A long-proposed project to link Boston and Springfield with frequent, regular passenger train service now has money for infrastructure improvements that can pave the way for a future East-West Rail passenger train line.
Dozens of Western Massachusetts residents packed into the Northampton Senior Center on Tuesday, urging policymakers to make frequent, affordable rail service connecting the state’s eastern and western halves a reality.
Gov. Charlie Baker pledged to use his remaining time in office to put the long-discussed East-West Rail expansion project in position to benefit from the new federal infrastructure law, despite a partial setback on Beacon Hill.
Senators will try to convince their House colleagues the time is right to make another pass at mandating a low-income fare program at the MBTA, reviving the specter of a gubernatorial veto during the coming late-session flurry.
Top Democrats in both branches of the state legislature are now in agreement on a plan that would carve out hundreds of millions of dollars for one-time safety funding for the MBTA and $250 million to put towards a rail expansion in western Massachusetts.
Legislative action to create a new public authority that would oversee a western Massachusetts passenger rail expansion would be “very premature,” House Speaker Ronald Mariano said Wednesday.
Legislative action to launch a long-sought passenger rail extension into western Massachusetts “certainly is being considered” among a growing to-do list, Senate President Karen Spilka said Monday, though the exact steps Beacon Hill will take remain unclear with less than eight weeks left for formal lawmaking business.
Massachusetts Democrats on Saturday afternoon endorsed Maura Healey’s quest to move from the attorney general’s office to the governor’s suite but also put Sonia Chang-Díaz on the September primary ballot, ensuring that Healey will have some intraparty competition before she could turn her full attention to any Republican opponents.
A passenger rail extension into western Massachusetts looms as one of the most impactful projects on the table now that Gov. Charlie Baker and federal officials have identified a “path forward” for it, but lawmakers still will not say what – if anything – they will do in the next two months to get the idea off the ground.
The $9.75 billion infrastructure bond bill that cleared the Transportation Committee does not include any language creating a new rail authority to oversee a passenger train extension to western Massachusetts, bucking a prediction Congressman Richard Neal made last month when he and state officials announced a historic agreement to advance the project.
Two big pieces of seemingly unrelated transit news last week are in fact signs of a political struggle coming down the track: How to adequately fund public transportation.
Federal and state officials on Tuesday agreed on a path forward to extend passenger rail service west of Worcester to the cities of Springfield and Pittsfield, an effort designed to finally connect the eastern and western parts of the state by rail.
The state, Harvard professor and gubernatorial candidate Danielle Allen argues, needs to plunge head-first into changing how Bay Staters get around
For transit advocates concerned improving the MBTA and regional transit authorities, the state’s coming windfall in federal infrastructure money represents a still-unseized opportunity whose impact will be muted unless Beacon Hill takes a more proactive role.
A passenger rail link between Boston and western Massachusetts is “one of the most essential infrastructure investments we anticipate making” now that a federal infrastructure package has been signed into law, Congressman Richard Neal said Thursday.s
The pandemic has turned the world upside-down, especially the world of work. Doesn’t that mean we should reconsider big-ticket ideas like the North-South Rail Link and East-West Rail?
If passed, President Joe Biden’s new, proposed $2 trillion infrastructure package could help jump-start a handful of long-sought transit projects in Massachusetts but it won’t transform the state overnight, advocates say.
A passenger rail expansion to western Massachusetts could attract 278,000 to 469,000 riders per year at a cost ranging between $2.4 billion and $4.6 billion, but the long-sought project will find it very difficult to attract federal funding, a new analysis says.
A new state study of a high-speed rail connection between Boston and western Massachusetts would only draw several hundred new riders per day, but assumed the line would not spur new development or cause people to move.
Cost estimates, ridership models and more analysis of a long-sought passenger rail connection between Boston and western Massachusetts will become more clear Thursday when a committee of the state Department of Transportation releases a study of the topic.
