Raise Your Hand if You Want Commuter Rail

There had to be more than 100 people in Nashua's City Hall auditorium when NH Rail Transit Authority member Peter Burling stood and asked for a show of hands.

"Who here wants to see commuter rail come to New Hampshire?" he asked of the group, which was standing-room only.

Whether every single person had a hand in the air is hard to say; there were a lot of hands. But nobody had to count. That wasn't the point of the question.

Burling's point was more about the will of the people.

Wednesday, when the five members of the Executive Council gather in Concord to vote on whether to authorize the Bureau of Rail and Transit to go forward with a commuter rail study that has been long in the works, Burling suspects the vote will fail.

He suspects the will of the people, as he perceives it, will not be served.

"Please, take a moment to write or call your executive councilors. Call or write them all – they are looking for a way out of this," Burling said. "But it has to be tonight or tomorrow. Thursday is too late."

The two hour meeting got off to a slow start, as Ronald O'Blenis, Rail Project Manager for HDR consultants, gave a PowerPoint presentation with graphs and statistics on the trends and challenges of rail service in New Hampshire.

However, the conversation got good about an hour in, once the microphone was passed around the crowd for questions and comments. As Nashua Alderman Barbara Pressly noted, it was the largest, most passionate crowd she'd seen in the 30 years she's been attending such meetings on commuter rail.

And, like Pressly, the crowd was drawn to City Hall anxious to find out whether the decades-old promise of commuter rail will ever materialize.

"Six years ago we had a symposium like this at Saint Anselm, and everybody was gung-ho about the Capital Corridor. A year ago, it just disappeared. Now, you're proposing more engineering studies. What happened to all that other information? We study this to death; it's time to put this plan into action," said Stephen Takacs of Milford.

He said the first step really would be to get rail into Nashua, locating a station just over the state border in Tyngsborough. It could be done outside the restrictions of a statewide plan – something Nashua Mayor Donnalee Lozeau is well aware of, and has placed high on her to-do list for this term.

Bill Gaffney of Nashua said as much as New Hampshire would benefit from passenger rail, he believes the company that would operate the line, Porstmouth-based Pan Am Railways (formerly Guilford Rail), will never allow it.

"If you've got guys that own Pan Am, powerful men that don't want it, then you've got a problem," Gaffney said, to the presenters representing NHDOT. "I'll be dead before the Executive Council passes this. You keep giving us lip service."

Christopher Williams, president and CEO of the , said rail is pivotal to New Hampshire's economy.

"This is the single largest potential economic opportunity for our state. There is no program out there with more economic impact than bringing rail up from Lowell, and you need to take that message back to Concord with you; frankly, they're getting sick of hearing it from us," Williams said. They know our story well, and we need you to be up there advocating for us."

Opponents are against public subsidies of commuter transit, Williams said.

"Legislators think philosophically if it's so great, the private sector would fund it. But every mode of transportation is subsidized; they dcan't seem to wrap their heads around that. That argument runs counter to every other transportation project in the country," Williams said.

Figuring out whether the benefits outweigh the costs is part of what the study would bring to light, Williams said. A "yes" vote on Wednesday won't cost taxpayers a penny, and will simply allow the state to do its "due diligence" in collecting the facts needed to make a decision on the viability of a commuter rail.

"When a business looks at a decision like this, they make sure have all the facts so they have a good decision. I'm afraid the Executive Council is at risk of violating some basic business rules here, and as a president of a business oriented organization, I'm flabbergasted over this situation," Williams said.

"Right now, as I understand it, we have two councilors with us of those five, and we have two against us. The fifth, Dan St. Hiliaire, is leaning against it," Williams said.

Although the issue is not a partisan one, Williams, Burling and others agreed that politics is an inescapable part of the equation.

"Rail has been a struggle for this state for years. And while I hate to talk about the underside of our politics, there are economic interests that don't want passenger rail, people who put asphalt on our highways, some that don't like the idea of reduced dependence on I-93, and those who want to see us spend money widening 93; and bus companies, who see passenger rail as competition they don't want," Burling said.

"I don't ascribe negativity to any of that; but there are economic and political interests that do not applaud the effort we're about here," Burling said.

Resident Paul Shea, of Nashua, said he believes there's something else going on, beyond the politics.

"There's a xenophobic component to the opposition to commuter rail. There are people out there who believe providing commuter rail from Massachusetts into New Hampshire will bring people that will have a negative impact on the state, and that's just not the case," Shea said.

"The benefits to expanding commuter rail are huge, and there is a vocal minority against it, and it's apparent in the online response to news articles, and it affects public opinion to a small degree, but it's false and that thinking needs to be changed," Shea said.

The Executive Council meets March 7 to vote on the issue. If a majority of the five vote against continuing with the study, Williams said that would be a "major setback" to commuter rail and all it could do for the state economy.

"But it will not stop Nashua. No matter what happens, we will move forward more confidently and aggressively toward commuter rail," William said.

Complete contact information for NH's Executive Councilors:

• Councilor Raymond Burton, District 1 603/747-3662 (office); 603/481-0863 (car) rburton@nh.gov or ray.burton@myfairpoint.net

• Councilor Daniel St. Hilaire, District 2 603/271-3632 (office); 603-568-5515 (cell) dst.hilaire@nh.gov

• Councilor Christopher T. Sununu, District 3 603-658-1187 (home office)  csununu@nh.gov

• Councilor Raymond J. Wieczorek, District 4 603-624-1655 (home office); 603-345-0304 (cell) rwieczorek@nh.gov

• Councilor David K. Wheeler, District 5, 603-672-6062,  dwheeler@nh.gov