MA Transportation Secretary Tours Framingham
Massachusetts Transportation Secretray Richard Davey toured Framingham and Ashland Friday with State Sen. Karen Spilka. A focus was the rail crossings through donwtown in both these communities.
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Friday, Sen. Karen Spilka welcomed Massachusetts Department of Transportation Secretary Richard Davey to the MetroWest region and gave him a tour of the important infrastructure and transportation projects and needs in the towns of Framingham and Ashland.
Many residents in these two towns have concerns about dealing with additional traffic congestion if commuter rail service is expanded in the region without having the infrastructure to deal with these impacts.
"Access to public transportation is critical to maintain a high quality of life for residents and expanding commuter rail service in our region will help ensure the economic vibrancy of these communities and their residents,” said Spilka in a press release. “As two towns centrally located in the MetroWest region, Framingham and Ashland need support in having their infrastructure needs met and assisting these municipalities is essential to maintaining the level of economic activity MetroWest businesses and the quality of life MetroWest residents enjoy."
The two first stopped at the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority in Framingham, where the Authority's Administrator Ed Carr gave Davey and Spilka a tour of the building and facilites.
Carr accompanied Spilka and Davey as they visited the downtown Framingham commuter rail station to view the Route 126/Route 135 at-grade train crossing on the Worcester-Boston line as well as the CSX freight rail yards.
The tour concluded just a few miles west in Ashland Center, where the group viewed the at-grade train crossing, also along the Worcester-Boston line.
Residents and town officials have worked to convey the need for improvements to offset impacts due to increased train and freight activity in downtown areas, including impacts on the economic well-being, delivery of public safety services, and the quality of life of citizens abutting the railroad tracks in these two communities.
Lloyd Kaye
1:22 pm on Saturday, October 29, 2011
Im glad they toured.....but we need a 5 billion dollar project to sink the tracks between the framingham Natick line west to ashland. The money is available...on the national level. The project would imporve the entire central New england rail system...both frieght and passanger. I worked on the rail crossing commitee for 2 years prior to all its work being wasted by the BOS as they disbanded the committee before it was completed with its work....since then there has been no policy and more wasted years.......going over the same information ....The committee ....like other committees was wasted by the BOS.... time and wasted dollars......and no central policy..... all things we could have had 3 , 4 or 5 years ago. .
Jim Rizoli
2:10 pm on Saturday, October 29, 2011
I'll be dead and gone before this problem ever gets fixed.
Jim@ccfiile.com
Susan Petroni
2:52 pm on Saturday, October 29, 2011
Jim, this is an issue I can agree with you on.
It seems like there has been lots of talk, many tours, but very little movement on actually fixing the issue.
Brenda Crawshaw
3:15 pm on Saturday, October 29, 2011
My question is, did they take the train here or did they drive?
Recently I had a conversation with someone ruing the debacle that is trying to get anywhere around the downtown area and we agreed that we will do just about ANYTHING to avoid going to or through that area at pretty much any time of the day. How can that area EVER flourish if people can't get to it? Add in the fact that the Pike is stuck from 7 am to 10 am every weekday, route 9 is just as bad...............it's almost getting to be like LA with an all day rush hour! I heard the other day that they are thinking about putting some kind of "driver's tax" on commuters and as much as I agree that the people who drive the most should be the ones to contribute the most to the upkeep of the roads they travel, that simply isn't even remotely viable until a reasonable alternative is made available to everyone.
Papabarn
9:27 pm on Saturday, October 29, 2011
Well, at least if it's decided to depress the tracks from the Natick area through Ashland, they won't be worrying about funding from CSX, whereas the state bought the line. Of course it will cost the state more in that CSX owns the yards, the Leominster secondary and the Mansfield secondary and holds trackage rights so must be accomodated. Add in the engineering challenges posed by being adjacent to and crossing wetlands and waterways/water bodies. The cost of this humongeous ditch is going to be of a smaller scale "big dig". It will necessitate some temporary road closures as grade crossings are converted to bridges, so will disrupt traffic patterns. Although business and tenants in the vicinity of the crossings in question would undoubtedly object vociferously and it would involve some "eminent domain" property takings, it may be far less costly and disruptive to go under the tracks. Either way, what with the economy and the state's fiscal situation, I can't honestly see the funding for such a project anytime soon.
Maybe taking up the trolley tracks back in the 30's wasn't such a great idea after all..