The Environmental Study is Underway!

Connecticut is making progress.

The DOT noted, (last updated in 2005):

The Connecticut Department of Transportation has hired Wilbur Smith Associates to perform a feasibility study for the implementation of commuter rail service between New Haven, Hartford and Springfield, Massachusetts. The corridor was identified as a key component in meeting the goals of improving and sustaining the regional economic viability and improving regional livability in the Capitol Region Council of Government’s (CRCOG) Regional Transit Strategy (RTS). This was further recognized by the Connecticut Transportation Strategy Board as an important first step in implementing a statewide strategic plan and has allocated funding to undertake the implementation study. In addition to serving commuters traveling between the towns and cities along the corridor, the service could provide a connection to Bradley International Airport, multiple links to Amtrak Intercity service and a direct link to the existing Metro North and Shore Line East Commuter Rail in New Haven.
I've received word that Wilbur Smith Associates has just signed a contract with ConnDOT and are underway with the Environmental Assessment for the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield rail project. There will be extensive public involvement....Stand ready to support this project!

Meridan wants it

The Meriden Record-Journal wrote an update about the NHHS line, available through this link.

To ride from Meriden to Hartford would cost about $4, based on the 2005 study and adjusted for inflation. On Amtrak, that ride costs $6 or $8, depending on the time of day.A monthly pass from Wallingford to New Haven costs $90 on Amtrak, but would be about $65 on the commuter rail.Riders would also likely be able to buy combined passes with Metro-North, something that provides additional savings for Shoreline East travelers."

"[Greater Meriden Chamber of Commerce president and a member of the state's Transportation Strategy Board Sean Moore] says commuter rail is coming; the question is simply how soon.

The legislature has approved the estimated $300 million it will take to get the trains up and running, and Rell, who supports the idea, will decide when to bond it. [Stephen] Delpapa, [supervising transportation planner at the DOT] said [CT Governor Jodi] Rell [photo left] has mentioned ways to speed up the process, such as phasing in the construction and starting service before the three new stations are built."

About 40 people commute daily via the two buses that travel weekday mornings and afternoons, said Joseph Zajac, administrator of Meriden's Transit District. That's down from 60-70 people on three buses during the middle 1990s.The service costs $100 per month, $44 less than Amtrak, but slightly more than is estimated for the rail line.Zajac thinks there will still be a market for the bus, given that most rail commuters would either have to walk to work or take another bus from Hartford's station.

He supports the commuter railroad though, and the transportation hub, which could bring interstate bus service back to Meriden for the first time since early 2006.


Corporations and the federal government also support mass transit through pre-tax payroll deductions for commuting expenses, subsidies and other incentives. With parking at a premium in urban cores, companies such as Aetna offer monthly payments to employees who don't drive to work.


Aetna employees receive $50 per month if they don't park on Aetna's Hartford campus, where spots range from $25 to $125 per month.
(Aetna Home office photo right)

The company will move 3,600 employees from Middletown to Hartford by 2010, including Stephen T. Zerio, a former Meriden City Councilor who works at the insurance giant. Zerio said he would definitely examine the train as an option to get to Hartford. "It's got to have a lot of flexibility," he said. "I think of rail lines like Metro-North. You know that if you miss a train, there'll be another one half an hour later. Right now if you miss the bus or train, you're out of luck."


Zerio, who chaired the council's Economic Development, Housing and Zoning Committee, also likes the service's potential in Meriden."More rail creates more foot traffic," he said. "I could stop past a luncheonette on my way to work, or pick up some fresh bread on the way home. There would be more opportunities for places in Meriden to open up during rush hour traffic morning and night.


"Then there's the savings on gas." Partridge, of Wallingford, said rising gas prices and parking fees at her employer, the Yale Medical Group in New Haven, prompted her to start taking the train in late 2006. Now she's comfortable with her commute, which takes about the same amount of time as when she drove. A shuttle bus takes her to work and back from New Haven's Union Station.
(Union Station photo, right, from Bridge & Tunnel Club --more photos at site...and also here ).


"It works out for me," Partridge said, although there have been some delays on evening trains coming home. Amtrak said its New Haven to Springfield service was 75 percent on-time last year. For Metro-North, it was 97.7 percent. Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole said track improvements are underway, which would increase on-time performance.


Mass transit users often gain other benefits, such as a less stressful commute. On a train, there's time to work, relax or socialize, as Partridge, Brainard and Sobral typically do."The truth is, (employees) will arrive significantly more prepared to work, as opposed to arriving completely stressed out having fought traffic the entire time," Moore said. "I hear that on a regular basis."
[...]

Perez supports Commuter Rail (and reminders of philosophy and Cianci)

Kudos to Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez for advocating for commuter rail
He writes that "a regional transportation system is an investment in our economy as well as our ecology. It will build on the various modes of transportation that already exist and connect them, with the goal being that they run more effectively and efficiently and serve more people. It will create jobs and make it easier to get to existing jobs."

