Originally posted on ArchBoston, inspired by an earlier post by user The EGE
Years ago, The EGE suggested that a long-term vision for the Foxboro branch would be to extend it to Mansfield, and I pooh-poohed it:
As much as I love service to Mansfield via Foxboro from a crayon map perspective, the only way it could make sense is in a 100-year future where 495-land is as dense as 128-land is now, and where there’s a fundamental reimagining of downtown’s like Mansfield to be highly transit-oriented, combined with the presence of significant employment centers in Foxborough, Norwood and Dedham.
The biggest problem right now is that Mansfield’s lot fills up utterly and entirely during rush hour. There is some TOD, and some potential for more, but not a lot more. And you’re not going to siphon off many Boston commuters, unless you’re willing to offer a major price discount, because the travel time is much worse. So at most you’d be pulling in more commuters who need to park, which aggravates the original problem further. …
But I’ve changed my mind on this topic.
Contents
Where people actually live and work
My change in opinion was prompted by looking at where the jobs actually are along the Route 1/Route 95 corridor:
With remarkable fidelity, the string of job densities run along the Northeast Corridor up to Mansfield before diverting west to run along the Foxboro & Franklin Line. This mirrors the population density map:
Which is to say, the job and population density pretty much exactly follows the path of a Boston <> Foxboro <> Providence service.
A “village hopping” model of the suburbs
In thinking about a Mansfield-Foxboro-Boston rail service previously, I had been focusing on Mansfield + Foxboro as suburbs of Boston. But I have recently been thinking about what it will take to de-center the automobile in New England suburbs, and have concluded that we need to look for ways additionally to support collective transit journeys within the suburbs that aren’t oriented toward major cities or necessarily to employment-oriented commutes.
In some ways, the Highland Branch (Green Line D Branch) offers a compelling model: a string of medium-density villages with reasonable walkability and predictable (even if not maximally frequent) public transit connecting them, enabling “village hopping” journeys.
Not all of Boston’s suburbs could fit such a model; many feature large density cavities, and only a few feature this characteristic string of “islands”; among those, the Boston <> Foxboro <> Providence tracks are unusual for how directly they pass through those islands (compared to, say, the Worcester Line, which “misses” the major job centers west of Wellesley):
I would argue that Providence-Mansfield-Norwood-Dedham represents a strong opportunity to reimagine the New England suburb into one that offers bona fide collective transit alternatives to private auto ownership, achievable via modest density increases in “downtowns” but leaving intact the overall character of the communities.
Where and when to run the trains?
From a transit perspective, this would be achieved by a relatively straightforward expansion of the Regional Rail model: take your every-30-min Foxboro trains and extend them down to Providence via the NEC. This would create half-hour frequencies for journeys within the Route 1 corridor “islands”, supplementing faster direct service to Boston and Providence within the appropriate commuter corridors.
Additionally, because of the pattern of diverging vs joining junctions at Walpole, Mansfield, and Canton, the southbound Foxboro trains would be able to use up the slots vacated by South Coast trains peeling off at Canton Junction. Finally, in addition to doubling up with Franklin trains at Walpole to provide 15-minute headways to Norwood and Dedham, Foxboro trains would double up with Providence trains to provide 15-minute headways to Mansfield, the Attleboros, and Pawtucket, creating a legitimate Urban Rail corridor running into Providence. (Mansfield is somewhat at the extreme of this, but Attleboro is well-enough in Providence’s sphere to benefit from frequent service.)
Who would ride?
To be clear, these through-running Foxboro trains would not be used (south of Foxboro) for commutes into Boston. This route is made of three segments, roughly corresponding to “within 128”, “between 128 & 495”, and “outside 495”:
- Boston-Readville
- Readville-Norwood-Mansfield
- Mansfield-Providence
This service is meant to enable within-corridor journeys through two of those segments, stringing together a series of overlapping markets:
- Traditional Fairmount/Franklin commute to Boston
- Reverse commute to Dedham, Norwood, Walpole, and Foxboro
- Southerly commute from Norwood, Walpole, Foxboro, Mansfield, and Attleboro to Providence
- Northerly commute from Mansfield, Attleboro, and Rhode Island to Foxboro, Walpole, Norwood, and Dedham
- Suburb-to-suburb journeys along the corridor of higher density population and jobs from Attleboro to Dedham, supporting both work and non-work trips
For example, living in walking distance of Mansfield station would afford car-free access not just to downtown Mansfield, but equally to the downtowns of Attleboro, Patriot Place, Walpole, and Norwood. This would also reduce the pressure on each individual downtown to be fully self-sufficient.
Again, using the Mansfield example: the walk from a TOD apartment in downtown Mansfield to the nearest grocery store is 20 mins long, and requires crossing Route 140; alternatively, frequent rail service would enable someone to
- ride the 18 minutes to South Attleboro,
- use the Market Basket right near the station,
- and return back in 18 minutes,
- without carrying groceries a mile on foot.
The travel time is the same as walking to the Mansfield grocery store, but the convenience and ease would be transformatively better.
Likewise, a car-less resident of Mansfield looking for a matinee entertainment could simply hop onboard and ride a stop or two to Patriot Place to see at film at the Showcase Cinema there. Instead of one downtown being accessible on foot, this person would have access to over a dozen.
How long would it take?
Travel times between Boston and Providence would not be useful, but journey times within those overlapping markets listed above would all be reasonable:
| Journey | Time |
| Reverse commute to Dedham, Norwood, Walpole, and Foxboro from Boston | 25 to 45 minutes |
| Southerly commute from Norwood, Walpole, Foxboro, Mansfield, and Attleboro to Providence | 20 to 60 minutes |
| Northerly commute from Mansfield, Attleboro, and Rhode Island to Foxboro, Walpole, Norwood, and Dedham | 10 to 45 minutes |
| Suburb-to-suburb “village hopping” journeys | 10 to 30 minutes |
(These journey times are based on current schedules, with a best-guess for Mansfield-Patriot Place, assuming track improvements to passenger rail standards. Further track improvements and electrification likely would reduce these journey times further.)
Looking to the future
To be clear: I do not believe there is demand for this kind of service now. Nor do I believe this service necessarily would convert existing car users to transit.
What I do believe this kind of service could do is contribute to an overall reimagining of our suburbs into communities where car ownership is optional, and where downtowns can be revitalized into small lively centers of community life. Over time, this can effect a generational change where people choose to de-prioritize owning a car, and look for places to live accordingly.
This reimagining would need to extend beyond the railroad ROW: we would continue to need TOD, potentially slightly denser than is being done today; local bus service (including school bus service) would need additional investment and improvement; and modest redesigns of the extant built environment would be required in order to prioritize pedestrians. (Case in point: Patriot Place has a lot of great shopping and entertainment, but some of it is located 20 minutes away from the platforms on foot.) The scale of this reimagining is large, but the scope of the specific changes needed is much smaller.
We will never entirely banish automobiles from the suburbs. But I truly believe we can offer an honest-to-God alternative that would offer broad appeal. And I think it would take less than we’d imagine.