WARWICK – Officials ceremonially signed an agreement Wednesday to bring commuter rail service to T.F. Green Airport’s InterLink transportation hub, Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s office announced.
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority trains are expected to start pulling into the station by the end of the year. Currently, the line from Boston ends at Providence.
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T.F. Green’s InterLink facility – which will house the commuter rail station, a parking garage, intercity bus connections and space for car rental companies – is scheduled to open on Oct. 27.
Train service to the facility will be phased-in this fall and are slated to stop six times per day.
When the Wickford Junction station in North Kingstown opens – scheduled for late 2011 – trains are expected to make 10 stops per day.
“Rhode Island, like the rest of the nation, can’t build its way out of traffic congestion,” said Michael P. Lewis, director of the R.I. Department of Transportation. “Alternative methods of travel must be developed and embraced, and this commuter rail agreement makes that rail alternative a reality.”
Rhode Island and Massachusetts officials have worked for eight years to extend the commuter rail farther south.
Carcieri has touted the expansion as beneficial for both states; Rhode Island gets access to regional transportation to and from Boston and Massachusetts benefits by much-needed capital improvements that include upgrades along the Providence line and on the Pawtucket layover facility.
The MBTA service first entered Rhode Island in 1988 with five round trips per day to Providence and approximately 200 riders. Today, the service has grown to 14 round trips per day and weekend service, and about 1,200 riders.
Rhode Island, though far from perfect, at least has the vision to initiate a rail service that will benefit the region. Unlike the “commonwealth” of Massachusetts, which continues to block restoration of commuter rail to cape cod, possibly to protect the bus monopoly and other myopic interests.
One just has to come down and look at the rail infrastructure on the Cape that was improved with 30 million of our tax dollars and that the state keeps saying there’s “no money” or it “needs more study. ” The state has studied it to death and always has money for the Sagamore Flyover and other road projects that encourage more auto use.
Hopefully, the T.F. Green rail service will be one of many precedents to encourage the restoration of rail service elswhere. Potentially, a restored rail service to Cape Cod could link with the T.F. Green service.