Moulton’s ambitious, expensive, and enthralling transportation vision

AT A TIME when roughly a quarter of the MBTA subway system is crawling along at a safety-induced snail’s pace, US Rep. Seth Moulton is pushing an ambitious expansion of the T’s commuter rail network.

He acknowledges the first priority is getting the T’s subway system back in working order. “The reality is that the T is slower today than it was decades ago,” he said on The Codcast. “The first subway in the nation is now the worst subway in the nation.”

But once that Herculean task is accomplished, he has new mountains for the MBTA to scale.

“Looking toward the future, what we truly need is a world class regional transit system that can get people around the state faster than driving,” he said. “That’s the only way to get people out of their cars onto nicer trains. People don’t want to have to take trains because it’s the best of terrible options. We need people to want to take the train because it’s faster to get them to where they need to go.”

He calls for construction of an underground rail link connecting North and South stations so the bifurcated commuter rail system can be made whole. “That means someone living in Salem like me could easily commute to Plymouth for a job,” he said. “That could easily be a two-hour commute by car during rush hour today. You could get there in 45 minutes with the North-South Rail Link.”

Moulton proposes high-speed rail to western Massachusetts. “Imagine getting from Springfield to downtown Boston in 45 minutes. That’s not a pipe dream. That’s standard high-speed rail all across the globe. We just don’t have it in America. If you could get to western Massachusetts in under an hour, it would solve the housing crisis for eastern Massachusetts,” he said. “It would also dramatically improve the economic opportunities of people living west of Worcester.”

Finally, he proposes regional rail, which is typically characterized by electrified trains operating initially at half-hour intervals and eventually every 10 minutes.

All of these projects would cost many billions of dollars and probably take decades to accomplish, but Moulton is not dissuaded.

When it comes to rail service, he said the US is the anomaly. “The rest of the world is doing this. We don’t need to invent any of this. We just need to follow the rest of the world’s lead,” he said.

“The T is an epic mess, I’ll say it again,” he said. “It’s not the standard by which we should judge anything. When you get on that commuter rail train you’re getting on a train right out of the 1950s, a train that actually goes slower than the commuter rail trains out of Boston in the 1920s because today’s diesel engines actually have slower acceleration than the steam-age engines of yesteryear. That’s how far behind we are.”

The MBTA recently completed the purchase of 24 acres at Widett Circle about a mile south of South Station, and plans to convert the property into a storage and maintenance facility for trains that previously had to layover in Hyde Park, nine miles away.

Moulton laughs at the plan. “This is a prime example of how pathetically out of touch the T is with its vision for the future,” he said. “They want to take this prime Boston real estate and turn it into a rail yard, a rail yard to serve the stub end terminal at South Station.”

The congressman said Widett Circle should be used as the tunnel entrance for the North-South Rail Link. He said the dirt from digging out the tunnel could be used to elevate Widett Circle, which is currently below the flood plain. The money from developing Widett Circle and the savings from dispensing with the expansion of South Station could be used to pay for the rail link, he said. 

“The reason we don’t have a vision is because we haven’t had leadership at the T,” Moulton said. “It’s people at the MBTA themselves who have been telling us we can’t build the North-South Rail Link. These are the same people who can’t even run their decades-old transit system on time. So nobody should be listening to the old leaders at the T. We need to listen to people who have a vision for the future and know what travel on rail is like all across the globe.”

Moulton said he has talked to Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll about his vision for the MBTA. “They have been interested and receptive but at the end of the day leaders need to make this happen,” he said. “We do need some leadership from the governor of Massachusetts and I’m hoping the new governor will provide it.”