Last week, the Connecticut Department of Transportation (ConnDOT) released environmental review documents for the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield (NHHS) commuter rail project.
If approved, the NHHS project would improve performance on a 62 mile stretch of Amtrak-owned rail, most significantly by double-tracking roughly 35 miles of the corridor and upgrading the line to accommodate maximum train speeds of up to 110mph. Double-tracking allows more frequent train service and reduced travel times by making space for two locomotives traveling in opposite directions simultaneously. Assuming the timely completion of the environmental review process, ConnDOT expects 17 daily round trip trains in the corridor beginning in 2016. There are currently between six and eight round trips daily.
This service increase, which could expand to 25 daily round trips by 2030, will establish a true commuter rail network throughout central Connecticut and lay the groundwork for transit-oriented development along the line. Connecticut has already begun to identify the potential for transit-oriented growth along the corridor. In fact, many of the state’s transit-oriented development grants, announced last year, were targeted to municipalities along the NHHS corridor. The environmental review also includes plans for station improvements and four new regional rail stations at Enfield, West Hartford, Newington, and North Haven, and the NHHS project will integrate into the New Britain-Hartford Busway project in the Capitol Region, which is scheduled to begin construction on May 22nd.
According to project documents, the improved NHHS line will bring economic and environmental benefits to the region.
- Create 12,590 construction and related jobs;
- Increase annual trips on the line by 1.26 million by 2030; and
- Save more than 3.5 million gallons of fuel each year.
Tri-State has long supported the NHHS project and plans to submit comments on its environmental assessment in the coming weeks. Three public hearings have been scheduled, and comments can be submitted to Mark.W.Alexander@ct.gov.
The map shows the insanity of promoting the busway instead of a rail option on a RAIL RIGHT OF WAY.
In response to Mr. Morris’s comment and an earlier similar comment of his:
The busway is the better alternative because it is proposed to operate as a multiple point of access transit route. If one reviews the alternatives analysis for the project, the strength of the busway over rail for the New Britain corridor is obvious.
Respectfully:
EXCEPT for the COST of the Busway, which exceeds the cost of the railway. EXCEPT for the impact in West Hartford. EXCEPT for the massive engineering difficulties particulary in Hartford. EXCEPT for the impact it will have in the Capital Corridor Region by restricting future growth of NHHS and Amtrak rail service. EXCEPT for the cost that will have to be negotiated for restricting Amtrak’s ROW in Hartford.
See: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=126&t=69097&p=1043989#p1043989
And except for the fact that by using connections to a rail line using LOCAL buses both the local bus service AND the connections to downtown Hartford are improved because at a given station, the local buses will also connect with each other.
Based on the escalation of costs for the Harbor Freeway Busway in Los Angeles and the West Busway in Pittsburgh, the Busway costs will escalate to a far greater extent than the comparable rail costs.
For the grade crossings on the line, if anyone believes that the buses will be able to do better than 10 -15 miles an hour at the crossing or possibly even get priority, have them explain why this doesn’t happen on the South Miami Busway and the Los Angeles Orange Line Busway.
[…] dirty from CTfastrak’s recent groundbreaking and the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield rail line on target for completion in 2016, Connecticut has significant opportunities to implement transit-oriented […]
[…] initiative’s lead federal agency cleared its tier one environmental assessment, which examined plans to dramatically improve train infrastructure from New Haven, Connecticut to Springfield, […]