious blended plan this is too expensive, but they should at least compare the cost with both a blended plan and the proposed full-fat business plan before rejecting it.
San Francisco – Embarcadero Station: with Transbay Terminal facing every planning and constructibility problem known to humanity, and the current terminal at 4th and King too far from the CBD, why not extend the trains under King Street and then the Embarcadero and build a station near the Ferry Building? Building this close to water is a nightmare, and the curve from King to the Embarcadero may be too sharp, but at least this connects to BART directly and has no station length constraints. On the third hand, the Embarcadero is wide but possibly not wide enough for three platforms and six tracks.
Rolling Stock
Tilting HSR: tilting HSR trains are either relatively low-speed (the Pendolino is limited to 250 km/h, with a few derivatives capable of a bit more) or relatively low-tilt (Talgos are capable of 180 mm of cant deficiency, and the latest Shinkansen trains have active suspension allowing up to about the same for the E5 Series. However, trains capable of 250 mm cant deficiency and 360 km/h are feasible; this is the main subject of Martin Lindahl’s thesis, which I (and others) have been quoting as a ready source of HSR track standards around the world. That said, probably the only place in the world that needs such trains is the Northeast Corridor, due to its unique combination of long straight stretches, on which very high speeds are possible or could be with minor infrastructure upgrades, and long curvy stretches, on which even major upgrades could not bring up to full HSR standards.
Catenary-free HSR: there’s new technology for catenary-free light rail, which is intended for use in historic city centers with aesthetic opposition to trolleywire. The contactless power supply is buried under the tracks, with each segment activated only when a train is completely above it. Although the technology is still low-speed, it could be useful for HSR. Pantographs generate disproportionate noise at high speeds, and Japan specifically has been squeezing every possible decibel out of low-noise pantographs. Being able to eliminate the pantograph would carry this to its logical conclusion. On the margins, it would also permit narrower rights-of-way, since no space for catenary poles would be needed.
Washington Union Station
Amtrak’s announcement that it needs $7 billion to improve Union Station, in a way that is tangential to train or passenger capacity, has gotten some deserved flak already on other blogs. What I want to discuss instead is a pair of issues relating to capacity: passenger circulation, and track capacity. Especially on the latter, Union Station does have some problems, not at current traffic, but enough that future traffic increases may require difficult at-grade merges. The core of the problem is that the terminal tracks are located to the west of the through-tracks, with an at-grade junction, rather than between them.
Fortunately, the passenger circulation capacity issue is easier. Although Amtrak claims 100,000 passengers use the station every day, in reality the number is beefed up with Metro riders, similarly to Penn Station’s 600,000 daily passengers statistic, of which nearly half is subway ridership. Total ridership on MARC and VRE is 53,000 per weekday, and Amtrak has a total of 13,000 boardings and alightings per day there (not per weekday, but intercity traffic does not have the weekday peak of commuter traffic). This is 66,000 boardings and alightings, assuming every MARC and VRE trip begins or ends at Union Station. In contrast, on just two tracks with ordinary subway platforms, Metro has 34,000 boardings at the station; page 13 of Amtrak’s announcement shows the relative scale of Metro and mainline infrastructure. The mainline half of the station’s ridership is passengers who are likelier to be carrying luggage or not be local, but the main difference between it and the Metro half is that the Metro half is using Metro turf and the mainline half is using the station above which Amtrak’s headquarters is located.
If there is a problem, it comes from Amtrak’s practice of corralling riders at waiting points, instead of letting them filter onto the platforms or the stations whenever they like, as is done every day on trains in France and Germany, or on the less busy stations of the Northeast Corridor. Stephen Smith tells me that unlike in New York or Boston, where the waiting areas are at least adjacent to the platform and the problem is one of having just one access point (or just one official access point in New York), in Washington there is another antechamber between the passengers and the train. An extra 100 meters of walking adds about a minute of travel time in a congested space, and perhaps 45 seconds in a clear one; Amtrak’s current practice adds multiple minutes to door-to-door travel time, and also forces pedestrian congestion once it clears passengers to access the platform.
Adding access points is also a good thing, but that does not cost $7 billion, and does not require redoing the entire main concourse. But possibly the most important thing to do in the near term is making all platforms high, also nowhere near a $7 billion project; the diagrams on Amtrak’s announcement suggest all terminal tracks and most through-tracks will be high-platform, but one through-platform will remain low.
Now, track capacity is where things get more interesting, because potentially there is a problem, coming from terminal layout. A not very clear, but public, diagram can be found here: look for Washington Union Terminal, and within it, Interlockings C (the outer station throat and a nearby yard), K (the inner throat and the actual tracks), and A (the connection from the through-tracks to First Street Tunnel). Note that terminating tracks 7-20 are to the west of through-tracks 22-29, and the junction is at grade, which represents a problem for easy cookie-cutter planning.
The operationally simplest but most expensive to deal with this is to build a grade separation. If it’s anything like Harold, expect a $300 million price tag. At present and expected levels of traffic, this is overkill.
I claim that if MARC and VRE trains continue to terminate at Union Station, no special work is needed: Brunswick and Camden Line traffic can be segregated on tracks 7-9 (and the turnaround capacity, easily about 12 tph for 3 tracks, is more than those lines will need between them), VRE traffic can be segregated on tracks 24-25, and Penn Line traffic can use the same tracks as the terminating intercity trains.
The only at-grade conflict would be between northbound trains originating at Washington, and southbound ones continuing through to Virginia, and even high possible traffic levels (say, 12 tph terminating including the Penn Line sprawled across 11 tracks of which 3 already have long platforms and arguably 3 more can be lengthened, 2 tph through across 4 tracks) can be scheduled in a similar manner to all-terminating stations, treating the through-trains as terminating trains that have to use specific tracks and have no limit on dwell time.
Specifically, because Penn Line (or local HSR) trains would leave immediately after express HSR trains to reduce the number of required overtakes, at worst we’d have trains originating at :00 and :02, repeating every 10 minutes, and then there’s an 8-minute window within which to schedule southbound through-trains.
So instead let us assume commuter trains run through, in which case we may as well assume they have good reliability so that they can be scheduled with 2-minute headways. Current peak traffic is 3 tph Brunswick, 2 tph Camden, 3 tph Penn, and lower combined traffic on the Virginia side. Assume that peak traffic will grow to 3 tph Brunswick and Camden and 6 tph combined Penn and through-HSR; in fact the most potential for growth is off-peak, and because multiple platforms are very long, long trains may be used if there are capacity problems.
We now have 6 tph terminating HSR, 6 tph through-traffic on the Penn Line (including HSR), and 6 tph through-commuter traffic on the Camden and Brunswick Lines; Camden and Brunswick are physically to the west of the Northeast Corridor, and so in addition to conflicts between terminating and through trains, we have conflicts between through-Camden/Brunswick and southbound through-Penn/HSR.
In this situation, we can have southbound terminating HSR and through-Penn/HSR trains clearing the throat at :00 and :02 again. Northbound terminating HSR trains have to depart 2 minutes after the arrival of southbound through-Penn/HSR trains, e.g. :04, and then northbound through-Camden/Brunswick trains can depart between :06 and :08; northbound through-Penn/HSR trains are always to the east of everything else and so do not conflict with anything.
Because southbound through-Camden/Brunswick trains conflict with terminating trains, they can be scheduled at the same time as northbound through-trains of some kind, which constrains the symmetry axis we choose but is otherwise workable. For example, if Camden/Brunswick trains both depart and arrive at :07 then with the terminating trains arriving :00 and departing :04, we have a symmetry axis ending in a 2 or a 7 (and through-Penn/HSR trains would arrive and depart at :02). But then the terminating trains also arrive just before the through-Penn/HSR trains and depart just after, implying they are slower or else there would be an overtake just north of the station. We can instead switch the trains – and then terminating trains arrive and depart :02, and through-Penn/HSR arrive southbound :00 and depart northbound :04. Note that there is no conflict between northbound terminating trains and southbound through-trains.
So it is possible to do this without extra infrastructure beside longer and level-boarding platforms, which are cheap. Let us finish by seeing what extra trains can be scheduled into the above 18 tph schedule. Scheduling 6 tph of terminating trains is easy: trains arriving :04 and departing :00, the opposite of the terminating HSR trains discussed above, will be adequately separated. The problem then is just the need to overtake the :02 through-trains along the tracks; however, at such a level of demand, 18 tph combined HSR and commuter on the Northeast Corridor, full four-tracking there would be necessary anyway.
