In the News

SPRINGFIELD — Train tracks stretching into the distance appear to converge just out of view.

Backers of faster passenger rail service from Western Massachusetts to Boston see several factors converging now — the new Biden administration, the need to boost the economy through a national infrastructure plan, the changing nature of the workplace even after the coronavirus pandemic, and Boston’s housing crunch.

“This is a moment of opportunity,” says state Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow. “You really see a lot of needs coming together.”

The two most important issues, Lesser said, are a lack of jobs in Western Massachusetts and a lack of housing in eastern Massachusetts. Make it easier to commute, he said, and more folks will live here and work in Boston, boosting both economies. It’s simple logic that has earned support from Boston’s City Council and chamber of commerce, as well as MassMutual CEO Roger Crandall.

Commuter trains could link Boston and Springfield in as little as 90 minutes and as often as 10 or 12 times a day, according to one early concept state transportation experts explored.

It remains to be seen whether the convergence is real — or, like those steel rails that never really meet, an illusion.

Lesser proposed the legislation that led to an 18-month study of the feasibility of east-west passenger rail. The state is due to issue its final report by the end of the year.

In October, state Department of Transportation researchers released a preliminary report saying enhanced passenger rail service could attract 278,000 to 469,000 riders per year. But the cost for extensive track upgrades would range from $2.4 billion and $4.6 billion. At that ridership and cost, the project doesn’t meet guidelines for federal funding.

The preliminary report cast doubt the project’s feasibility. It also made Lesser doubt whether Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration is committed.

“I have my questions, he said. “It seems like at every opportunity, MassDOT emphasizes the hurdles.”

Lesser and others have said for years that Baker is at best lukewarm to the idea of east-west rail. They’ve pointed to the political influence of Peter Pan Bus Lines Chairman and CEO Peter A. Picknelly.

Picknelly declined this week to speak on the subject. But in January he told reporters that his company already competes with rail options in most markets where it operates. And they beat the trains on price, he said.

MassDOT replied to questions only by confirming that the final report will come out by the end of 2020 and “will contain information on next steps now that the Advisory Committee has completed its work and provided input on the alternatives which were studied.”

Last winter, speaking at an event at Springfield’s Union Station unveiling an $11 million reconstructed train platform, Baker sounded cautious and skeptical.

“My deal on this is that you have to do the work associated with the options analysis first,” Baker said. “I’m one of these guys who thinks most things are one step at a time. I try not to get too far ahead of myself on that.”

U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, has said Baker is on board. Neal said he continually reminds the governor about the traffic jams on the Massachusetts Turnpike and Interstate 84 in Sturbridge — snarls that east-west rail could help tame by taking cars off the road.

“That’s an anecdote that we have to address,” Neal said this week.

Neal said he feels the project now has support even higher up.

“I think that given Joe Biden’s history with Amtrak and rail, I think we are going to have a substantial advocate in the Oval Office,” he said.

That’s in contrast, Neal said, to outgoing President Donald Trump, “whose support for an infrastructure plan never went beyond a press release.”

The president-elect, famously known as “Amtrak Joe,” commuted via train for years as a young widower so he could get home from the Capitol to his family every night. He supported Amtrak as a U.S. senator. Later, as vice president, Biden led the Obama administration’s efforts to loan the railroad money for equipment upgrades.

Biden’s support is for trains generally. It hasn’t been decided if Amtrak would run east-west rail through Springfield or not.

Neal, chairman of the powerful House Committee on Ways and Means, controls any legislation that involves raising federal money. As the longest-serving member of the New England delegation, he also has a say in committee assignments. It’s important, he said, that U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, D-Boston, remains on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Neal spearheaded the $103 million renovation of Springfield’s Union Station. It’s where he hosted a victory celebration after winning the 2020 Democratic primary, giving a speech where he reiterated the need for east-west rail.

In June he paid a visit to Union Station to tout a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan he and his fellow Democrats introduced. The plan would have included $19 billion for rail expansion, but was dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate.

“I think we can do better” than the $19 billion, Neal said this week.

Control of the Senate now hinges on two January runoff elections in Georgia. Regardless of the outcome, Neal said, “I think we can pick up Republicans on infrastructure,” stressing the need for job creation everywhere in the face of COVID-19.

Both he and Lesser, in separate interviews, pointed out the Biden administration’s commitment to fighting climate change. Biden has picked former Massachusetts senator and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as special envoy seeking international solutions to the crisis.

But those low ridership projections for east-west rail are still a problem.

Lesser takes issue with MassDOT’s methodology. For one thing, it doesn’t account for induced demand, or extra ridership created as people change their habits — and where they live — because the rail option exists.

“We’re not doing this to have the same set of circumstances we have now,” Lesser said. “You do a transformative project because you want to transform.”

The other issue, Lesser said, is that MassDOT’s estimates are based on the CTrail Hartford Line, a passenger train route connecting New Haven and Springfield.

“Hartford is nice, but it’s not Boston,” Lesser said.

With its red-hot jobs market and high salaries, Boston can drive travel in a way Hartford just can’t, he said.

MassDOT did add a projection incorporating data from a commuter line linking Boston to Portland, Maine. “It helped,” Lesser said. “But it’s not enough.”

A better comparison, he said, would be service in California linking Stockton with Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. The Altamont Corridor Express gets a million riders a year.

The CTrail Hartford Line, operated by the Connecticut Department of Transportation and Amtrak, has been successful in its own right. It reported a 26.5% passenger increase from fiscal 2018 to the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2019. In terms of raw numbers, that was an increase from 286,477 passengers to 362,442.

For calendar year 2019, the Hartford Line accounted for 750,000 passenger trips — outpacing the 666,960 originally forecast.

CTrail averages about 1,000 passengers a month now, thanks to the pandemic.

Lesser said COVID-19 and changes it’s making to workplaces might increase demand. More employees will be working from home more of the time, but will need to head into a main office maybe once or twice a week. That makes traveling by train attractive, especially if people can log onto Wi-Fi and work while they ride.