The Vermonter gets healthy boost, but Burlington rail overlooked
Main Street Landing
Burlington Free Press
ESSEX JUNCTION — Melinda Moulton has been waiting more than a dozen years for Amtrak to pull into Burlington’s Union Station.
A day after residents learned The Vermonter line won a $50.5 million grant — helping slice 80 minutes off a trip from St. Albans to New York City and Washington, D.C. — rail advocates and state officials considered how best to rebound from the rejection a $71.5 million grant application to connect Burlington to the Ethan Allen Express and New York’s Penn Station.
Moulton, CEO and redeveloper of Main Street Landing, renovated the Burlington train station in 1997. She is pleased that stimulus money will support high-speed rail in Vermont, but bemoaned Burlington’s rejection.
“The state’s largest city needs to have rail service,” Moulton said.
Gov. Jim Douglas said efforts continue to search for money to build the “western corridor,” which would bring trains to Burlington. “That was our first choice,” Douglas said. “We’re still looking for ways to make that happen.”
Options include shuffling other federal stimulus money or going back and asking Congress for additional support, he said.
Moulton has another suggestion: “I built the station, and I waited and waited for the train,” she said. “Let’s get Amtrak to Burlington. This is a no-brainer. We have an earmark that is sitting there for this. Let’s spend it. Let’s get it done,” she said, referring to more than $20 million secured by former Sen. Jim Jeffords.
Burlington was connected to the rail network in 1850 but hasn’t been served by passenger trains since 1953, according to Vermont Rail Action Network. The grants leaked Wednesday night were part of the $8 billion in stimulus money dedicated to improving the U.S. rail network. The Northeast won $485 million in grants, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. John Zicconi, a spokesman for the Vermont Transportation Agency, said the improvements to The Vermonter will create 411 jobs, 363 of which are in construction.
Tightening security restrictions, which have made air travel more time-consuming and arduous, and fuel prices, which are about $1 a gallon higher than a year ago, have combined to make train travel more appealing.
Soon-Ja Park, 74, who caught The Vermonter in Essex Junction on Thursday morning bound for New York City, usually flies JetBlue but finds the train “very relaxing,” particularly because train travelers don’t have to endure security and baggage checks.
Moulton said she continues to hope downtown Burlington will have train service by the end of 2011. “I don’t want to take my eye off that ball,” she said.
Vermont has $22 million to $23 million in federal money secured by Jeffords that is dedicated to the western corridor that has not been spent, said Jeff Munger, a former Jeffords aide who is a transportation policy adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
That money alone is insufficient to establish a Burlington rail link. “It would get us toward that, but I don’t think it would complete it,” said Christopher Parker, executive director of Vermont Rail Action Network.
Funding needs to be found, he said. “This is important. This is a priority for Vermont … . We are not dropping it,” Parker said.
Zicconi agreed. “We have not given up on the western corridor,” he said.
There might be another $2.5 billion in federal money available next year for more rail projects, he said. “It does look like there will be another round of grants,” Zicconi said. “We are very poised to submit this application again.”
A congressional earmark could also be used to supplement the money obtained by Jeffords. “That’s always a possibility,” Zicconi said. “If they were to come up with an earmark for that, we could definitely put it to work.”
Parker said how to get the money is “a question of strategy” on which the congressional delegation must take the lead.
In addition to winning funding for The Vermonter, the state also won $500,000 to help pay for a $1 million study for potential rail service between Rutland and Bennington, Zicconi said. That approval, he said, is “a very good harbinger for the future of the western corridor” and should encourage the state to continue efforts to secure the money for rail improvements.
‘The Vermonter’ boost
Combined with another $110 million in work that will be done along The Vermonter line in central Massachusetts and Connecticut, 80 minutes will be sliced from the total trip time. That would cut a trip from Essex Junction to New York to a little more than 8 hours, down from 9 hours and 40 minutes. The reduction puts the train closer to the drive-time, which is about six hours, depending on traffic.
New England Central Railway, which owns rail line in Vermont, also plans to invest $5 million to improve sections of the track. The roughly $55 million in improvements will allow speeds of up 79 mph, about 20 mph faster than the route’s current top speed, said Charles Hunter, director of state relations for Jacksonville, Fla.-based RailAmerica, the parent company of New England Central Railroad.
The improvements would shave about 30 minutes from a trip through Vermont, he said. The work will be complete within two years, Zicconi said, noting 45 miles of track will be improved.
People boarding the 9 a.m. southbound train from Essex Junction on Thursday morning praised the federal support.
Robert Hoehn, 23, was heading to Princeton, N.J., about an 11-hour journey. Shaving time off the trip is needed, he said. “There are really slow parts. It just drags and drags and drags.”
Hoehn said he passes the time by watching DVDs about Sherlock Holmes. “If you don’t have any form of entertainment, it’s really boring,” he said.
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