But no extra through-traffic can be realistically scheduled into the same timetable, because the southbound :04 trains would conflict with the northbound :04 terminating trains. Changing the schedule so that it’s the terminating trains that arrive and depart at the same time is, however, possible: since we’re four-tracking the entire Baltimore-Washington line at this stage, we can have terminating trains arrive and depart :02, Camden/Brunswick trains do the same :07, and through-Penn/HSR trains arrive and depart :00 and :04. That said, this means it’s impossible to schedule more than 6 terminating tph into Union Station; I believe it’ll be easier to fill all those extra intercity trains into Washington than fill 18 tph going from Washington toward Virginia, both intercity and commuter.
Of course, the traffic levels discussed here are all very high, especially for HSR. An HSR system that fills even 6 tph is one that can pay for future capacity increases out of operating profits. The importance should be getting a starter system with reasonable capacity for the next few years and then build capacity projects as required, with immediate construction done only on the most critical segments or those that would be hard to reconstruct with more future traffic.
So we’re back to the question of what needs to be done with Union Station, and the answer is hardly anything. It’s not even Moynihan Station, which is also sold as a bigger transportation benefit than it is, but is at least billed as a grand station to be named after a politician more than anything (and is only about $1.5 billion). It’s even worse than Gateway and the Market East station, which would have positive transportation value, and are just very cost-ineffective. It’s not solving any problem for the foreseeable future; it’s just using big numbers about current traffic and growth to scare people into thinking more capacity is needed, and mostly it’s using small increases in track capacity to justify throwing billions of dollars on beautifying Amtrak’s headquarters.
Northeast Corridor: Dealing With Capacity
To build high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor cheaply, intercity trains will have to share tracks with regional trains at several locations, which between them comprise a majority of the corridor. At most of these, commuter traffic is heavy enough that it must be accommodated in some way; only in a minority is it so insignificant that Amtrak can feasibly kick trains out if need be. So far I’ve only explained how track-sharing can be done between Boston and Providence and between New York and New Rochelle, both far from the busiest segments of the corridor.
I’d like to start tackling the more difficult segments, New York-Trenton and New Rochelle-Stamford. Thankfully, they are almost fully four-tracked; the one exception is the North River Tunnels and the immediate approaches, where there is little speed difference between intercity and regional trains. Unfortunately, even four tracks are not enough to provide full separation between services that do not run at the same speed, because those corridors are busy enough to warrant both local and express commuter service. This requires some scheduling creativity. In both cases, what is required is having express commuter trains weave between the local tracks and the intercity tracks.
As before, my explicit assumptions are that the rolling stock is optimized, and that speed limits except those coming from right-of-way geometry have already been eliminated. However, since unlike the MBTA, Metro-North runs good rolling stock, and New Jersey Transit runs passable rolling stock, we can’t realistically expect either to buy the most powerful regional trains on the market; that said, New Jersey Transit is looking into new trains, and we will assume those trains will be in line with the high-performance but heavy Silverliner Vs. What we can expect is better on-time performance and less schedule padding. The amount of commuter traffic is assumed to be similar to or slightly higher than today; the outer ends of both lines can be expected to lose traffic from commuter to intercity trains, but the rest will not.
Complicating all this is the requirement of making all the trains cohere into one line. In other words, unlike the situation for Boston-Providence, Newark-Trenton can’t stand on its own; the trains need to depart Newark with suitable gaps to allow trains to come in from the Kearny Connection. Likewise, New Rochelle-New Haven needs to feed into New Rochelle-New York in such a way that trains can share tracks on that segment. The most difficult portion is then combining the two commuter halves of the Northeast Corridor together to allow through-running, without holding commuter trains for too long at Penn Station. One possibility is to expand the entire route between the tunnels and Newark to a long overtake segment, and have all commuter trains stop at Secaucus to further slow them down and permit intercity trains that arrived at New York second to arrive at Newark first.
Newark-Trenton
Current peak traffic on New Jersey Transit’s Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast lines is 13 trains per hour. Of those, only 2 make local stops from Rahway north, and both are North Jersey Coast trains. An additional 2 trains are express North Jersey Coast trains, leaving us with 9 trains at Metropark (3 stopping from New Brunswick, 3 more stopping from Jersey Avenue, 3 super-express from Trenton).
The introduction of high-speed trains would change the distribution of demand dramatically. From Trenton, HSR would be far faster. Even from Princeton Junction, it would be substantially faster to take a commuter train south to Trenton and connect to HSR to New York. For passengers desiring a one-seat ride, trains could continue to run, but make more stops along the way. We may suppose that no commuter train will skip any stop from Metropark south, and that an additional 2 trains that currently run express to New Brunswick or Jersey Avenue will run local, providing the Rahway-Newark segment with a peak local traffic of 4 tph.
The desired ideal is that all commuter trains will stay away from the inner two tracks, with brief forays when absolutely necessary. The above rule regarding local runs ensures no overtakes among the commuter trains take place south of Rahway. We are then left with the task of ensuring all overtakes north of Rahway make use of the two existing six-track segments, around Newark Airport, and from just south of the Elizabeth curve to Union Interlocking between the mainline and the North Jersey Coast Line, the latter segment including Linden and Rahway.
Because the southern six-track segment persists through the interlocking, it provides a fully separated route between local coast trains and express mainline trains, and also between local mainline trains and express coast trains southbound. Slightly modifying the interlocking to allow a separated northbound path between local mainline and express coast trains that does not use the inner two tracks may be required.
Now, a Silverliner V running at 160 km/h appears to lose about 90 seconds to a high-platform stop. For the record, a FLIRT would lose 75 seconds. Since there are five local stops north of the interlocking, we have to deal with 7.5 minutes. With 2-minute headways, this means local trains can depart Newark 9.5 technical minutes ahead of express trains on the same branch (mainline or coast), and 6.5 ahead of express trains on the opposite branch. Since 11/9.5 = 1.16 and a 16% pad is excessive, 11 scheduled minutes of separation are enough, and we obtain the following option for departure times out of Newark:
Express :00
Express :02
Express :04
Local :06
Express :15
Express :17
…
Each local must serve a different branch from the express immediately following, since 9 < 9.5. The express afterward – for example the :17 express after the :06 local – is separated by 11 minutes, and so can run on any branch. This allows 16 tph, of which 4 are local, and at least 4 have to run on the New Jersey Coast Line. Of course not every slot has to have a train scheduled in it.
Adding local frequency at the expense of express frequency is possible, but requires tightening the gap between a local train and the express that follows it, unless we allow inconveniences such as serving the local stations at highly irregular intervals. For example, 10-minute local headways allow trains to depart Newark at,
Express :00
Local :02
Express :10
Local :12
…
The 8-minute difference means each express must serve a different destination from the preceding local, and this underserves the mainline at only 6 tph. We can add stops to the express trains (or saddle them with inferior, locomotive-hauled rolling stock), but two stops are required, unless New Jersey Transit makes sure to get cutting-edge trains, which is unlikely; with FLIRTs, the time difference shrinks from 7.5 minutes to 6.25 and only one stop is required. In either case, we might as well squeeze an :x8 express, also serving a different destination from the local ahead of it.
Another option is to use the Linden-Rahway segment for overtakes. Trains lose 3 minutes there. If we add an infill stop, they lose 4.5, which is very close to the 4 minutes required to switch the order of two trains. This means express trains need to approach Linden 2-2.5 minutes behind the locals, and thus leave Newark 7 minutes behind. We obtain,
Local :00
Express :07
Express :09 (different destination from the :00 local)
…
(12-minute clockface pattern)
Since 12-minute schedules are generally awkward and my New York-New Rochelle proposal uses 10- (below) or 15-minute schedules (in the original link), we should add a Newark Airport or Elizabeth stop to the express trains, and then they leave Newark about 5-5.5 minutes behind the locals, and we can have a 7.5-minute pattern, which divides 15 evenly. Alternatively, we can add the stop and then have a 10-minute pattern again. We either get 6 local and 12 express slots with each express serving a different destination from the local behind it, or 8 local and 8 express slots, and there is no restriction on destination:
Local :00
Express :05
Express :07
Local :10
Express :15
Express :17
…
or
Local :00
Express :05
Local :07
Express :13
Local :15
Express :20
…
Note that nowhere here does HSR share tracks with anything except maybe in the Newark Penn Station throat, under any of the options. Thus, any discussion of HSR speed zones is irrelevant, except perhaps at the final stage when some tweaks to the basic schedule are under consideration.
