Stimulus package might breathe life into the N.H. commuter rail plan

2/22/09Supporters of the NH commuter rail plan, which would lengthen the Boston commuter rail to Concord, NH, are hopeful that President Obama's stimulus package will be the necessary push to start the long awaited project.

According to New Hampshire's Economic and Labor Market Information Data System, which collects data from the national census, 81,490 NH residents commuted to Massachusetts for work in the year 2000.

The New Hampshire Railroad Revitalization Association, one of the groups formed in recent years to raise money and for the commuter rail plan, said in its website that the plan would reduce road traffic into Massachusetts and increase tourism to New Hampshire.

Christopher Morgan, an administrator in the Bureau of Rail and Transit for the NH Department of Transportation, said, the stimulus package is the most reasonable chance the state has had of getting the money to fund it. "Most of the other federal grants required the state to match funds, which had always been the reason we could never get the grants," Morgan said.

According to Morgan, the money for passenger rail projects in President Obama's stimulus package is based on a competitive process. Once the guidelines are released in March, the Bureau of Rail and Transit will submit a plan to compete for the money needed to carry out the commuter rail project. Morgan was hesitant to project a cost of the commuter rail, but said the most recent estimate to start the project in 2013 was $220m.

Nicholas Coates, a planner with the Central New Hampshire Regional Planning Commission and a member for the New Hampshire Railroad Revitalization Association, said the chances of getting the money were pretty high because the NH commuter rail plan was carefully planned out beforehand and is not a new project. "The NHCC is in good position in this regard because it's ready to go rather than being a completely new construction project like the ones it would compete against in this pool. Those projects include extensions/new projects in Dallas, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix," Coates said.

Morgan said he did not know the number of jobs that the commuter rail plan would create. "It would certainly create some," Morgan said.

Coates said the biggest implication of the commuter rail program was in the growth and accessibility of New Hampshire and its cities and towns. "This rail project is not just about getting users who commute to Boston. In fact, it is the opposite. The goal is to make New Hampshire's cities more attractive places to live and work. We want people commuting to Nashua, Manchester and Concord who live in the Boston area," Coates said.

The commuter rail plan to New Hampshire would involve updated railroad tracks that are already in place and adding another track in many areas. Morgan said if New Hampshire won the bid, negotiations would begin immediately with the NH railroad owners, Pan Am Railways, and the owners of the Massachusets railroad, the MBTA.

"The stimulus money is the best chance we ever had," Morgan said.