This line follows an old interurban route between Providence and Fall River and then continues to New Bedford. With the coming of the South Coast Rail project, this would be even more useful by providing a connection between stations along the South Coast extension and Providence. The biggest issues would likely be getting through Ocean Grove, where 5 or 6 homes have been built on the ROW, and tunneling under I-195 in Fall River. The alternative to taking the homes in Ocean Grove would be to use a power line ROW from the RI/MA state line to the Taunton River, although connecting to that presents a challenge as well, albeit smaller. This hits the downtowns of all 3 as well as Warren and Barrington and would provide an alternative to I-195. The idea would be something more along the lines of a regional line, similar to the old interurban operation, with shorter 3-4 electric trains rather than MBTA diesel hauled trains.

Feel free to suggest any infill stations. Thoughts? Map here

I'm all for increasing public transportation, but I'd rather have the bike path that currently sits where these old train tracks were.

So all of my information is very old and second/third hand but one of the old GMs of the T was pushing for something like this. He wanted to extend the Plymouth line to swing down by the cape bridges and create a south coast loop.

He also wanted to revitalize the port in Fall River and have the state move the import/export seaport there. He wanted to move away from the Boston being the center of the universe model that exists and start servicing the rest of the state and region.

So they forced him out.

The trouble with this is that many sections of that line are just barely above sea level right now. Any sort of long-term investment in reopening the corridor as a rail line would be at risk due to sea level rise.

A train would solve a problem of utility while the bike path solves a problem of recreation.

Unfortunately no one rides the train. This seems like a money pit. Run buses for a fraction of this investment. The concept though is interesting, is there demand?

The bike path is not just for recreation, it is also used by many as a safe way to get from point A to point B without biking on busy streets.

Wrong.

Minuteman Bikeway in MA for example.

This and also, these hypothetical lines are placed in places that some of these towns will never give up. Warren's is parallel to 103 which already has severe traffic problems. As someone who lives right there, the parking lot they would theoretically use for the mbta means we'd have to give up our dog park and I don't want the noise pollution. Plus that bike path is USED maybe more so than any other one in the state.

If anything we should extend our bus lines so the Fall River line runs more times per day and there's better service to New Bedford.

rhode island residents are quite fond of ripta. Heavily investing in **real**, high-frequency, high-quality BRT is the likeliest way to have enough public support to improve public transportation to a respectable LoS

As a side note to this - it’s my opinion that a more efficient route would utilize sections of Route 6 and I-195… however, coordinating with state and federal agencies for this would probably be a nightmare lol

I’m in Warren and wouldn’t want this at all. I can’t imagine there’s a large interest in this for EP, Barrington, Riverside or Warren. We have Ripta already, it’s an easy ride to prov, and this would kill the east bay bike path. Noise pollution would also suck.

From a logistics POV- I just don’t think it’s possible also. Not enough room and would need to take down peoples homes or cut into their properties.

Someone else mentioned this but have this train run near 195 and route 6.

A timeline where East Bay NIMBYs don’t exist 🤤

Realistically you could use the line from Attleboro to Taunton and connect into the rail lines for Fall River and New Bedford. That line would most likely need work to allow Passenger traffic, but the rail lines are still there and active.

Yea we already know those towns are full of NIMBYs

Extend it to Buzzards Bay and connect to Cape railway.

Who would use such a train? Few people in RI are trying to get to Fall River or New Bedford, and there aren’t enough people in that part of MA commuting to Providence to support the costs of operating the line.

The other issue would be how close the tracks would be to properties. Foxboro residents fought the the MBTA stop at Gilette for this very reason.

Having RIPTA/GATRA/SRTA partnership would probably be easier to accomplish.

We could use a commuter rail connection to the Shoreline East in CT too. MBTA is about halfway there with the extension to Kingston.

Extend it to the airport in Warwick and then there would be much more interest.

My initial thought is how many people commute in that direction?

I love (and hate?) that the bike path illustrates the utility of having a single protected bike route between town/city centers. I wish we had several major arteries that connected Boston to providence or Boston to Worcester. I can bike in neighborhoods but I can’t ride on the major roads that connect them.

Yeah this is a train to nowhere. A true high speed PVD to Boston would have 100x the impact.

Every time I've ridden the train it's been packed idk what fantasy land you live in

We already have a perfectly good tunnel going under their houses. And a bridge that connects to it.

Exactly. What are trainloads of people going to do in Fall River without cars when they could drive there in a few minutes?

We have that with Accella. I doubt a maglev from Providence to Boston would ever happen.

The commuter rail to Boston is packed. Anything south of Providence is never packed and I've never been on an Amtrack that was packed.

It already would be through the Providence station but this has a 0 chance of happening. Freight on this line wasn't even profitable.

Next up I would like to propose the Cranston to Des Moines Iowa monorail.

this is a more eloquent version of my initial reaction "but why tho"

The demand really doesn't exist and the only entity I could really see benefitting is Amazon being able to recruit a larger portion of workers for the Fall River warehouse.

If they ever decided to to make Battleship Cove parking cost $25 instead of $0 and you were the type of person that goes there every single day they're open, this would save you approximately $4500 per year (minus whatever the cost of 180 or so roundtrip train tickets are).

Acela is only “high speed” when compared with rush hour traffic on 95. 😁

You're thinking of MBTA. Accella is 150mph and doesn't have to go south at 128 like 95 does.

Acela only hits 150 in a few small stretches. None of those are between Boston and Providence.

In fact, travel time from Providence to South Station on Acela is only a few minutes less than standard Amtrak.

And Acela is expensive… not really viable for a regular commuter.

So we're starting a multibillion dollar project banking on people who want to go to Battleship Cove every day. We have to get Battleship Cove to charge $25 for parking while they currently charge nothing while keeping the price of train tickets for a family below the cost to park. Or we'll count on all the people who go to Battleship Cove by themselves. Disregarding the fact that it is Fall River and you can find cheap or free parking everywhere.

Well, there is free parking at Battleship Cove, but we’ve already established they have to get rid of that

Can we make it Dubuque instead?

One of those is between Boston and Providence. The other one is in RI. At the Mansfield station it hits 150.

I highly doubt enough people would be riding a train from fall river to PVD where this makes sense economically

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For what, 3 or 4 miles?

Peter Pan already goes that way so what's the point?

The bike path in east providence would never be used for a train.

It’s not that fast but more importantly also not that frequent.

Terrible idea. Use your time for better things

While we’re dreaming here, i’d have it go from barrington into warwick under the river, and hit up the airport