New Rochelle-Stamford
Like Newark-Trenton, this is a four-track segment. However, commuter traffic here is heavier, and there are no six-track segments. Instead, overtakes between express commuter trains and intercity trains must be done on bypass segments. The one that we will consider is, as I outlined before, a route from just south of Rye to between Greenwich and Cos Cob, following the I-95 right-of-way.
No HSR on the New Haven Line should be considered with New Rochelle as it is. The flat junction and S-curve together severely constrain train speed and capacity. Since the junction has to be grade-separated, and some takings are required, we might as well assume the separation allows trains to proceed without crossing opposing traffic no matter where they go. Furthermore, the station should be six-tracked if necessary.
We will also assume the curve has been partially eased, to a radius of 700 meters with appropriate superelevation spirals, permitting our example 375-mm-equivalent-cant trains 150 km/h. We will also assume that Harrison has been partially eased to 1,500 meters, permitting 220; that the curve toward the bypass around Rye is 1,500 meters, which may be slightly too optimistic but not by more than a few seconds of travel time; and that the curves farther north until the Stamford approach are 2,000, permitting 250. The approach to Stamford consists of two curves forming a wide S, the western one at 1,000 (180 km/h) and the eastern one at 800 (160). Note that these upgrades allow express commuter trains to travel at 160 on the shared segments – indeed, they require it to avoid or at least limit cant excess. Local trains have more limited cant because of the needs of freight.
We will assume the number of trains is about the same, with capacity boosted with longer trains; where New Jersey Transit runs 12-car trains because of limited capacity across the Hudson, Metro-North tends to run 8-car trains. Unlike in New Jersey’s case, there’s little point then in programming more slots for trains.
Let us now consider Easy Mode, with all Metro-North trains using the existing route to Grand Central. We have two track-sharing segments, one between New Rochelle and Rye, and one between Greenwich and Stamford. The first segment is 12 km long and has 3 stations with 2 more at the ends; the second is 8 km long and has 3 stations as well, with just 1 more at one end.
On the first segment, there are 18 Metro-North tph peak today: 12 not stopping at all, 2 stopping only at Harrison, and 4 local. Now if the express trains share tracks with HSR rather than the locals, we will want to schedule trains HSR-express-express repeating every 10 minutes, or HSR-express-express-express repeating every 15; the former allows more versatile HSR slots (local and express), and the 15-minute assumption of New York-New Rochelle has no relevance in Easy Mode.
Current scheduled time between Rye and New Rochelle is 17 minutes for local trains; judging by both rolling stock capability and the local-express schedule difference, nonstop trains take about 10 minutes, and trains stopping at Rye but not New Rochelle take 12. Sped up to 160 km/h, with 7% schedule padding, nonstop trains would take about 6 minutes. HSR would take 3:35, again padded 7%. This means that, with 2-minute headways in both directions (fast-ahead-of-slow, and slow-ahead-of-fast), and 6-minute express commuter trains, we can have (northbound times from New Rochelle, HSR passing and commuter trains passing or stopping):
HSR :00
Express :02
Express :04
HSR :10
…
This is because by Rye, the :10 HSR is still 3.5 minutes behind the :04 express Metro-North train.
Alternatively, it’s possible but very tight to have an express-express-local schedule, assuming commuter trains are not sped up but the stop penalty is reduced to 80 seconds (so, 4 minutes for 3 stops), which is feasible at the speeds of the line:
Express :00
Express :02
Local :04
Express :10
…
This requires express trains to weave effortlessly to tracks 2 and 5 of a 6-track New Rochelle station, or to stop at New Rochelle.
A mixed schedule, with half the express trains sharing track with HSR and half with the local trains, is also feasible, but is essentially like drinking half coffee and half tea: while the 8-minute local-express gap on the local tracks is fine as it is, the gap on the HSR tracks requires speeding up the express trains anyway.
Note that if the all express trains share tracks with HSR, it is trivial to add local service, or to replace express trains with locals.
The other segment is easier, because it is shorter and lower-traffic, with only 13 tph (3 local, the rest express). HSR would take 2:24 with pad; express commuter trains take 7 today and could take 3:24 with a speed-up. The speed-up would be very significant here as this is a slow segment today, with the movable Cos Cob Bridge restricting speeds. The present speed difference is already almost small enough to allow HSR-express-express, as above; we need to cut another 36 seconds from the express travel time, which we can do with improved reliability reducing padding (the pad I’ve observed between Stamford and Grand Central is 10 minutes). Local-express-express would be 7 vs. 12 minutes, and if locals could consistently take just 11 minutes, as some already do, or if expresses could easily weave to the express tracks just north of Greenwich after HSR trains diverge to the bypass, then it would be feasible.
To finish Easy Mode, let us reconcile the two segments, which after all are populated by the same trains. If we have HSR-express-express on both segments and use the bypass as an overtake, we need to ensure that a commuter train that was 2 minutes ahead of HSR before is now 4 minutes behind after: 4, and not 2, because each HSR train overtakes 2 express trains. Losing 6 minutes is difficult, as the current local travel time between Greenwich and Rye is just 7 minutes. But with approaches this is a bit more than 8 minutes, and HSR would do the segment in 2:08, padded. This has the only drawback of awkwardly making express trains make stops at Greenwich (understandable given traffic), Port Chester, and Rye.
As an alternative, we can also do local-express-express on one segment and HSR-express-express on the other. Since the HSR-express-express schedule is tighter on the southern segment, the southern segment should have local-express-express. This only requires us to avoid having trains run a mixture of local and express too much: as two of the Greenwich-Stamford locals run express south of Greenwich and three of the Harrison-New Rochelle locals only run as far north as Harrison, we can simply combine those to create more locals going all the way from Stamford to Grand Central.
Now, let us move on to Hard Mode, which includes New Rochelle-New York. A consistent 15-minute schedule does not look possible to me on New Rochelle-Stamford without reducing peak commuter traffic to 16 tph, for example by lengthening trains and platforms. If that were done, 8 tph local on the local tracks with 4 turning at or south of Greenwich, and 8 tph express in HSR-express-express pattern on the southern shared segment, would be feasible.
So let us consider 10-minute schedules. HSR and express trains run at almost the same speed, since there are few areas south of New Rochelle on which even 200 km/h is at all feasible. The difference between HSR and express 145 km/h M8s (stopping at New Rochelle and Sunnyside), as already investigated in my original post on the subject, is 3:15 without pad, and 3:29 with. This means the express needs to leave New Rochelle up to 4.5 minutes after the HSR train, so that it will arrive at Sunnyside 8 minutes after, and 2 ahead of the next HSR. With a 9-minute time difference between HSR and the express trains from Greenwich to New Rochelle, this requires the express to be at least 4.5 minutes ahead of HSR at Greenwich, which with very minor speed-up is possible. What this means is that with mixed HSR-express-express and local-express-express as in Easy Mode, the first express after each HSR will go to Penn Station and the second one will go to Grand Central.
The question then is what to do with local trains. If they only go as far north as Co-op City, then it’s easy; with the exception of Hell Gate Bridge, the tracks in the Bronx would have to be four-tracked anyway to allow some overtake, and since there’s room, there’s not much traffic now, and this represents an expansion of Metro-North service, we can safely assume four-tracking. In that case local trains, making no stops in Queens except Sunnyside, would run at the same speed as the express trains on the two-track segment south of Hunts Point, and could be scheduled anywhere. An Astoria stop would require them to be scheduled immediately after the HSR and express trains southbound, which is feasible as near Sunnyside those would be close together already, with the express just ahead of HSR.
Of course, as this is Hard Mode, we cannot assume the local trains turn at Co-op City. Instead, we will make them turn at New Rochelle, or ideally run through farther north as locals. Now, southbound HSR trains, we have established, pass New Rochelle at :00, express trains leave at :04:30 and :06:30, and local trains leave at :02:30. This means we should extend four-tracking at Co-op City such that the local goes at the exact same speed as the express, which does stop at New Rochelle, until after it diverges to the local tracks at Co-op City; alternatively, if there is room in the schedule, we can have the local trains leave at :02 and then there is enough room.
Rearrangement of trains heading toward Hell Gate should be considered a trivial problem: if locals are too far ahead, or too far behind, the number of stops could be adjusted, or they could be held at the Bronx stations longer. Because the time difference between a local and an HSR in the Bronx and Queens combined is just under 10 minutes, the first option would require an extra stop or two or longer dwell times, making the local lose a full 10-minute headway and thus come immediately after the next HSR. By then the express has shifted back to about :07-:08 and so it’s not a threat even if the local does make an Astoria stop.
