It’s easy to be negative about the media. For me anyway. That’s mostly because I’m a contrarian living a contrary lifestyle and writing a blog thereon. So when I read a news item that inverts all my negative expectations it raises my hopes tremendously.
Not only is east-west rail up for a some serious study but connecting the valley from north to south is in the negotiation phase of actually being put in place in conjunction with the brand new Hartford Line of CT Rail! It only makes sense, but that’s the point.
Connecticut’s budgetary woes aren’t helped by the outlays required for the expansion of commuter rail from New Haven to Springfield. Obviously, if any part of the line needed to suffer cutbacks, the Massachusetts spur would come first. The Commonwealth coming up with some money to throw Connecticut’s way to run some extra trains north to Greenfield both gets the Bay State piece taken care of for less than if MassDOT had to put together the whole thing from scratch, (Keeping in mind that the newly renovated station in Springfield, the brand new station in Greenfield, the recently added platforms in Holyoke, and Northampton, and the modernized rails themselves have already been not only paid for but completed) and can reaffirm the Nutmeg State’s commitment to the program as it extends north of Hartford by making it worthwhile financially.
As I have written here on a number of occasions, as much as connecting to Boston would be beneficial, history and current data both demonstrate that Springfield is more closely related to Connecticut than greater Boston.
The icing on the cake of the article is the dismissive attitude of the state official to talk of expansion of highway exits on the turnpike. The state understands, I think, that encouraging sprawl in the Hilltowns would end up costing Massachusetts millions of dollars in infrastructure expansion, all the while negatively impacting both the rural and agricultural hinterlands and the urban areas, where billions have already been invested in infrastructure the use of which will not be maximized if the population decants to the hills.
Sarte? Cute. Hell is other off ramps…
The problem with our current transportation system is that we’ve built almost nothing but dispersed auto oriented places since WWII. You can’t connect a suburban subdivision with another suburban subdivision with a train. Trains only work when they connect one compact, walkable, productive, dynamic place with another compact, walkable, productive, dynamic place. Society simply doesn’t have the money or desire to rebuild the rail system or the traditional urbanism that goes with it.
Since most Americans occupy the suburban landscape and are financially and emotionally attached to it we’re going to spend whatever remaining juice we have on propping it all up with various patches. Collective mini van commuter shuttles will replace the individual fleets of family vehicles. This will occur for the simple reason that declining household incomes will force families to own fewer cars whether they like it or not. Cash strapped government agencies will find new ways to extract fees and taxes for road maintenance, and insurance companies will use new technology to jack up premiums for bad drivers (and we’re all bad drivers.) So suburbia will limp along for a long time, but with reduced circumstances.
Keep in mind, there are suburbs, and then there are suburbs… The best locations and sturdiest buildings will endure and be modified for the requirements of the future. But the cheap vinyl sided particle board extrusions randomly smeared on the side of the highway may be the first to go.
Being an outlier and a backwater during the most manic phase of postwar growth has left this region with a good dozen communities or more made up mostly of traditional development and a handful of those towns/cities are on the north/south rail line. Connect Springfield, Holyoke, Northampton, Greenfield, and Brattleboro and you have some varied urbanism, and not a little to do and see.
We have “sprawl” of course, but not nearly as much: the Wal-Mart here is almost 30 years old with no thoughts of expanding down the road. There is no “down the road”. It’s woods, and no one believes that there will be enough demand to sell 1,000 McMansions in Monson or Palmer.
When most of the growth is metastatic, not growing much isn’t a bad thing!
Hooray for improved rail networks and non-expansion of wasteful car infrastructure–glad to hear it.
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