After watching several governors present studies and plans for a rail line into southeastern Massachusetts since 1991, Roland Hebert takes Gov. Deval Patrick’s pledge to bring commuter rail to Bristol County with hopeful skepticism.
“We’ve been down this road before with governors promising to deliver,” said Hebert, the transportation manager for the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District. The public agency is based in Taunton and specializes in planning and expanding future economic development in southeastern Massachusetts.
The latest plans for a South Coast Rail were unveiled April 4 and call for Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority commuter rail stops in Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton. The project is expected to cost more than $1.4 billion (a figure adjusted for inflation), according to the Patrick administration’s plan, with the largest chunk of that cost, more than $1 billion, involving construction.
The South Coast Rail would open for business in December 2016, the plan says, and it would cost $26 million per year to operate while generating only $5 million in revenue.
But for the communities affected – especially New Bedford and Fall River – bringing in commuter rail service could boost economic development and tourism, the plan says. Those two cities are the largest commercial hubs within 50 miles of Boston that are not served by the MBTA trains.
Fall River Mayor Edward M. Lambert Jr. said he is hopeful about this latest plan, compared to past plans, because the Patrick administration, not local officials, made the case for the rail line. Patrick had promised to come up with such a plan in his first 90 days of office, and he delivered on his promise.
“It tells me they get it,” Lambert said. “So I’m as confident as I’ve been that this administration will put this project on the path to making it happen.”
Lambert said the economic benefits would be significant. There could be development around the T station, he said, and it would be easier for Fall River to keep its middle-class residents, whose children now tend to leave after completing college.
Lambert added that this is also an economic justice issue. He noted that other regions in the state – and even Rhode Island – already have rail lines to Boston.
However, he does share some of the same skepticism with Hebert about the rail line. He still has the shovel that former Gov. Paul Cellucci used at a groundbreaking in 1998, before that project fell through. Lambert said he does not know what will happen with Patrick’s plan.
The state already has begun some work on the project, though there is still a long distance to travel. For instance, a specific route to Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton still needs to be decided. And then there is the issue of funding.
Erik Abell, spokesman for the Mass. Executive Office of Transportation (EOT), said the project currently has $17.2 million in funding that will last until January 2010, which is the next funding deadline.
Abell said that the goal within the next three years is to come up with a way to finance the rest of the project through 2016.
Abell added that the Patrick administration supports the South Coast Rail, because while southeastern Massachusetts’ population is among the fastest-growing in the state, it needs help producing economic development. And the rail line could serve as a catalyst for development.
As for the route, the plan by Patrick’s administration focuses on possible extensions to three routes: the Stoughton line, the Middleboro line and the Attleboro line.
In a 2002 Final Environmental Impact Report, the MBTA identified the Stoughton line as the best for an extension. However there remain environmental concerns due to conservation areas such as the Hockomock Swamp, which stretches across parts of Bridgewater, Easton, Norton, Raynham, Taunton and West Bridgewater.
One of those people with environmental concerns is Kyla Bennett, director of the New England chapter of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit that supports local, state and federal officials in the environmental arena.
Bennett, who has lived in Easton for 17 years, has a Ph.D. in ecology and an environmental law degree, said she would be prepared to go to court for this matter.
She said the rail line extension would bisect the Hockomock Swamp, a 17,000-acre swamp that is the largest wetland in the state, adding that The Nature Conservancy has said the swamp is one the most ecologically significant areas from Maine to Maryland.
The Stoughton rail line extension – which is being opposed by people in Easton, Raynham, and Stoughton – would ultimately impact the drinking water in the area, she said, because the swamp acts as a type of purifier for the drinking water supply for many towns.
Overall, Bennett said, the rail would not be worth all of the effort. Diesel fuel, which the MBTA trains run on (though Patrick said ultra-low sulfur diesel will be used), is a more harmful pollutant than cars’ emissions, she said. And the MBTA is expecting a total of 2,953 new riders, which doesn’t warrant spending $1.4 billion.
“It’s just ridiculous,” she said.