Conclusion
None of this is elegant. The schedules don’t necessarily match. Local HSR trains would add extra complications, though at least they’d reduce the speed difference with commuter trains in Metro-North territory. All agencies involved need to be on the same page. Through-running would involve a multi-overtake schedule, in which the most local trains get overtaken several times, by different classes of trains (HSR and express). Punctuality doesn’t have to be Japanese, but it needs to be Swiss, or else the entire edifice collapses.
And it’s still far cheaper than trying to overbuild everything to prevent this mess. The only commuter trains sharing track with HSR in this region are Metro-North, and those are fairly punctual, though this involves heavy padding. The rolling stock assumed is already in operation or in the procurement stage. The track repairs required are straightforward, and the curve modifications required, while annoying, are not the end of the world; the one greenfield bypass follows an existing Interstate, and the takings required, while nonzero, are low.
The travel time implied for this is a little more than 17 minutes from Newark to Trenton, for an intercity train stopping only at Newark (though this requires a top speed of 360 km/h causing severe noise impact in New Brunswick and Trenton), a little more than 8 between New Rochelle and Stamford, and just less than 10 between Sunnyside and New Rochelle. Depending on how much speed can be squeezed out of narrow tunnels and a new Portal Bridge, about 11 minutes Sunnyside-Newark, including New York and Newark dwell times, could be done; this is about 46 minutes Stamford-Trenton, a segment that Amtrak currently does in 1:45 excluding the long New York dwell time. And the amount of concrete pouring required is quite small for an hour’s worth of travel time reduction. Even a top speed that’s less noisy and ambitious, and lower speeds through the existing tunnels, do not raise this travel time far above 50 minutes.
Great things are possible if we first look at what is feasible, and then demand that agencies cooperate to achieve it, instead of program everything around public transportation agencies that act like rival gangs. If everything is optimized right, travel times not much higher than those Amtrak is targeting become possible, for a small fraction of the price, and capacity constraints can be kicked down the road to when passenger rail makes enough money to pay to relieve them. Organization, electronics, and small, strategic concrete pouring can go a long way. The choice is not between HSR for a twelve-figure sum and small improvements for an eleven-figure sum; it’s between low-cost HSR and agency turf battles.
The Urban Geography of Park-and-Rides
The urban geography of transit cities and of car cities is relatively well-understood. In a transit city, there will be a strong CBD surrounded by residences with spiky secondary centers, all quite small geographically but dense, centered around train stations and junctions; because density is high throughout, minor trips are done on foot. In a car city, all trips are done by car, the core is weak, and most employment is in suburban edge cities and edgeless cities.
What I haven’t seen is an explanation of how urban geography works in mixed metro areas: there are those in which short trips are done on foot and long ones in cars, such as new urbanist developments, and those in which short trips are done by car and long ones on transit, such as park-and-ride-oriented commuter suburbs. It is the latter that I want to address in this post.
The first feature of park-and-rides is that of all combinations of modes of transportation, they are the fastest and enable suburbs to sprout the farthest from the center. This is because the segment of the trip done in a car is uncongested and so driving is faster than transit, while the segment done on a train parallels a congested road, and conversely makes few stops so that average speeds are high.
On top of this, because intra-suburban trips are done by car, the density in the suburbs is very low, comparable to proper car cities (see the lower end of the density profiles of the New York, Chicago, and Boston metro areas), and this forces sprawl to go outward. New York is the world’s most sprawling city measured in total built-up area; the only other city of comparable size that’s not a transit city or a bus/jitney city is Los Angeles, which is forced to have denser suburbs because of the mountains. Of course Houston and Dallas sprawl even more relative to size, but because they lack New York’s transit-oriented core, there’s an inherent limit to their size.
The other feature is that there’s a definite socioeconomic history to the development of the auto-oriented commuter suburbs of transit cities. First, people move to the suburbs and commute into the city, almost always by train due to road congestion (or, as in the earliest New York suburbs, because mass motorization hasn’t arrived yet). The mass exodus into these suburbs comes from cars rather than commuter rail, and so the local services for people living in those suburbs are built at automobile scale, rather than at the walkable town center scale of 1910.
In North America there’s also a definite class element here – the early movers are the rich rather than the poor. Historically this was partly because poor people couldn’t afford regular train fare, and partly because the impetus for suburbanization was idyllic country homes with access to urban jobs rather than cheap housing for the poor. If I’m not mistaken, this wasn’t the case in Australian cities’ suburbanization, leading to a more urban transit-style mode of running mainline rail. The result of this class distinction is that North American commuter rail styles itself as for the rich: agencies make an effort to ensure everyone has a seat and downplay comfortable standing space, and the expectation is that transit is a last-ditch mode of transportation for when cars just don’t have the capacity to get people downtown, and so nobody needs to take the trains in the off-peak or take a bus to the train.
The result is that the park-and-ride city will still have a strong core with high-capacity transportation, and the primary CBD will maintain its supremacy for high-income jobs. Establishing edge cities in the direction of the favored quarter can happen, but there’s still a congested city nearby, and so from many directions it’s impossible to drive, and taking transit is impossible. Thus jobs in White Plains and Stamford are not nearly as high-paying as jobs in Manhattan.
There can even be secondary CBDs, if the inner part of the metro area, where people take transit more regularly than the suburban commuters do, is large enough. But those secondary CBDs are frequently quite auto-oriented. Brooklyn’s mode share for jobs is only 42-39 in favor of transit (for residents, it’s 60-25), and all other counties in the New York region except Manhattan have more workers driving than taking transit, a situation that is not true if one looks at residents. Those secondary CBDs then have mixed characteristics: they are dense and fairly walkable, as can be expected based on their history and location, but also have plentiful parking and a large share of drivers demanding even more. They can accommodate multiple modes of transportation, but driving is more convenient, and from the suburbs the commuter rail system isn’t always geared to serve them.
Commuter Rail Ridership Distribution
As a followup to my claim that the Northeast Corridor in New Jersey had a more outer-suburban ridership than the Morris and Essex lines, I decided to tabulate the ridership distribution of various commuter lines. This tells you what percent of the ridership originates within some distance of the city center. All lines in New York are included, though some are grouped together because of branching.
Explanation: the ridership numbers for New Jersey Transit come from the New York Times, and those for the LIRR and Metro-North come from files published by the MTA. To maintain comparability with the Metro-North and NJT numbers, ridership in city terminal areas is ignored for calculation purposes; thus, X% really means X% of beyond-city ridership. This means stations from Jamaica west, from Newark Penn east, and from Harlem south are not counted. All km points are calculated from Penn Station or Grand Central, even for lines that do not run through to those stations. Finally, some lines are lumped together, when they share stations beyond the excluded city terminal zone.
| Line\km | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 80 | 100 |
| NJ NEC/NJC (66,997) | 4 | 14.2 | 31.3 | 44.6 | 59.6 | 78.2 | 98.7 |
| R. Val. (10,639) | 0 | 13.8 | 51.7 | 74.3 | 84.4 | 98.5 | 100 |
| M&E/MB (35,183) | 5.6 | 36.3 | 64.7 | 81 | 91.8 | 98.9 | 100 |
| Erie Main/BC (13,249) | 16 | 35.6 | 60.7 | 73.9 | 81.2 | 89 | 92.9 |
| P. Val. (3,674) | 5.5 | 39 | 70.3 | 97.3 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| Hudson (25,442) | 5.3 | 16.7 | 30.8 | 52.6 | 66.7 | 76.2 | 88.8 |
| Harlem (45,117) | 4.7 | 27 | 68.8 | 73.9 | 82 | 91.3 | 98.1 |
| NH + NC/D/W (61,973) | 0.1 | 13.6 | 31.4 | 42.7 | 60.8 | 77 | 90.2 |
| Port W. (23,404) | 14.1 | 80.8 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| LIRR Main (65,104) | 0 | 8.5 | 29.1 | 51.7 | 69.2 | 83.7 | 99.9 |
| Mont. + Atl. (58,835) | 0 | 10 | 52.9 | 80 | 88 | 96.3 | 99.3 |
Note that the data isn’t completely reliable. The NJT and Metro-North data sets paper this over by counting just one direction, but the LIRR counts both, and there are discrepancies, for example at Huntington. So the numbers above have a fair margin of error around them.
