Businesses Anticipate Expansion Of North County Commuter Line | Feds will spend to extend line west from Fitchburg
Daniel Nigrosh owns a 250,000-square-foot refurbished industrial mill in West Fitchburg just about a mile off of Route 2 that he’s hoping to turn into an office park, complete with a restaurant or pub.
Nigrosh was confident in his development plans. But news that the federal government will spend $55 million on a new train station across the street from his development was icing on the cake.
Local and federal officials are hoping the extensions of the Fitchburg commuter rail line and the addition of a new station will attract commuters from points west of Fitchburg and will encourage more travelers to make an outbound commute to North Central Massachusetts.
“Something like a new train station could really bring a lot of new people to the area that are currently traveling further down Route 2 to get into Boston,” said Nigrosh, who also owns CanAm Machinery, also of Fitchburg, which sells used paper-making machines. “This could be a big deal for this area.”
Railroad Ties
The project coincides with a $200 million plan to cut the commuting time from Fitchburg to Boston by about 30 minutes on the train. Combined, officials and businesses in North Worcester County are hoping the improvements and expansions will spell a boon for business in the area.
Earlier this year U.S. Rep. John Olver, D-1st District, secured a $55 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER grant, for building a new Wachusett train station about 4.5 miles past the current last stop on the line. The project would also build a new 300-car parking garage and would construct a new layover facility in Westminster to store trains overnight.
Officials are hoping for the project to be “substantially complete” by February 2012.
One reason the timetable and budget are realistic is because the track is already in place, it just hasn’t been used for commuter rail service in decades.
The railway is owned by Pan Am Railways of North Billerica, which, along with Norfolk Southern of Norfolk, Va., operates the Pan Am Southern Railway from New York to Ayer. Pan Am has agreed to allow the transit authority access to the tracks.
Fitchburg Mayor Lisa Wong, who will soon have two train stations in the city of Fitchburg, said the new Wachusett station in West Fitchburg will be a “collection point” for commuters from towns west of Fitchburg that currently do not travel the few miles off the highway to go to the downtown Fitchburg commuter rail station.
Ridership along the Fitchburg commuter rail line has been increasing for the past few years, according to Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority records.
In May 2005, an estimated 255 passengers took the one-way trip from Fitchburg to Boston each day. The next year, it rose to 286, followed by 363 in 2006. Last year 440 passengers took the train from Fitchburg to Boston and in February 2009, the latest available data, 462 passengers made the trip.
Ridership in Fitchburg has increased about 20 percent in the last three years alone.
Officials estimate that about 10 percent of the riders that get on the train between Fitchburg and Littleton come from points west of Fitchburg, which has led to overcrowding of some of those stations.
Economic Impact
At least one business, OMNOVA Solutions Inc., a liquid polymer manufacturer, is hoping the expanded commuter rail service could soon lead to expanded freight service in the Fitchburg Industrial Park, which is near the site of the new station and houses about a dozen businesses.
Dan Flint, director of operations for the Fitchburg OMNOVA plant, said the company has been looking to ship via freight instead of truck as a way to cut costs. The company imports raw materials from as far away as Texas and exports products across the country.
There is a rail line that runs within about 70 yards of the company’s manufacturing facility, he said.
“Having that commuter rail station makes reestablishment of the freight service much more likely,” he said.
Flint said he’ll be working with local and federal officials as well as Pan Am to explore possibilities for extending freight service, but he said, a major first step is to rehabilitate the rail line, which the Wachusett project will do.
Ward McLaughlin owns Boutwell, Owens and Co. in the Fitchburg Industrial Park. He said having a new train station will allow workers to commute in from Boston and work easily in the Industrial Park. Plus, he said, it will be easier for visitors, both business and tourists, to visit the North Central area.
“This is a huge positive for the region, to be able to have better options for your workers and visitors to be able to take public transportation,” he said.
Mary Ellen Blunt, transportation program manager for the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission, which does not reach as far as Fitchburg in the North County, said she’s happy to see investments into public transportation projects.
But, Blunt and Worcester-area officials are working hard on their own train improvement projects, including efforts to expand commuter rail service between Framingham and Worcester.
Blunt said she’s hoping that when the Worcester projects are ready for federal funding they too will see support from the government.
“It’s too early to say how much and when we’ll need that funding, but as time goes on we just want to make sure we’ll be able to get our share of the pie, too,” she said.
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