Worcester trying to relocate CSX's Shrewsbury truck station
Grant Welker
The CSX freight rail yard is causing friction with city leaders who say street traffic to and from the facility is hurting quality of life for nearby residents.
The Worcester city administration is working to relocate a Shrewsbury truck transfer station closer to the CSX rail yard to cut down on the number of trucks passing through residential city streets.
City Manager Edward Augustus told the City Council last week he has been working with the Route 20 business to find a location closer to the CSX facility off Grafton Street near downtown to help solve the longstanding conflict between the industrial property and residents who say the trucks are a nuisance and potential danger to the neighborhood.
About 250 truck trips a week go to a yard at Routes 20 and 140 in Shrewsbury leased and operated by G&U Logistix, a Hopedale contractor for CSX. Shaun Keefe, the G&U president, said he's open to finding 8 to 10 acres of space closer to the rail yard.
"We're looking to relocate, something that makes sense for everybody," Keefe said. "We understand the frustration of the residents, but it's a legal route, and we travel it."
A few potential sites are being looked at to host a truck transfer station closer to CSX, Augustus said.
"This is a private vendor," Augustus said of the station owner, "and we've got to find another private vendor who would be willing on his terms to rent that space and let this deal happen."
Trucks using the Shrewsbury site handle overflow shipping containers when the CSX yard needs additional room between the time when trains drop off containers and trucks come to deliver it to their destination. Those trucks travel down Grafton and Hamilton streets to Lake Avenue to Route 20, Keefe said, a trip of about six miles in each direction.
Worcester officials have more broadly sought to cut down on truck traffic through all of Grafton Hill, which has many streets lined with a mix of businesses, single-family and multifamily homes.
"If you take 150 trucks out of that neighborhood, people will notice it," Augustus said.
The rail freight yard is an economic driver for Worcester but one causing enough traffic from trucks picking up shipments that signs have been installed on the Massachusetts Turnpike telling drivers to use I-290 to get to the facility, not through back roads that GPS suggests. Trucks leaving the CSX yard onto Grafton Street are restricted from taking left turns, but some truck drivers take a right turn only to end up looping back again, councilors said.
CSX completed a $100-million expansion of its facility in 2012 and extended its entrance from Franklin Street to Grafton Street.
The rail company has said it works to limit impacts on neighbors whenever possible, including encouraging drivers - who are not CSX employees - to make only right turns leaving the rail yard. Those efforts include regular briefings with drivers and their superiors, the company says.
City councilors Candy Mero-Carlson and George Russell, whose districts include the CSX yard and Grafton Street corridor, respectively, have led a push for further action from the city.
"The people on Grafton Hill want to know, and the people on Grafton Hill want to make sure that it's not on the back burner, because it's an issue that affects their lives on a daily basis, on an hourly basis," Russell said.
Other than asking G&U to move, the city may be restricted otherwise in how much it can do.
Only the state can ban trucks on particular roads, said Augustus, and a traffic study would have to show truck traffic is enough of a burden to force a ban. The city is planning a traffic study this fall as a first step.
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