Observe that the ridership of the Northeast Corridor is so skewed outward that despite having twice the ridership of the Morris and Essex lines in New Jersey, the Morris and Essex lines actually beat it on ridership within 40 km of Penn Station. Similarly, the Harlem Line beats the New Haven Line up to 50 km.
Similar data exists in Boston, and, in harder to search form even if you speak the language, Tokyo (better data for Tokyo can be found here, but for most lines the numbers include only inner and middle segments, up to about 50 km outside Tokyo Station). It’s also quite easy in both cities to set a boundary of the excluded city zone, and with Boston this could allow constructing the same table.
The implication of the difference between various lines is that some lines are more local and some are practically intercity. This relates to the service decisions within each line – more stops or fewer stops – but there aren’t a horde of people in Elizabeth and South Newark who are clamoring to ride rush hour trains into Penn Station and would in large numbers if only stop spacing were narrower, or a horde of people in Sussex County who’d ride if only there were fewer stops between Dover and Penn Station.
That said, the more local lines do have potential for local service on trips that American commuter rail doesn’t serve. There’s an untapped market of people commuting from New Jersey to Jamaica and Brooklyn, or from Long Island to Newark and Jersey City, and this market necessarily needs to be served with more local trains, because most people in it live closer to the city.
Regional Rail for New York: What Can Be Done Now
MTA Chairman Joe Lhota recently proposed to through-route commuter rail lines in the New York area, as was proposed in the past by the RPA, the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, and more recently myself. Lhota proposed other, less flashy ideas for integration, including better track sharing at Penn Station and lengthening platforms to accommodate 10-car trains. Although a network that looks like my proposal should still be the goal for the next 20 years, there are several things that can be done in the very short run. None is do-it-tomorrow immediate, but neither does any require very difficult modification of equipment or organization or significant infrastructure investment. Most should not require extensive studies.
Note that this is not a wishlist of the most important commuter rail reorganization projects in the region. Many of those reorganizations do not have anything to do with interagency integration, and are therefore not included. Only projects that are very cheap and would come from or benefit integration are on this list.
1. Integrated ticket machines at Penn Station. This requires the physical tickets on New Jersey Transit to look like those on the LIRR and Metro-North (and thus some modifications to the fare barriers at Secaucus and Newark Airport), and some reprogramming of ticket machines, but no change otherwise. Ideally a ticket from (say) Hicksville to Newark should cost less than the sum of tickets from Hicksville to New York and New York to Newark, to encourage reverse-peak traffic, but strictly speaking the discount is not needed. Amtrak and commuter rail machines should also be integrated, though the physical tickets can still be different if switching over is too hard.
2. Integrated concourses at Penn Station. This means treating the upper and lower concourses as belonging to all three railroads. This requires Amtrak to give up its single-file queuing and accept that people already can walk around and get to its trains from other railroads’ turfs. Trains should be announced on all concourses, and all access points to a platform should be clearly signed with the next train’s type and schedule.
3. Timed transfers. Although a clean integrated timetable is impossible, because trains interline on some inner segments to increase capacity, a partial version is still possible. What this means is that, with hourly off-peak service on each branch, Morris and Essex trains should arrive at Penn Station just before the hour, as should one of the several hourly trains on the New Jersey side of the Northeast Corridor, and then two or three branches going to the east (say, to New Haven and Port Washington, and on one additional LIRR line for service to Jamaica) should leave just after the hour, with the tightest connection done cross-platform. This would make trips from New Jersey to JFK and from Long Island to Newark easier, and the choice of services to participate in the system should be consistent with even spacing on interlined trunks.
4. Modification of rolling stock. Metro-North’s M8s can run under 60 Hz catenary and third rail, but unfortunately not 25 Hz catenary; as lower frequency requires a larger transformer, modifying the trains to run on the New Jersey side of the Northeast Corridor may be too hard in the very short term (though not in the medium and long terms). However, NJT’s ALP-46 locomotives and Arrow EMUs can run on 12 kV 25 Hz and 25 kV 60 Hz catenary, and thus modifying them to run on Metro-North’s 12 kV 60 Hz catenary is easy, allowing them to run from the NJT network to the New Haven Line. Unfortunately, because locomotives accelerate more slowly than EMUs and the Arrows are quite old, they do not have very good performance for short-stop service, for which through-running is the most useful.
5. Voltage change on the Northeast Corridor’s New Jersey side to 25 kV 60 Hz. This voltage change was done to the Morris and Essex lines and much of the North Jersey Coast Line. It is somewhere on Amtrak’s wishlist of projects, but I do not know how high it is. This allows M8s to run through, ensuring the better rolling stock is available for the service that needs it the most. It may possibly be bundled with Amtrak’s installation of constant tension catenary south of New Brunswick to reduce costs. Since this eliminates the need for 25 Hz transformers in the future, this meas future NJT rolling stock would be lighter.
6. Depending on 4-5, rolling stock sharing along interlined services. In practice this means M8s on local Northeast Corridor services, which would also allow adding and serving infill stations in New Jersey (for example, more regular service to North Elizabeth, and perhaps a station at South Street in Newark), and Arrows and locomotives on express services from Penn Station and New Jersey to New Haven.
7. Platform raising on the North Jersey Coast Line and the Morris and Essex lines, if service using M8s rather than Arrows is desired. Because of the voltage, it’s actually easier for M8s to serve the Morristown Line other than their inability to serve low platforms: it would only require 8-21 km of reelectrification rather than 88-101. The Morris and Essex lines also have a more inner-suburban distribution of ridership than the Northeast Corridor Line, which gets most of its ridership from more distant stations, and this makes them in one sense better-suited for through-service. (In another sense, the Northeast Corridor is better, since it serves downtown Newark, a secondary CBD that draws some commuters from suburbs and boroughs east of Manhattan.)
It is my belief that all of the above, possibly except #5 and #7, are feasible within months or at worst a very small number of years, and would not require additional environmental work. Even #5 and #7, which are more expensive, are still close to two orders of magnitude cheaper than a full through-running plan with new tunnels serving Lower Manhattan.
The medium term is more expensive – perhaps an order of magnitude less than the full program rather than two – and would include further modernization, allowing full through-service on every line and more efficient equipment utilization. It can also assume friendlier regulations, which a snap integration cannot, and this in particular means better rolling stock in the future and higher speeds even with existing rolling stock. Clockface schedules and frequent off-peak service would allow planning infrastructure repairs and upgrades around specific schedules. For example, the current local Stamford-Grand Central schedule is 1:06, but an express train I recently took from New Haven came to Grand Central more than 10 minutes ahead of schedule, suggesting excessive padding; minor upgrades should allow an M8 to do Stamford-New York in an hour minus turnaround time making local stops, and more ambitiously New York-New Brunswick in 45 minutes minus turnaround time.
Lhota can’t do much in the long term, because this requires an enormous investment into concrete, a political decision and a longer-term one than Lhota’s term as MTA chair. However, he can both implement the above seven points within his term, and also set in motion various work rule reforms and small-scale capital project planning and apply for the requisite FRA waivers to permit the medium-term reforms to succeed.
Followup on the Providence Regional Rail Shuttle
Peter Brassard’s proposal for a very frequent-stop mainline train in Rhode Island received comments both here and on Greater City, dealing with issues from rolling stock to station choice to scheduling. Some are fairly trivial, some aren’t. The upshot is that the project is technically feasible, but requires political head-bashing, especially with regards to scheduling.
First, the easy part: if the line is only to run between Central Falls and Warwick, then the rolling stock should be electric; this both improves performance and eliminates a political bottleneck, because the EMU market is larger than the DMU market, and in case FRA regulations do not change and obtaining a waiver is too expensive, there are M8s ready to use. The M8s are heavier than is ideal, but their performance is to my knowledge imperceptibly worse than that of noncompliant trains in the speed range appropriate for the short stop spacing, up to about 100 km/h.
Scheduling is the problem, because there has to be track sharing with something. The line is three-tracked: there are two tracks for Amtrak, also used by the MBTA north of Providence Station, and one track for freight. The line used to be four-tracked, but was reduced to three tracks in the 1990s in order to widen the track centers and allow the Acelas to tilt. Further reduction in track centers is not acceptable: at 4 meters (more precisely 13′) the distance is shorter than the standards for greenfield construction in Europe and even Japan. Track center standards are laxer on lower-speed segments, as the trackage through Providence is, but tilting becomes unsafe for an Acela-wide train. (The Pendolino is 37 cm narrower than the Acela.)
