>>1462097NH anon again
>T to Greenfield via FitchburgAlready proposed and being studied right now, actually. I think that even if it doesn't get all the way to Greenfield it'll at least get to Gardner. Athol doesn't deserve a train, that place is a shithole, but they'll get it anyways. I think the logic is that if you go to Gardner it's probably worthwhile to just go all the way to Greenfield, especially now that CTRail goes up there a few times a day. My money is on it happening by 2030 for sure.
>South Coast Rail Phase 1They'll absolutely make Cape Flyer service a regular thing and preserve the existing station, if there's anything I'm certain of it's that the dirty townies down on the Cape will threaten to vote Republican again and re-elect Charlie Baker if they don't get their train and their pal Charlie will probably ensure they get it now that he's so strongly involved in the management of the T after he gave much of their board the boot.
>>1462099I'm not sure that this needs to happen, the Shore Line East is underutilized already relative to its capacity and that stretch of Coast is pretty undeveloped compared to the rest of the Northeast Corridor. There are a solid dozen commuter rail projects Connecticut should focus on before extending the Shore Line East to Providence, namely:
- Extend the Metro North to Hartford via Bristol and New Britain
- Re-electrify the Danville Branch
- Extend regular passenger service north of Danville to Pittsfield, MA or at least just generally north in some capacity
- Some sort of parallel service to the CTRail service from New Haven to Hartford going east of the existing service via Middletown (would also have the side benefit of rehabilitating freight service on that line to balance the inland port being built by Pan Am in Naugatuck
- Some sort of service between New London and Worcester via Norwich paralleling I-395
