Selectmen Revote To Back Commuter Rail Train At Gillette Stadium

FOXBOROUGH, MA — The Foxborough Board of Selectmen will continue to support a proposal to bring the commuter rail to town.

The board voted 4-1 at their meeting Tuesday to continue to back a pilot program at the Gillette Stadium platform, despite the possibility of a layover station if the pilot is successful. The vote was identical to the first one, with Selectman Ginny Coppola being the only board member to vote no.

Town Manager Bill Keegan said he visited the Greenbush layover station in Scituate, telling the board that the trains were plugged in and not running. He also got to test the sound wall that was constructed for the nearby neighbors.

“I was able to go around the sound wall to see if you could hear anything and you could not hear a thing. The observations I made were, it was pretty quiet and pretty well constructed and saw very little impact in that respect,” Keegan said.

The observation was different than that of Coppola’s, who said she could smell diesel fuel and hear the trains from behind the wall. She called on the Kraft Group and the MBTA to guarantee the town a seat in the process in writing.

“How can you guarantee people on (North Street) that they will not be negatively affected? We took a walk in that neighborhood behind that wall, I wouldn’t buy there. It’s not a pretty neighborhood,” Coppola said.

Dan Krantz of the Kraft Group said the town would not be excluded from the process.

“I’m going to call it do the right thing. If the pilot is successful, we the Kraft Group will do the right thing. The bottom line is the buck is going to stop here. It’s our property, we don’t want to do something that diminishes the value of our property, we don’t want to do something that diminishes the value of our neighbors. We’re committed to working with the town to get this right. Trust in us, we’re going to do the right thing,” Krantz said.

Much has been made about a possible layover station at the stadium. Figures from a 2010 memorandum of agreement between the Kraft Group and the MBTA shows a possible layover station near North Street. Krantz told the board the figure was a placeholder and not a definitive location for train storage.

“We have the right with the MBTA to find alternative locations, we just wanted a placeholder.
Obviously we’re going to try to keep it away from residents, keep it away from North Street as much as possible,” Krantz said.

Keegan remained supportive of the project, noting that the four train stations in his former town of employment Dedham were an economic plus for the area. He added that most of the objection to the train station was coming from towns that already have commuter rail service.

If the 11-month pilot is approved and is successful, the MBTA will look to bring full time service from Foxborough to South Station in Boston. About 500 parking spots will be made available for commuters.

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