The alternative is to slightly widen the right-of-way at certain overpasses to allow four tracks, for a minimum of 20 meters with 4-meter track centers; some work, including widening, is already required to make room for platforms, and many of the most constrained locations, such as Olneyville at 18 meters, are station stop sites. It’s this construction that would most likely be the bulk of the project cost. At much lower cost, it would also allow electrification of the full corridor, making EMUs a feasible rolling stock choice for the local trains.
With four tracks, the question becomes, what regional rail should share tracks with. The choice is between intercity trains, which are currently slow but could be sped up, and freight trains. Both require political maneuvering, because neither Amtrak nor the Providence and Worcester has operating practices that are compatible with punctual passenger service. (Amtrak is more easily reformable, but an Amtrak that’s been so reformed is an Amtrak that runs trains much faster on the Northeast Corridor, increasing the regional/intercity speed difference).
I contend that it’s actually more correct to share tracks with freight. The sharpest curves are at stations, and so no superelevation is needed, but even if it were, allowing 100 km/h passenger trains could be accommodated with minimal freight train cant excess (about 25 mm at 50 km/h). More importantly, freight and local passenger rail have similar average speeds. The speed profile is different – freight is steady and slow, local passenger rail attains higher speeds but makes frequent stops – but when headways are long enough, this is not a problem.
On page 46 of the Providence Foundation study on a similar passenger line, we see that there aren’t many freight trains, so headways are determined by passenger trains. The freight schedule on page 48 of the same study suggests that freight and passenger train speeds would be very similar. It has trains doing Pawtucket-Warwick in 23 minutes; modern EMUs with a top speed of 100 km/h (losing 45 seconds to each station stop) and making the proposed stops would do the same in 25 minutes, with 7% padding. The local passenger train is a hair faster than the freight train on the Providence-Pawtucket and Cranston-Warwick segments, in both cases by less than a minute, and a bit slower on the Providence-Cranston segment, where station spacing is denser. This is close enough that I believe that 15-minute passenger train frequency is no barrier to track sharing. Potentially even 10-minute frequency can be accommodated. It requires freight trains to be somewhat timetabled, but they’d have a window of several minutes to enter between each pair of successive passenger trains, and missing their window would not delay them by more than 15 minutes. There is, then, no technical barrier to sharing tracks with freight.
The alternative, sharing tracks with intercity trains, is more dubious. Although less construction is required, the speed difference is larger. Instead of taking 23 minutes between Pawtucket and the airport, optimized intercity trains would take 8:45, including padding and a station stop at Providence. They can pass local trains at Providence, at the cost of slowing them down by several minutes while they wait to be overtaken, but even between Providence and the airport, travel time would be 5 minutes for intercity trains and 17 for regional trains.
If there’s four-tracking in Warwick, or two stops are dropped, then it’s tight but doable. Otherwise, it’s not; 12 minutes is too long a window for 15-minute service. It would require an extra terminating track at Warwick, but that would be needed anyway. The problem then is that local Rhode Island trains and MBTA trains would interfere with each other at Providence because both would dwell at the station for too long.
Interlining the two services and having MBTA trains make local stops in Providence is possible, and in conjunction with the two-overtake schedule for Boston-Providence naturally yields a three-overtake schedule. The problem is that the more overtakes there are the more reliability suffers. If an hourly freight train misses a window and needs to be delayed 15 minutes, it’s no big deal; if the goods couldn’t take a 15-minute delay, the train would be sufficiently punctual to make the window. If a passenger train misses a window, it requires the train behind it to slow down and this is not recoverable if the schedule is so tight.
When it’s unavoidable it’s best to just invest in running trains on schedule, but in this case a three-overtake schedule is avoidable. Thus track-sharing with freight is the correct option, leaving intercity trains to have a track that’s entirely theirs south of Providence, as this shuttle concept would almost certainly take over Wickford Junction service if necessary. It conveniently also allows higher regional rail frequency should the need ever arise, and because the scheduling is loose makes it easier to shoehorn another line into this system.
Commuter Rail, Urban Infill Stations, and Shuttle Train Rapid Transit
This is a proposal by Peter Brassard, who comments here and on Greater City: Providence. It was published on Greater City first, and is mirrored here as the site is experiencing server problems.
Rhode Island’s commuter rail service as currently conceived may not be conducive to encouraging ridership. Distances between existing and proposed stations are too far. Much of the focus has been on extending the system further into low-density suburbs. For Rhode Island commuter rail to succeed, more needs to be done to take advantage of existing walkable urban neighborhoods that have a high potential for passengers. Some of these areas have large amounts of commercial/industrial space or development opportunities. Due to Downtown Providence expansion, the rail system will be challenged, as long as there’s no internal downtown high-frequency transit, such as the proposed Core Connector, to directly link rail passengers to the far reaches of downtown.
Rhode Island’s commuter rail doesn’t capitalize on density variations and neighborhood assets of the Providence area. If Rhode Island’s commuter rail functioned as a rapid mass-transit system, besides increasing the number of passengers, it would help to revitalize and expand development opportunities for neighborhoods along the rail line. The implementation of medium frequency shuttle train service within the Rhode Island instate rail corridor would offer predictable headway times at regular intervals that could operate in addition to MBTA commuter and Amtrak trains. Air and intercity train travelers, commuters, and the general public would greatly benefit from this level of service.
A variation to a commuter rail or shuttle train is the German S-bahn or French RER or San Francisco’s BART. An S-bahn type system is usually the same as commuter rail in suburban areas, but differs when it’s within the central urban core, where it has characteristics of a subway or metro. Usually stations within the core zone are located close together at quarter- to half-mile subway station distances and schedule headway times typically fall somewhere in the middle of commuter rail and subway schedules. Depending on the city, central core rail infrastructure can be underground or at grade utilizing existing rail corridors. A hybrid of a shuttle train and an S-bahn might best for Rhode Island.
One way to organize Rhode Island’s rail system would be to create different station tiers allowing for various levels of service and investment in station infrastructure. Tier service levels could be thought about as intercity or express (Amtrak), regional or limited (MBTA), and local (RI Shuttle trains). Shuttle trains should be able stop at all stations and MBTA trains should have stops at major commuter and Amtrak stations. The hours of operation of a shuttle train should extend to weekends and late evening at all stations. Because a shuttle train schedule would be frequent and regular, it would relieve the need to increase the number of MBTA commuter trains for Rhode Island transit needs or having to extend MBTA weekend service south of Providence.
Shuttle train stations should require a lower level of investment. Platforms could be adjacent to the freight track. Priority should be given to constructing affordable shuttle train infill stations without automotive accommodations. An infill train station could consist of as little as a single high-level concrete platform with stairs, handicapped ramp, railings, partial canopy, lighting, and signage. Some stations might require an elevator instead of a ramp for ADA access. Without the land acquisition and construction costs for parking, drop-off facilities, station buildings, or pedestrian bridges, the cost range for a barebones single 300-foot long infill platform with modest accessories should cost between $500,000 to $1-million. A typical 900-foot long platform would be roughly $2 to $4-million. Because of increased service frequency, a shuttle train could have fewer cars and utilize shorter platforms that could be extended in the future, reducing the initial infrastructure investment. Shorter trains and platforms would allow the system to develop incrementally as ridership increases.
Infill stations should mostly be located within high-density urban neighborhoods where people can either walk or take existing bus transit to stations with limited or no automotive infrastructure. To optimize use by pedestrian’s stations should be designed so that they would have direct access from sidewalks of major streets with bus routes. Major streets and bus routes can act as siphons to funnel potential passengers from adjacent neighborhoods to stations. Bus routes that intersect the rail line corridor would effectively extend the passenger capture area of a walkable neighborhood. A passenger capture area would be the total population that’s within less than a 12-minute walk and/or a 7-minute bus ride to a train station.
Infill stations could become catalysts to renew employment opportunities in older industrial neighborhoods, reinforcing economic development. Less advantaged people from urban neighborhoods would be able to commute without needing a car. A series of stations served by frequent shuttle train service would create true rapid transit for Rhode Island passengers to quickly reach jobs or homes in adjacent cities or distant neighborhoods, not possible with the bus system. The increased use of commuter/shuttle trains would reduce traffic congestion and lower air pollution. Opportunities to concentrate additional employment and population around stations would help to limit the expansion of suburban sprawl.
