A southbound Amtrak Vermonter train waits at the Holyoke train station. Pioneer Valley officials are pushing for more frequent connectivity between Springfield and Boston, currently served by Amtrak’s once-a-day Lake Shore Limited which runs from Chicago to Boston. Photo courtesy of Pi.1415926535 / CC BY-SA 3.0
Did you know nearly three-quarters of a million Bay Staters call Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties home? Collectively known as the Pioneer Valley, this region’s transportation system spans across urban, suburban and rural communities and aims to get residents and visitors where they need to go.
While the majority of commuters still take to the area’s highways and byways each day, there are some recent developments in public transit we at the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission see as great opportunities to allow more valley denizens to forgo the car keys when heading to work, medical appointments, school and shopping, among other critical destinations.
Currently our region’s north-south rail corridor is serviced by a once-a-day Amtrak Vermonter line that runs from the Canadian border to Washington, D.C. This limited schedule means that anyone taking the train from stations in Holyoke, Northampton or Greenfield to popular destinations like New York City will have to spend the night, as there are no later return trains available. This makes rail a cost-prohibitive option, but recently there’s been reason for optimism as Connecticut launched the Hartford Line running from New Haven to Springfield’s newly renovated Union Station via Hartford.
Strengthening Connections to the South and East
Valley leadership is now making the necessary preparations for an expansion of passenger rail availability along this key economic corridor. Two of these Hartford Line trains will now continue up-valley to these aforementioned northern hubs and back on a two-year pilot program, making it possible for a businessperson in Holyoke to meet with clients in Manhattan or a UMass-Amherst student to take an internship at one of Hartford’s many financial service employers. Recently $350,000 has been allocated for marketing of the service, set to kick off this September, and more work is left to be done to ensure the most ideal scheduling for users, as well as a discussion around equitable fares.
Pat Beaudry
The Valley also continues to push for passenger rail connectivity between the commonwealth’s third-largest city, Springfield, and Boston. Similar to the Vermonter, the East-West corridor is currently served by a once-a-day Amtrak Lake to Shore Limited line, which presents the same challenges of scheduling and subsequent cost-prohibitiveness.
Thankfully, due in no small part to the region’s collective advocacy, a study is now underway to assess options and understand costs for a robust service connecting the affordability of the Valley with the red-hot Greater Boston economy. The report is due the first quarter of 2020. We hope to see common-sense proposals that earnestly seek to span the relatively short distances between Pittsfield and Springfield to the already highly-used track east of Worcester – now serviced regularly by the MBTA’s commuter rail network.
With all this potential passenger rail expansion, Valley planners also continue to address what is known as last-mile connectivity – essentially how folks get to and from these train platforms to their ultimate destinations. On that score, our region is having mixed results. While we are heartened to see the ValleyBike Share program expand to a sixth community in only its second year of existence, with stations located outside of Springfield, Holyoke and Northampton’s platforms, our regional transit authority has faced financial difficulty as state and federal support has not kept up with inflation. For the past three years, the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA) has cut service, raised fares and flexed capital funds into operations to stave off even deeper service reductions.
Getting the funding formula corrected to recognize the PVTA’s status as the only other Tier 1 regional transit authority in Massachusetts other than the MBTA will be critical to ensuring folks can get to where they need to go, including to what will hopefully be the Valley’s extensive passenger rail options of the future.
Pat Beaudry is the manager of public affairs for the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, the state-designated regional planning agency for the 43 cities and towns of Hampden and Hampshire counties.