Mayors sometimes be leaders of their own cities, but some can actually lead a region. The importance of mayors (and SelectBoards) across CT and Massachusetts working for a common regional purpose is more critical now than ever before. Transportation is communication: we link
Witness this scene from RI:

In the late 1800s, the powerful railroads filled in the remnants of the Great Salt Cove. Further development covered over large swaths of the Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket rivers, which flowed into the Providence River to the Bay.

Early in the 1990s, some of [then Mayor Vincent "Buddy"] Cianci’s staffers gave him an old black-and-white photograph of downtown Providence, bisected by unsightly railroad tracks and freight yards, with the inscription: “Prov – B.C. – Before Cianci.”

By then, the rail yards were gone, replaced by the glittering Waterplace Park and the resurrected rivers, which had been uncovered and moved during the 1980s in an ambitious, $40-million project financed primarily by the federal government.

In 1974, when Cianci first ran for mayor against Joseph Doorley, he championed a plan by a Rhode Island School of Design professor to move the railroad tracks and uncover the river. But there was no money, and Cianci, faced with other challenges, never pursued it after he was elected.

Four years later, when the Federal Railroad Administration planned a major upgrade of rail service between Boston and Washington, the then-director of the Providence Foundation, Ron Marsella, suggested that the federal money be used to move the tracks instead of simply fixing them.

The idea caught on with then-U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell, a railroad buff, who proved key in winning approval. Cianci and his political rival, Gov. J. Joseph Garrahy, both jumped on board and lobbied in Washington, even as they were preparing to run against one another for governor in 1980 — issuing dueling press releases about who deserved credit.

Moving the tracks opened up downtown land for redevelopment, including the site of the Providence Place mall.

The Capital Center Commission, a quasi-public agency whose members were appointed by the governor, the mayor and the nonprofit Providence Foundation, was created in 1980 to shepherd the development.

The project was moving forward in 1983 when the new director of the Providence Foundation, Kenneth Orenstein, saw the plans and panicked — Capital Center engineers had proposed paving over the rest of the Providence River for a new road. Orenstein turned to architect Bill Warner, who was studying potential waterfront uses, and Warner sketched out a plan to uncover the river and move the confluence of the three rivers 100 yards east, to its current location near the Citizens Bank building. "

(for a more theoretical turn, see here (from Mattelart): "Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), a railway engineer turned philosopher, took the idea of communication as an organic system even further. His 'social physiology' - which existed in outline form in 1852, seven years before the publication of Darwin's major work, The Origin of Species, and was explicitly formulated starting in 1870--carried to an extreme the hypothesis of continuity between the biological and the social order. The physiological division of labour and the progress of the organism went together. From the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from the simple to the complex, from concentration to differentiation, industrial society is the embodiment of 'organic society': an increasingly coherent, integrated society-as-organism in which functions are increasingly well defined and parts increasingly interdependent In this systematic whole, communication is a basic component of organic systems of distribution and regulation. Like the vascular system, the former ,(made up of roads, canals and railways) ensures the distribution of nutritive substance."

What Rail Means for Local Businesses

Rail means more than just $152 million new economic activity to our region. That's terrific, but general. How might we see some of that growth? Erica Walch, the owner of Speak Easy Accent Modification (a downtown business), observed: "I currently commute to Boston twice per week to work with clients. If we had a commuter rail to Boston, I would definitely ride it. If we had commuter rail to Southern CT, I would explore working with clients in that area, as they would be easier to reach (whether I went to them or they to me). I would also use both of these services to commute to Boston and the NYC area for recreational outings. I drive to NYC/Brooklyn about twice a year, and would probably go more often if I didn't have to drive."

She could grow her business into Southern Connecticut and stay in her home base of Springfield. That helps Erica, Springfield, the Pioneer Valley, and Massachusetts. Local businesses benefit from commuter rail.

(photo from Business West)

WNEC Communication Conference

I went to the WNEC Communication Conference today and spoke with the following people:

Domenic Sarno, Mayor of Springfield;
Brian M. Connors, Deputy Director of Economic Development for Springfield
Barb Campanella, Vice President of Marketing and External Affairs, WNEC;
Tony Cignoli, President, A. Cignoli Company
Dianne Fuller Doherty, Massachusetts Small Business Development Center, UMass
Nick Fyntrilakis, of MassMutual;
Dave Madsen, Anchor, ABC40;
Mike Dobbs, Managing Editor, Reminder Publications;
Jaclyn Stevenson, Senior Writer, BusinessWest;
Tom Vannah, Editor, Valley Advocate;
Ed Kubosiak, Editor, Masslive.com;
Natalia Munoz, President, La Prensa;
Janine Fondon, Editor & CEO, Unity First;
Pari Hoxha, Publisher, Predvestnik;

Hopefully we will have meetings or stories with these people. I received very positive feedback.

If you would ride the line: Please send me a 2-3 sentence quotation with your name and city/town that the PVACR can use in communicating with the media.

Wagner

Rep. Wagner showed some vision for the Pioneer Valley region recently, when he me with a couple of members of the PVACR.

The story was picked up on Urban Compass .

Watch for a meeting announcement from PVACR soon.