There is historic precedence of having closely situated train stations within Providence documented on city maps from 1918. (Link 1) (Link 2) In addition to Union Station, previous train stations existed at Atwells Avenue, in Olneyville at Westminster Street (northbound) and Dyke Street (southbound), Cranston Street, and in Elmwood. There are likely other forgotten stations outside of Providence. I remember being told as a boy that my great-grandfather would regularly take the train to Providence from Woodlawn in Pawtucket. As late as the 1960s there were the ruins of a wooden stairway leading down to the tracks at Lonsdale and Mineral Spring Avenues.
Currently proposed urban infill stations are 300 Barton Street in Pawtucket, Olneyville, and Park Avenue in Cranston. Other potential infill stations could include Central Falls and in Providence at Reservoir Avenue, Cranston Street, Atwells Avenue, and Charles Street. Also Hunt Street, Mineral Spring Avenue, Branch Avenue, Dean Street, Union and Roger Williams Avenues could be considered. Suburban industrial infill stations could be built toward the northern end of Jefferson Boulevard and Davisville/Quonset though these locations might require additional bus shuttle service. There would be infill station opportunities with the Lincoln and Cumberland villages along the Blackstone River, for when train service would be extended to Woonsocket. A station at Route 116 with elevators and escalators reaching to the Washington Highway bridge deck would allow passengers to access buses to Lincoln and Smithfield’s office region.
For details, see this map, overlaid on a RIPTA bus map. It shows potential shuttle train stops within walkable urban neighborhoods. Distances between stops are generally at half-mile intervals.
Olneyville’s potential for a high number of passengers should be a top priority. The current proposal for Olneyville locates a platform on Harris Avenue, away from the Broadway and Westminster Street bus routes. This location was likely chosen because construction costs would be low. A direct access walkway/ramp to the Harris Avenue platform from Broadway and Westminster should be provided, which could be developed through easements with the abutting commercial property and elderly high-rise south of the proposed platform. From looking at census tract data and existing bus routes the passenger capture area for Olneyville is probably the highest with roughly 28,000 people who could reach the station in less than a 12-minute walk and/or 7-minute bus ride. If only 5% of that population used the train that would equal 1,400 people or up to 2,800 passenger trips per day. Olneyville also has over a million square feet of commercial/industrial space, much of which is vacant or underutilized, plus vacant land for new development within walking distance from the station location.
RIDOT has two alternatives, option “A” and option “B,” for a Pawtucket/Central Falls infill station. Pawtucket officials and RIDOT favor the 300 Barton Street location for a Downtown Pawtucket station. Fewer people would be within walking distance of this station, but bus service would expand its passenger capture area of roughly 13,000 to15,000 people. The lower western quadrant of Central Falls would be walkable to this station. Development opportunities would be great for Downtown Pawtucket. RIDOT/VHB’s proposed 2009 Option “A” plan would be preferable, as both proposed station platforms would have direct access to Dexter Street’s sidewalks and buses without requiring a special drop-off circle for buses within the parking lot. Option “B” should be rejected as it isolates the station creating a condition favorable to automobiles and access to Dexter Street would be indirect and circuitous for pedestrians, which might limit opportunities for smart growth development in Downtown Pawtucket. The current plans to include a parking lot and vehicle drop-off area, though expensive should probably remain, since Pawtucket is a regional center and would be a major MBTA station. In the future the current proposed parking lot could be upgraded to a multi-level structured facility.
In Central Falls a rail platform located near Sacred Heart Avenue would serve the eastern half of Central Falls and some of Pawtucket north of downtown. Roughly 8,000 people would be within walking distance of this station, which would not have pedestrian overlap with the proposed Barton Street Station in Pawtucket. The adjacent Central Falls neighborhoods that would benefit are among the poorest and highest density communities in the state. This station location should be considered in addition to Barton Street.
Other infill station possibilities include a Cranston Street station, which would have a passenger capture of roughly 13,000 to 15,000 people in Providence and Cranston. The Huntington Industrial Park on Niantic Avenue has about a million square feet of commercial/industrial space, some of which has been converted to offices. Not that it’s necessarily practical to rebuild the entire district, but the Huntington Industrial Park is built-out to a small fraction of what is permitted by current zoning. The Corliss Industrial Park at Charles Street has similarities to the Huntington Industrial Park. A Charles Street station would have an approximate capture area of about 15,000 to 17,000 people. Passengers would be more reliant on arriving by bus from the North End-Charles Street area, Wanskuck, and Elmhurst, since the potential for passengers walking to the station might be more limited.
Reservoir Avenue near Adelaide would have a capture area of about 14,000 to 16,000 people in Elmwood and the Reservoir Triangle extended by bus to parts of Cranston, South Providence, and the West End. An Atwells Avenue station might only have a capture area of 5,000 to 6,000 residents, but a station platform at this location would be a critical link to Atwells Avenue restaurant/retail tourism district, as well as, commercial and industrial space in the Eagle Square vicinity and residential neighborhoods in the Valley area, parts of Federal Hill, Lower Mount Pleasant and Olneyville. A Cranston station located at or near Park Avenue would have a rough capture area of 6,000 people from Cranston, South Elmwood, and Warwick. If a Park Avenue bus route were reinstated for the full length of the avenue, the station’s passenger capture area could be further expanded. This location would likely be a major MBTA commuter station and require automotive access and parking facilities.
To justify the construction costs for the TF Green and Wickford commuter rail stations and parking facilities, there should be as many commuters destined for Providence as for Boston. It is possible for commuters to access distant employment areas within the Boston/Cambridge area because Boston’s subway extends the reach of commuter rail stations. The expanded Downtown Providence area will be handicapped as several of the city’s employment areas are beyond reasonable walking distance and underserved by bus transit. It’s essential to build at least a portion of the Core Connector to make Providence Station viable as a destination commuter rail station.
Maximum interconnectivity to multiple stations with a large potential passenger base is the key to creating a robust rail system. The current blueprint for Rhode Island commuter rail is limited. To revive older neighborhoods and improve the state’s economic base, the rail system should serve more than just Providence and Boston commuters and intercity train travelers. Providing a handful of expensive commuter rail stations, most of which in low-density suburbs, is not enough to substantially increase commuter train ridership and insure the success of the system. It would have to be confirmed, but it’s likely that between Central Falls and Cranston there are 100,000 people that could reach the rail line by a short walk or bus ride.
It may be unconventional to propose constructing inexpensive infill train stations geared toward pedestrians and bus riders without parking, who would be served by shuttle trains, but it would transform Rhode Island’s rail system into rapid mass-transit, as well as, commuter and intercity rail. Besides being economical, urban infill stations could be built quickly. Since platforms are relatively low cost and there’s a present need to improve the regularity of train service between Providence and the airport, rather than spending years on studies, conducting a pilot program where a few or several urban infill stations could be built would be worth testing. All passenger types would benefit with this truly competitive alternative to driving within the core metro area. The passenger base for RIPTA buses would be reinforced and expanded, as would MBTA commuter trains. There may be objections from Amtrak and the MBTA or others regarding close proximity of stations and frequency of service. Since Amtrak schedules are on one- or two-hour intervals and MBTA trains run approximately on the half hour at weekday peak and less frequently at other times, urban infill stations and shuttle train service operating mostly on the freight track shouldn’t interfere with either agency. The advantages of developing a rapid-transit rail spine for Rhode Island’s people and economy would outweigh any objections.
The Cost of Heavy Freight Trains
Over at Pennsylvania HSR, Samuel Walker reminds us that the dominance of coal for US freight traffic slows down passenger trains, and this has a social cost in addition to the direct costs of coal mining and burning. But another post of his, regarding cant deficiency, suggests more problems coming from mixing modern passenger trains with very heavy freight. Coal trains slow all other traffic in three different ways, of which just one is the conventional schedule conflict, and even that means more than just slowing down intercity trains.
Schedule conflict reduces not just speed, but also span and punctuality. The Northstar Line in Minnesota shares track with BNSF’s Northern Transcon; since the line is freight-primary, there’s no room for off-peak service, and passenger trains can’t extend to the line’s natural terminus in St. Cloud, not without constructing additional tracks. Similarly, in Houston, plans for a commuter line to Galveston included peak-only service from the start.
Second, independently of scheduling, slow trains force faster trains to slow down by limiting the amount of superelevation that can be used. As a reminder: on curves, they bank the track, with the outer rail above the inner rail, to partly counter centrifugal force. If they do not cant the train enough, there’s cant deficiency; if they cant too much, there’s cant excess. Although there are strict limits for cant excess (in Sweden, 100 mm, or 70 on tighter curves), stricter than for cant deficiency (150 mm for a non-tilting passenger train, give or take), technically commuter trains could safely run at higher cant excess; however, for freight trains, high cant excess is unsafe because loads could shift, and the higher axle load means trains would chew up the inner track. Very heavy trains first require the track to have a lower minimum speed, and second have an even more limited cant excess because of the damage they’d cause to the track (about 2″, or 50 mm, in US practice). Walker links to a US standard guideline that uniformly assumes 3″ cant; greenfield high-speed lines go up to 180-200 mm.
