When New Hampshire residents discuss the revival of commuter rail, they are usually referring to the controversial \u201cCapitol Corridor,\u201d an estimated $300 million project which seeks to extend tracks northward from the MBTA station in Lowell to Nashua, and then on to Manchester and Concord.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the Executive Council approved moving forward with a $3.9 million feasibility study that will explore the proposed rail\u2019s financial and environmental impacts.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a smaller-scale push for locomotives is provoking a quieter debate in another pocket of the state: in Plaistow<\/a>, a southeastern town bordering Haverhill, Massachusetts, with a population under 8,000.<\/p>\n Sean Fitzgerald, Plaistow\u2019s town manager, has long advocated for a commuter rail station, which would extend the Haverhill MBTA line by four or five miles. He trumpets it as an incubator for transit-oriented residential and commercial development, as well as a means of alleviating congestion from the highway.<\/p>\n In the last 15 years, the number of vehicles clogging the commercial Route 125 corridor has increased dramatically, according to Sheldon Wolff, owner of Wolff Realty Group in Plaistow since 1991. Because of the town\u2019s proximity to Route 495, I-93 and I-95, Plaistow is a magnet for large chain stores and businesses. \u201cThere\u2019s a bottleneck coming off 495 [from Haverhill] into 125. The town has been doing numerous things to alleviate traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n Fitzgerald says that depending on the time of day, \u201cit can take 20 to 40 minutes to travel from Route 125 in Plaistow to the Haverhill MBTA station,\u201d with up to 26,000 trips a day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wolff acknowledges that commuter rail would likely ease traffic. But he says not everyone in town champions the arrival of a commuter train, mostly because its construction may also include a noisy layover station for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) to park its trains overnight.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to leave your windows open in the summer, you\u2019re going to hear the diesel engines idling all night,\u201d says Wolff. In addition, he raises concerns about fuel spills seeping into groundwater.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, Wolff says the train could prove successful, but only if it\u2019s convenient and affordable. \u201cIf the train doesn\u2019t stop where they [commuters] need to go, and isn\u2019t going to cost the same or less [as driving in a car], they probably wouldn\u2019t take it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Getting Rail on Track at an Affordable Cost<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Town officials, along with the Rockingham Planning Commission, have been trying to restore the commuter train for at least two decades. In its heyday of the 19th<\/sup> century, the B&M Railroad bustled with three depots in Plaistow; passenger trains stopped four or five times a day in town on route from Portland to Boston. In all, the service spanned a hundred years, ending in 1968.<\/p>\n On June 5, the Executive Council and Governor voted 5-0 to spend $658,316 in federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds to study the environmental and economic feasibility of a commuter rail station in Plaistow. The study will look at locations in the vicinity of the Park and Ride lot on Westville Road, about a half-mile from the Route 125 intersection.<\/p>\n The study will also look at building a layover station for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). This is despite heavy opposition from residents concerned about noise and pollution.<\/p>\n In a benefit-cost analysis<\/a> prepared for the town in 2010, a private consulting firm concluded that over a 30-year period, new and existing rail users would realize $99.1million of savings from reduced auto maintenance and travel costs, such as gas and parking. This assumes that 24 percent of the Haverhill riders would divert to Plaistow.<\/p>\n \u201cFor those unable to drive,\u201d says Fitzgerald,\u00a0 \u201cthe train will give them access to the social, cultural, and medical resources of Boston. And for those unable to take the train, less traffic through the congested areas will result in reduced travel time.\u201d<\/p>\n If Plaistow can restore commuter rail through an interstate agreement with the MBTA, Fitzgerald projects that with the existing infrastructure, \u201cwe\u2019ll meet or exceed costs associated with operations of the rail.\u201d<\/p>\n Town officials estimate capital costs will reach around 30 million dollars, with the majority of funds coming from federal sources.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Exploring a Partnership with the MBTA<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to Cliff Sinnott, the executive director of the Rockingham Planning Commission, preliminary conversations between the MBTA and the town began in the 1990s. In 1996, Plaistow laid the groundwork for commuter rail when it established a park and ride lot<\/a> with 277 spaces on Westville Road.<\/p>\n During the same time period, MBTA officials were scouting for alternatives for its current layover facility in Bradford, Massachusetts, a dense suburb south of the Haverhill MBTA train station, deemed too small and out of date for the MBTA\u2019s current needs, and considered a nuisance by its residents.<\/p>\n In the fall of 2008, the MBTA approached town officials in Plaistow to pursue a commuter rail station in connection with a Plaistow layover facility.<\/p>\n But the conversation encountered roadblocks: Pan Am Railways, the holding company that owns the rail lines from Maine to Boston, would not grant access to other railroad operators.<\/p>\n However, in January of 2011, Pan Am signed a Trackage Rights Agreement with the MBTA, dissolving any future barriers to a commuter rail extension.<\/p>\n Finally, town officials could put rail back on track.