Northern New England Intercity Rail Update

kmock · Jul 22, 2016

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) of the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) has released a finding of no significant impact on the Northern New England Intercity Rail Initiative, which allows the states and federal government to invest in future passenger rail services.

http://www.railway-technology.com/news/newsus-fra-allows-rail-investments-northern-new-england-intercity-rail-network-4956463

Background and other documents related to this can be found here, including the recently completed business plans and environmental documentation: http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/northernnewenglandrail/Documents.aspx

Phil S · Jul 22, 2016

Would be nice! Anything newer than the 2015 Mass-DoT report? Or was the project on hold until blessed by FRA?

afigg · Jul 22, 2016

Phil S said:
Would be nice! Anything newer than the 2015 Mass-DoT report? Or was the project on hold until blessed by FRA?

Look down the documents page on the MassDOT website. There are 3 June 2016 final documents under tasks 4 and 5. I saw the news yesterday that the FRA had issued a FONSI which is an important step and that the EA and tasks documents had been released, but didn't have time to post the links.

Railway Age news report which provides a brief overview of what is proposed: FRA advances New England Intercity blueprint. The quick summary is to expand the system over time to:

8 daily New Haven - Springfield - Boston trains

1 daily Boston to Montreal train

1 daily New Haven to Montreal train (which I expect would actually originate in NYP but the boundaries of the study end at New Haven on the southern end).

Projected cost is $1.2 billion total with I expect Worcester to Springfield as the single biggest cost item. Have not had the opportunity to read the final documents in detail.

.

Edit: direct link to the 13 page PDF summary of study results.

rspenmoll · Jul 23, 2016

Just out of curiousity, why did evaluating the enviromental impact fall under the purview of the FRA and not EPA?

jis · Jul 23, 2016

That is the way the relevant law is formulated. That is why

kmock · Jul 26, 2016

rspenmoll said:
Just out of curiousity, why did evaluating the enviromental impact fall under the purview of the FRA and not EPA?

Because the FRA is the lead federal agency with oversight of passenger rail projects. So, it would be there responsibility to ensure all environmental documents are prepared (with EPA comments). This is the same for another other federal agency (e.g., FHWA, USACE, FAA). They all prepare their own environmental documents (actually done by engineering and environmental consulting companies usually).