gokeefe wrote:I believe it has been said more than once that the T has the passenger rights in New Hampshire to a certain point.
Confirmed.
In 2011, The MBTA/MassDOT acquired the rights to operate passenger service on the Lowell/NH line as far as Concord as part of the larger land-swap deal with PanAm (PanAm and its North Point real estate partners get rights to Old Lechmere in exchange for various parcels and rights for GLX and other things (like Worcester-Ayer))
Then the question would be if BSRR could be nominated by MassDOT as operator of a Lowell to NH service, even as it nominates Keolis to operate its other lines. As long as the service is passenger, I don't see why it couldn't be legally papered to everyone's satisfaction.
And I don't think MassDOT would consider BSRR "competition" (or call that a bad thing) any more than it calls the Downeaster competition--and it certainly considers the Downeaster officially a Good Thing. Everyone is fully aware of the "kinda" overlap with the Haverhill & Lowell lines, and everyone's happy with it as a mobility win, not a turf loss.
If the shareholders of BSRR are risk-seeking (dumb) enough to stake big $ on operating commuter service with MassDOT's blessing, I don't see why PAR would get to play spoiler.
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