Welcome to Infrastructure Spotlight, a new series on Newshacker Blog examining major U.S. infrastructure projects in-depth. Today, we’ll be talking about a proposed project in the Boston area: the North-South Rail Link.
Like many cities in the Northeast, Boston’s commuter rail system is fractured into two halves due to a legacy of the system: the commuter rail system was built by multiple companies that were directly competing with each other. As a result, all of Boston’s commuter trains terminate at either one of the city’s downtown terminals: North Station or South Station, with no direct rail connection between the two train stations.
The trains terminating at South Station, the larger of the two stations, were once services part of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad and the New York Central Railroad. Amtrak Northeast Corridor trains also serve South Station. North Station is served by trains that were once part of the Boston and Maine Railroad, as well as Amtrak’s Downeaster five-daily service that serves Maine, terminating at Brunswick, Maine.
In the late 1960s, with the rise of the Interstate Highway System and the airline industry, many passenger railroads, including the ones that served Boston, went bankrupt or filed with the government to stop all unprofitable passenger rail services. In 1967, all of Boston’s commuter rail services were consolidated under the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which continues to run the commuter rail services today.
2020-02-commuter-rail-map-v34Current service patterns consist of all trains servicing the area south of Boston terminating at South Station, while all trains servicing the area north of Boston terminate at North Station. Approximately 2 miles separate the two stations. Presently, passengers wishing to transfer between the two stations need to take two subway trains with a transfer at Park Street or Downtown Crossing subway stations.
Alternatively, passengers coming from the south side can also transfer to the subway at Back Bay Station if their train stops there. The Orange Subway Line connects the Back Bay and North stations. Passengers traveling on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor trains can also use this method to transfer to the Downeaster train, which uses North Station.
Only one track, used for moving equipment, connect North and South Station. No passenger services concurrently serve both stations.
The proposed North-South Rail Link would eliminate all these unnecessary transfers by building a rail tunnel connecting the two stations. It is modeled after Philadelphia’s Center City Commuter Connection, which joined two separate terminals used by the Reading Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad in Center City (Downtown) Philadelphia in 1984, years after both commuter railroads were unified under the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.
Some plans also call for an additional Central Station or Union Station to be built in between North and South Station, which would likely be constructed under the Aquarium Station on the Blue Subway Line.
Through service in the Boston area would help solve many of Boston’s connectivity problems, as it will fully integrate what is essentially two separate commuter rail systems serving Boston.
The current configuration of stations means a fragmented network disrupting connectivity and causing highway congestion and unequal distribution of economic opportunity. Accepting a job on the other side of the city might mean moving houses just to access the railroad.
Many trains also need to deadhead out of the South Station to access the MBTA maintenance facility north of Boston. This requires trains to be shuttled around town, wasting resources, as two-thirds of the train cars are used in the lower half of the network. Through service between the terminals could save up to $62 million annually, according to a 1998 study.
Backing trains out of downtown terminals wastes time and reduces capacity. This is because unloading and loading a train takes significantly more time than allowing a train to through-run, which also wastes terminal space in precious downtown areas. Commuter rail capacity would increase by at least 25 percent should the rail link be completed.
The construction of the North-South Rail Link wouldn’t just be a boon to Boston, however. Because Amtrak trains operated on the Northeast Corridor, a major rail line that connects Boston to Washington, D.C., via New York and Philadelphia, terminate at South Station, anyone living north of South Station and those living in New Hampshire and Maine are denied access from easily accessing the Northeast Corridor, requiring complicated transfers in Boston.
This is especially a problem as Amtrak has already announced major service expansions with the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal under their “Amtrak Connects US” plan (a post on that is coming!), which would see trains serving the New Hampshire cities of Concord, Manchester, and Nashua, as well as further extension of the Downeaster line up to Rockland, Maine.
The Downeaster train, Amtrak’s only train serving North Station, has also seen massive growth in recent years, with over 551,000 people riding it in 2018.
Unfortunately, all of these trains would have to terminate at North Station, which means they would essentially be orphaned from the rest of Amtrak’s national network. Having Northeast Corridor trains through run into New Hampshire and Maine would greatly increase the attractiveness of riding the train, and this would significantly reduce air pollution and congestion on the busy Interstate 95 highway.
So far, only feasibility studies have been conducted by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the most recent of which was conducted in 2018. Estimates for the cost of construction, assuming a 3.5 percent annual inflation rate, in 2028 dollars range from $12.3 billion to $21.5 billion, depending on the alignment and number of tracks. There would also be an additional costs to expand South Station, purchase new rolling stock (as diesel trains would not be able to run in the tunnel, diesel-electric locomotives would have to be purchased), and electrify parts of the system.
If built, the North-South Rail Link would provide significant benefits to the Boston and New England area, and would also greatly enhance connectivity on the Northeast Corridor railroad line. Building it would help spur the use of mass transit and help make Boston a much more competitive global city with world-class transportation infrastructure.