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Carl Fortuna: Did You Know…?

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is up to something important. Old Saybrook and its neighbors had better be paying attention.

Back in 2012 the FRA launched NEC (Northeast Corridor) FUTURE, a comprehensive planning effort to define, evaluate, and prioritize future investments in the Northeast Corridor from Washington, D.C. to Boston. The purpose of NEC Future is to consider the role of rail passenger service in the context of current and future transportation demands.

Through the NEC FUTURE program, the FRA will consider improvements to the railroad, which could dramatically impact our area. The FRA has put forth four potential initiatives: The No Action Alternative includes already planned and programmed improvements; Alternative 1, which I will discuss below; Alternative 2, which provides more train service, but importantly adds a new route between New Haven, Hartford and Providence and also providing better connections for markets in the Connecticut River Valley; and Alternative 3, which expands rail service south and north of New York City, but, most important, supports high speed rail services.

Whether you, the reader, are supportive of rail and high speed rail or whether you think Amtrak is a big waste of money, the issue before us concerns preserving what we have as a region. Alternative 1 calls for a new segment of rail titled the “Kenyon Bypass.” The new route, approximately 50 miles long, purportedly will provide a more direct, faster route than the current “circuitous existing Shoreline [route] and it circumvents the existing movable bridges over navigable waterways connected to Long Island Sound, over which daily train movements are capped by current agreements and where approval for significant increases in future train traffic will be difficult to obtain.” Building this bypass will save approximately 30 minutes of travel time.

This all sounds laudable, so what’s the catch? The new route moves northeast from Old Saybrook, builds a new bridge and literally bisects Old Lyme (and other towns further east) in several historical and commercial areas. In other words, to gain 30 minutes in travel time, Old Lyme as we know it becomes a casualty of Washington bureaucracy. Amtrak keeps an Old Saybrook train station. However, to build a new bridge with a new northeasterly route, there would be a need to alter the route here in town, but to what extent is not yet clear.

There is concern about the damage to the Connecticut River ecosystem/estuary with the construction of a new bridge (actually, two new bridges will be built as Amtrak also has plans to replace the existing bridge). Alternative 1 is a bad choice for Southeastern Connecticut and this was made clear at a press conference on Aug. 12, at which I spoke out against this alternative, along with U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Old Lyme First Selectman Bonnie Reemsnyder, State Representative Devin Carney, State Senator Paul Formica, and other area elected officials.

If you would like your voice to be heard on the NEC FUTURE, you may contact Rebecca Reyes-Alicea, U.S. DOT Federal Railroad Administration, One Bowling Green, Suite 429, New York, NY 10004. While any of these alternatives may not be constructed for a very long time and may never get funded, once selected, the chosen alternative is not meant to be changed and will become the blueprint for the next 40 years.

We all want better and safer rail. The Kenyon Bypass is not the solution. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape this discussion. I urge you to take part. You can learn more about the FRA’s plans for the NEC at the FRA website.