The Berkshire County state delegation wants any discussion of east-west passenger rail in Massachusetts to be strictly about trains.
State Senator Adam Hinds says the comments he and his fellow Berkshire lawmakers submitted to MassDOT stress that any plan involving buses will not fly. He says the belief among his colleagues is that trains still provide the best, easiest means of connecting the western part of the state to its economic core in Boston.
“There’s certainly a simplicity in marketing and grabbing people to come the other way, to say, just hop on the train and you can come to our region as a tourist or as a homeowner or a remote worker," said Hinds. "We feel that it starts to undermine some of the objectives of having the rail and why it could be successful.”
Hinds was joined by fellow Democrats state Representatives Smitty Pignatelli, Tricia Farley-Bouvier, Paul Mark, and John Barrett in submitting the remarks. MassDOT is considering six options.