<\/p>\n Yet, while some business leaders applaud the possibility of a Haverhill-Plaistow MBTA commuter rail extension, many Plaistow and neighboring Atkinson residents are up in arms over the construction of a layover station: as it turns out, they are no more likely to want the idling trains clamoring near their doorsteps any more than the residents of Bradford do.<\/p>\n Sinnott acknowledges that \u201clayover facilities create noise and aren\u2019t particularly welcome in closely-spaced residential areas.\u201d<\/p>\n Some, like analyst Charlie Arlinghaus, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, view this project as a solution that benefits MBTA more than it does New Hampshire. Arlinghaus wonders if MBTA officials would consider the four-mile extension from Haverhill if not for Plaistow providing a layover facility. \u201cIn exchange, a few commuters get to park their cars on this side of the border for essentially the same train ride?\u201d<\/p>\n Fitzgerald is quick to point out that this scenario is not about an underlying deal or exchange: \u201cIf the state line didn\u2019t exist, there would already be a stop in Plaistow.\u201d He says New Hampshire can afford the minimal investment because \u201call we are doing is taking advantage of geographic proximity between the existing infrastructure in Massachusetts and the close proximity of the Plaistow Westville Road Park and Ride lot.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s hoping the study will prove his point.<\/p>\n Fitzgerald also mentions that this type of interstate partnership already exists in Rhode Island, with the MBTA extending several miles south and west. In contrast, the anticipated MBTA partnership with New Hampshire extends the MBTA by only a few hundred yards.<\/p>\n MBTA officials are declining to comment on the proposed partnership, saying \u201cat this stage in the process, we prefer to let New Hampshire officials make all the public comments on the project.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Voices striking an opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 2010, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation began looking at sites for passenger and layover train stations near the Westville Homes on the border of Atkinson and Plaistow, as well as the Pen Box site on Main Street in Plaistow.<\/p>\n Last year at a town meeting, Plaistow residents voted 619-308 against pursuing any potential rail projects.<\/p>\n Executive Councilor Christopher Sununu represents the towns of Atkinson and Plaistow and attended several of the local meetings. He says, \u201cwhat was on that ballot was poorly worded, very confusing and nobody really understood whether they were voting for or against it.\u201d<\/p>\n Sununu says that although everyone \u201cpretty much agreed it [the vote on the warrant article] held no merit,\u201d he encouraged Plaistow town officials to take the controversial sites off the table or he was \u201cnot going to approve going forward with the study, because there would be a hundred different ways for Atkinson to kill the project down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Sanborn, federal liaison at the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, says that Sununu mediated with the DOT, the regional planning commission and the Plaistow board of selectmen to create a path forward \u2014 a path that would eliminate studying the two contested sites for a rail or layover station.<\/p>\n \u201cThose sites will be noted in the study as not having local support and therefore not feasible,\u201d says Sanborn.<\/p>\n Robert Clark is a member of the Commuter Rail Investigatory Committee, which Atkinson selectmen set up to address environmental concerns.<\/p>\n Clark says he\u2019s glad the two towns and the state eliminated the two sites for the study, but remains concerned about the \u201cpollution New Hampshire would inherit from Massachusetts,\u201d for example, the excessive idling of diesel engines.<\/p>\n \u201cThe age of the fleet increases the amount of pollution a diesel engine will emit,\u201d says Clark. \u201cThey [the MBTA] can bring the trains up here and let them idle for 24 hours a day if they choose.\u201d<\/p>\n Massachusetts has a law that limits idling for 30 minutes. However, according to the 2010 Commuter Rail Investigatory<\/a> report, the MBTA has not always enforced these limits at its 14 layover facilities.<\/p>\n In fact, in 2010, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed a lawsuit against the MBTA for violating state regulations that prohibits engines from idling more than half an hour. The case settled without a trial. The MBTA paid a $225,000 fine, and had to install electric \u201cplug-in\u201d stations for each engine, replace at least 14 on-board power generators to reduce emissions, and begin using a low-sulfur fuel.<\/p>\n In addition to air pollution, Clark worries about the noise.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you forcing us to take a train layover yard, which is the worst part of any train system,\u201d he asks. \u201cEvery time a train leaves the yard, it has to test all its systems. The horn is one of them\u2026with the 21 trains, we figured out there would be 64 sets of whistles we would be hearing in the valley area that would radiate in the surrounding towns.\u201d<\/p>\n He also questions why Plaistow needs a rail station. The Haverhill platform is only three or four miles away where you can park, take a train or a bus into Boston \u2014 without New Hampshire taxpayer monies. \u201cRight now we have the best of both worlds,\u201d says Clark. \u201cWe don\u2019t pay anything for trains \u2013 even the Downeaster.\u201d<\/p>\n While the mileage is short, town manager Sean Fitzgerald says cars inch along that passage from Plaistow to Haverhill for up to 45 minutes during peak travel times.<\/p>\n Clark also points out that Plaistow\u2019s attempts to provide alternatives to the auto haven\u2019t panned out in the past. For example, an express bus from Epping, Kingston and Plaistow to Boston ran from 1994 to 2002, but discontinued because of lack of ridership.<\/p>\n