The largely symbolic and ultimately unanimous vote on October 22nd came as the Massachusetts Department of Transportation continues its Northern Tier Passenger Rail Study. The project is exploring a trainline between North Adams in the northwestern corner of Massachusetts with the densely populated metropolitan core to the east.
Western Massachusetts leaders have long advocated on Beacon Hill for greater investment in transportation infrastructure in the largely rural region. Earlier this year, Governor Maura Healey appointed MassDOT Director of Rail & Transit Andrew Koziol as West-East Rail Director. Her administration announced Tuesday that it had secured $37 million in federal grants to make improvements at Springfield’s Union Station. That builds on $108 million in funding from the federal government given to Massachusetts for train corridor improvements between Springfield and Worcester last year.
Council Vice President Ashley Shade wondered if the body was moving too quickly to endorse an undertaking flush with unanswered questions.
“The potential of this project could have a huge impact on the future of Western Massachusetts, especially northern Berkshire," she said. "It would give us access to the eastern part of the state, which we are incredibly isolated from and we haven't had in 70 years. It's an extremely important project, but also people should know this is not happening tomorrow, it's not happening next year, it may not even start for another decade. So, while I support a project like this, I wonder if we're pulling the trigger on our resolution too soon without really having full details of what a project's going to be, what kind of investment the city will be required to put in, what kind of impact environmentally. A lot of those studies still haven't been done yet.”
Council President Bryan Sapienza offered his two cents.
“I know that in a lot of areas, rail service has been on the increase, and there's a couple of actual new rail services," he said. "One of them recently is, the North Carolina DOT and the Virginia DOT has recently entered a joint venture to operate rail passenger service between those two states. The state of Florida has also opened two, one called the Bright Line, which runs from Miami to Orlando, terminates at the Orlando International Airport and then has another service called the – I think it's called Sun Rail – that runs from Western Volusia County, the City of DeLand, down into Orlando. And the idea is that the main highway between the Daytona Beach area and the Orlando area is very congested. In our case, it's not so much traffic congestion, but trying to drive over Route 2 during a nasty storm, we have a lot of people that go back and forth between Boston for either their livelihoods or for government purposes, and having a rail service that can bypass hazardous roads at different times would be a, in my opinion, be great thing to have, and I think it would encourage growth in in this area.”
Councilor Lisa Hall Blackmer said the benefits of a rail connection to Boston would be felt almost immediately in North Adams.
“As someone who's been driving back and forth from North Adams to Boston for years now in my role with the Mass Municipal Association and other organizations, it is congestion," she said. "If you have to go during rush hour, it's ridiculous. If you have to go non-rush hour, Sunday night coming back in October, not Cape Cod weekend in the summer, it took an extra hour, hour and a half. So, it's also wasted time. It's using vehicles, sometimes with one person in a lot of them, and it's a waste of time. At least if you're sitting on a train, you can work, or you can sleep, or you can relax, you're not totally stressed out waiting for someone not to hit you.”
Councilor Peter Oleskiewicz shared his take.
“I believe this is just a resolution showing that we're in support of this," he said. "I think there's no concrete plans as going through each city and town, from here to Boston, where impacts will be made, cost to each municipality would have to be incurred. So, I think those will probably be later conversations as years go down the road as to what impacts it'll have through each community and what costs we might have to bear. As of tonight, I think we're just passing a resolution showing support for the concept.”
The council approved the resolution in an 8-0 vote. Councilor Keith Bona was absent.