And third, heavy freight trains damage tracks regardless. Coal trains also limit the amount of revenue the railroad gets out of each train, leaving limited money for maintenance, and are not time-sensitive, giving railroads no reason to perform adequate maintenance. To compensate, industry practices have to be less than perfect: cant and cant deficiency are less than the maximum permitted by right-of-way geometry and minimum speed, and freight railroads require barriers between their track and passenger track to protect from inevitable freight derailments. Even then the US safety level is well below what’s achieved anywhere else in the world with trustworthy statistics.
Of course, coal provides a great boon to the freight railroads. It’s a captive market. The railroads could price out coal and focus on higher-value intermodal traffic. Some of the lines that already focus on intermodal traffic are friendlier to passenger service, such as the FEC.
However, realistically, the end of coal is only going to come from environmental regulations. Those same regulations would apply to oil, inducing a mode shift from trucks to rail. The coal trains that would stop running would be replaced by trains carrying higher-value goods. The details depend on what the purpose and kind of environmental regulations are, but today’s environmental movement is heavily focused on climate change and not as concerned with local environmental justice, so loss of coal traffic due to a high carbon tax or local air pollution tax, both of which would also affect oil and gas, is much likelier than loss of coal traffic due to restrictions on mountaintop removal and air quality regulations at mining sites, which would not. (Of course oil causes plenty of damage to the biosphere, but the mainstream environmental movement is much more concerned with effects on humans than on other organisms.)
The political issue at hand, besides the easy to explain but hard to implement matter of avoiding catastrophic climate change, is what freight railroads are used to. Their entire business model is geared toward relatively low-value goods. A steep carbon tax is a risk: it should raise their mode share of total value of goods transported, which is currently 4% (see also figure 4.3 here), but it would come from a new set of goods, with requirements and challenges different from those of the current mix. The railroads would have to reintroduce fast freight, which most haven’t run in decades, and refine it to deal with the needs of shippers today. It’s not only a headache for the managers, but also a substantial risk of failure – perhaps rival railroads would be able to get all the traffic because they’d adapt to the new market faster, perhaps shippers would change their factory placement to move goods over shorter distances, perhaps they would not be able to cope with the immediate increase in fuel costs, etc.
Because of this, freight railroads may end up fighting a policy that would most likely benefit them. Although they represent a critical part of an emission reduction strategy, and are all too happy to point out that they consume much less fuel than trucks, fuel is a major cost to them, and coal is big business for them. These are not tech startups; these are conservative businesses that go back to the 19th century. Heavy coal trains then add a political cost as well: they help turn an industry that could be a major supporter of climate change legislation neutral or hostile to the idea.
What’s a Subway/El?
The rapid transit built in New York beginning with the first els codified two characteristics that spread to the rest of the US, and are often seen in other countries’ rapid transit networks as well. First, it is separate from surface transit – even when it did still have grade crossings, they were controlled railroad crossings, rather than street-running segments as is common on light rail. And second, it is separate from mainline rail.
Not much later than New York started building els, Berlin built the Stadtbahn, also an urban elevated railroad. However, it was meant to be used for mainline rail from the start, with two local passenger tracks and two long-distance passenger and freight tracks. Part of the impetus was to connect different railroad terminals within the city, which American cities did by building union stations disconnected from local traffic. Shortly later, Tokyo built its own mainline rapid transit system – the Yamanote Line bypass in 1885 and Tokyo Station connecting the Chuo and Tokaido lines in 1914. Both cities ran frequent local commuter service early, Berlin doing so even before electrification.
Of course, nowadays US regulations locked in the separation of rapid transit from commuter rail, but at the time, there was no such separation. New York could have built its subway to mainline specifications and run trains through to the LIRR. It didn’t because of historical accidents – it preferred compatibility with the els and even when the BRT chose a wider loading gauge for its own subway network, it still opted for narrower trains than on mainline track. At the time it seemed like no big deal, although some of the subway lines built were redundant with existing commuter lines (for example, the Flushing Line with the Port Washington Line). Again due to historical practice, commuter rail did not try to operate to rapid transit standards, keeping frequency low, and so nearly all urban stations closed. In both New York and Chicago, it’s often easy to figure out where the city ends or where the subway/L network ends because that’s the point beyond which commuter train stop spacing narrows, providing makeshift local service.
In subsequent decades, the German and Japanese approach proved itself much more capable of providing good transit to growing suburbs. In Tokyo, subways are legally railroads, and most lines are compatible with at least one commuter line in order to permit through-service. German cities have mainline rapid transit (S-Bahn) and also separate subways or subway-light rail combinations (both called U-Bahn). Many other cities and countries had to adopt the same system to increase transit ridership, at much higher cost since the necessary viaducts and tunnels connecting stub-end terminals were done much later. This is what led to the Paris RER, and what’s led to Thameslink and now Crossrail in London. Any other approach would require spending even more money on extending urban lines to the suburbs, exactly what’s done now in the two big suburban-focused US rapid transit systems, the Washington Metro and BART.
The kink is that despite the above problems of subways that are separate from both mainline and street rail, there’s now a different reason to build such lines after all: they can be made driverless. Most first-world cities already have legacy rapid transit or else have so much sprawl rapid transit is inappropriate, and third-world cities aren’t saving much money by eliminating drivers, but in the few cases of new builds (Vancouver, Dubai, Copenhagen, the newer lines in Singapore), driverless trains are common, and this allows trains to run more frequently, or even 24/7 in Copenhagen’s case.
This kink aside, there’s really no reason for a city to build a new New York-style subway, i.e. disconnected from light and commuter rail and running with a driver. Extending a legacy system is fine, but for new systems, there’s no point. This could be especially bad in growing third-world cities, which could find themselves paying too much for a subway they don’t need or unable to connect a subway they do need to the suburbs once they start suburbanizing. Third-world construction costs aren’t much if at all lower than first-world costs, but wages are much lower.
Some of the world’s largest cities have made or are making this mistake. Mumbai is building a new subway, on a different track gauge from the Indian mainline network, preventing through-service to the overburdened commuter trains. Shanghai and Beijing have vast subway networks, without express tracks or any ability for trains to run fast through city center; they have widely spaced stops so that they are faster than most other subway systems, but they have nothing on the rapid commuter trains in Tokyo. (Beijing is also developing a parallel commuter rail network, running diesel trains from the exurbs to the traditional city terminals at low frequency.) It works fine now, but when Shanghai grows and suburbanizes to the degree Tokyo has, it may find itself having to spend many billions on digging new tunnels.
Since a New York-style subway is inappropriate for new builds, some cities need to ask themselves which of the three kinds is the most appropriate. A subway-surface solution is mainly an option when one underground line can naturally split into multiple surface lines, as is the case in Boston, San Francisco, Cologne, and Frankfurt; this is because there’s a big difference between on-street and grade-separated capacity.
Tel Aviv, which is building a subway-surface line without any branching, is doing it wrong. For the other choice, I believe it’s a matter of how well-developed the suburban rail network is, and how much future suburbanization the city can realistically expect. In Tel Aviv specifically there’s also a separate element, which is that for religious reasons public transit does not run on weekend. If driverless technology makes the difference between trains that run 24/7 and trains that run 16/6, then it should be used even at the cost of otherwise worse service to some suburbs and destinations easily reached by legacy rail branches.
Finally, in North America, one of the reasons to engage in strong regulatory reform is to allow the mainline option to work. Some lines, for example the Harbor Subdivision between LAX and Union Station, should ideally host a mixture of local and rapid trains on the same tracks, and also allow intercity trains; if the Harbor Sub becomes an electrified commuter line then high-speed trains could serve the airport, providing a connection from the Central Valley to a major airport in addition to SFO, which would only get a station at Millbrae.
More in general, the only real disadvantage of legacy commuter networks is that they tend to not be very dense in the center of the city, requiring new builds; most of the Tokyo subway is just lines offering the commuter lines more capacity into the CBD, overlaying itself to also provide a tight in-city network. There’s no technical reason not to just build an electrified local mainline network as its transportation backbone, and if more capacity is required then build additional lines in the mold of Tokyo.
Pedestrian Observations 
