Benefits of regional rail touted

By Mark Ginocchio
Staff Writer

April 13, 2007

HARTFORD - Elected leaders from Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island met at the Capitol yesterday to encourage a regional approach to solving New England's transportation woes.

House Speaker James Amann, D-Milford, and Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, hosted the state's first Southern New England States' Transportation Summit.

The Connecticut lawmakers said they hope the meeting would start dialogue with neighboring states about improving mass transit in the region.

"These are some exciting steps forward so we can look beyond our state borders," Williams said. "We are part of a New England region that is tied by history and tied together by economics."

The past two years, the state legislature has pledged $3.5 billion for transportation improvements to highways, buses and rails, Amann said.

"Now, it's essential that we work with our neighboring states to address the big picture," he added.

Lt. Govs. Timothy Murray from Massachusetts and Elizabeth Roberts from Rhode Island said they want to link their commuter rail lines with Connecticut's railroads running to New York City.

"We have to do better," Murray said of their efforts to regionalize commuter rail. "This coalition is not about road versus rail, but it is a comprehensive and holistic transportation strategy."

Shore Line East, which starts at New Haven's Union Station - where Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line ends - could be linked to the Worcester, Mass., commuter rail line, Murray said.

Once the proposed New Haven-to-Hartford rail line is completed, there could be a connection to Providence, R.I., Roberts said.

That would make "Boston to New York one of the largest transportation corridors in the county," Williams said.

It is in New England's economic interests to invest in a high-speed regional rail network, said Kip Bergstrom, executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council, a state consortium of officials, businesses and universities.

"We could blow the rest of the world away," Bergstrom said. "No one would touch us."

Connecticut would have the most to gain from a high-speed regional rail network because the state is between New York and Boston, Bergstrom said. If its residents could reach each city in an hour, Connecticut could be a "gatekeeper" of a majority of New England's labor force.

"Connecticut should be the biggest cheerleader for high-speed rail in this country," Bergstrom said.

But state and federal funding for rail has been inadequate when compared to allocations for highways, said James RePass, president of the National Corridor Initiative, a Providence-based advocacy group.

"When people say its hard to take transit, there's a reason," RePass said. "It's because we haven't built any."

European countries of equal size and population density to New England have spent significantly more improving mass transit, RePass said.

More communities could be connected by mass transit if existing freight lines were developed into commuter railroads.

"We have plenty of places of where it makes sense," RePass said.