White River Junction
The plan, and the sometimes-fractious relationship between railroad companies and the town of Hartford, were among the subjects discussed at the Hotel Coolidge Wednesday night, where the Vermont Transportation Board capped off a series of public discussions about the future of rail.
The event drew about 30 train enthusiasts, former railroad workers, public planners, engineers, municipal officials, and those who’d just like to get a night’s sleep without being woken by a train whistle.
John Zicconi, executive secretary of the board, led the discussion with a presentation about the proposed expansion, which is seen as a way to help accommodate an increase in ridership from 57,000 to 107,000 over the past 10 years.
Chuck Bohi, a train buff and former state legislator, said the transportation needs of many state residents remain unmet by rail. For example, he said, he needs to drive to Albany to take a train to many parts of the country.
“The fact that a Vermonter can’t get to Florida conveniently by train is just — wow,” he said.
Backers of the expansion say it will help to meet the Vermont Energy Plan’s goal of 400,000 annual passengers by 2030.
The expansion is made possible by a 2015 treaty signed between the U.S. and Canada, but many of the details — including how to operate a border custom stop, and who will pay for the track — are still being negotiated.
The state spends about $35 million a year on its rail infrastructure, which includes 578 miles of track, 94 percent of which is operated by Vermont Rail Systems or Genesee & Wyoming, Inc.
Chris Andreasson, a Wilder resident and a member of the Vermont Agency of Transportation’s advisory Rail Council, said that the plan “sounds wonderful,” but he worried about the tax impact.
“We need to also have a realistic assessment as to what the cost is going to be and make an educated choice,” he said.
Hartford Selectman Alan Johnson said any such assessment should take into account the costs of leaving the full burden of transporting freight and people on trucking over roadways, an option that is often cited as more costly.
Many in the audience urged the state to address poor relationships between the railroad companies and the communities through which their tracks run; local officials said the fault lies with the companies which, granted exemption from many local and state requirements, rarely communicate with locals about their plans.
“I live about a mile from the tracks up on a hill in a suburban neighborhood, and at 2 or 3 a.m., I can hear that whistle blowing, to the point if I’m not sleeping well it will wake me up,” Johnson said.
He said that both sides can gain by working together.
“The local community can obviously do a lot of things or not do a lot of things to make life more difficult for the railroad. We’re interdependent,” Johnson said. “If the railroad wants to survive and thrive … that’s not going to happen without community engagement and involvement.”
Lori Hirshfield, director of Hartford’s planning department, said the town is often taken by surprise.
“All of a sudden, we look and there’s something happening in the rail yard, which has an impact in terms of noise and truck levels,” she said.
“That’s one bad thing about the railroad industry and the people of Vermont, is they can’t get together,” said Fred Bailey, a former Green Mountain Railroad worker, who recommended that people support federal railroad reform legislation proposed by U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.
“Maybe something will change. But unless it does on the federal level, I don’t see much chance of anything changing,” Bailey said.
People expressed different points of view about railroad safety.
Zicconi said that five people have died in railroad accidents over the past 12 months; it was unclear whether one of the people in that total was Windsor teen Nicolas Siciliano, who was killed at the age of 18 in November 2015 in a West Hartford train accident that also seriously injured 16-year-old Aaron Simoneau Jr., also of Windsor.
Zicconi said the state is addressing train accidents in part by increasing enforcement actions against those who trespass across train tracks, an approach that some in the audience found agreeable.
But others said the railroads need to be more proactive in removing the incentive for people to cross the tracks as a matter of convenience.
Hartford Selectman Simon Dennis, one of more than 20 people who were warned or cited for trespassing on railroad property in White River Junction during a six-month period in 2014, said sporadic bouts of ticketing residents won’t solve the problem of train tracks that cleave neighborhoods in two.
“There are people, and there need to be, big portions of the population living in the downtown area who don’t have cars or don’t rely on cars for primary means of transportation. The policy that crossing the tracks constitutes trespassing, to me that’s not an effective policy,” Dennis said. “It’s just always going to happen because of the way in which the neighborhoods are configured, and it becomes a hardship for a community that is already facing hardships.”
Running the Vermonter into Canada would be part of a larger expansion plan that includes extending the Ethan Allen Express Amtrak service from Rutland to Burlington.
Since mid-October, the board has hosted similar public discussions in Vergennes, Newport, Rutland, Brattleboro, St. Albans and Burlington.
Comments from the discussion will be incorporated into a report from the Transportation Board to the Legislature.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.