By RYAN J. HALLIDAY, Telegraph Staff
Published: Saturday, Jul. 28, 2007
NASHUA – With a few flicks of his pen Friday, the governor created an independent authority charged with restoring commuter rail service from Massachusetts to the city and throughout the Granite State.
Flanked by state lawmakers, city officials, business leaders and rail boosters, Gov. John Lynch signed into law a bill creating the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority at a City Hall ceremony.
The 27-member authority will develop and manage the return of passenger rail service from Lowell, Mass., to Nashua and Manchester and possibly to other points in the state.
Lynch called the creation of the new authority “a significant step forward in the effort to bring commuter rail back to New Hampshire.”
“Re-establishing rail in New Hampshire is critical to our future economic growth as a state,” Lynch said. “It well help reduce congestion on our roads, improving public safety and reducing air pollution.”
Southern New Hampshire has been without daily commuter train service for more than 40 years. An experimental federal pilot program that briefly brought passenger rail from Lowell to Concord ended in 1981.
Sen. Joseph Foster, D-Nashua, one of the bill’s nine co-sponsors, said returning commuterfor the economy, good for the environment, and it’s going to be great for the quality of life of my constituents and the people of New Hampshire.”
The authority’s mandates include:
• securing federal and state funding;
• purchasing and leasing land;
• negotiating deals with other transit authorities, governments and railway companies, including the current right-of-way owners of the rail-line;
• setting and collecting fares;
• and establishing rail schedules.
The authority will also have the power to issue bonds once the service is up and running, take land by eminent domain, and survey private property.
The authority’s first goal is to extend the rail from Lowell to Nashua and then on to Manchester.
But the new law also empowers the authority to bring the service to other parts of the state, including Concord, if deemed practical. Communities represented in the authority include several municipalities scattered beyond the Nashua-Manchester-Concord Corridor.
For now, stations along the route are expected to be built in downtown Manchester, at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport and in southern Nashua.
Stephen Williams, the executive director of the Nashua Regional Planning Commission, said the city is hoping to buy a parcel of land in southern Nashua that would be ideal for a new rail station.
The land, roughly 6 acres in size, is between exits 1 and 2 along Route 3, parallel to the Merrimack River and Daniel Webster Highway.
Williams declined to name the sight because the city has not begun negotiating with the owner but did say the city hopes to acquire the land by the end of this year. The site is large enough to accommodate a rail station and parking for between 600 and 700 vehicles, he said.
Roughly 95-percent of the purchase would be funded through state and federal grants, leaving the city to pick up somewhere between $200,000 and $500,000 of the remaining tab, Williams said.
While Lynch said he looked forward to someday taking a train trip to Boston to catch a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, the governor conceded that the rail service wouldn’t be ready by the end of this season.
The law does not set a specific timetable for the authority to restore the rail service.
The authority’s board of directors will meet yearly and issue annual reports, but the state Legislature will not formally review its progress until 2012.
Finding funding for the rail line extension will be the main challenge for the authority. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that the state constitution prohibited the state from tapping into the gas tax to pay for the project.
Under federal law, state and local authorities must commit at least 20 percent of the funding for the rail.
The authority will be able to borrow money against its operating revenue once the rail service is running but will need to rely on federal funding to get the wheels moving.
The rail lines from Lowell to Nashua and Manchester are owned by the Pan-Am Railways and are now used for freight travel. It could cost as much as $80 million to connects the lines and upgrade the railway for the much faster commuter service.
The state has set aside $1 million in matching funds from the capital budget to build railway station platforms in Nashua and Manchester. And the federal government has committed more than $20 million to the project so far.
Besides funding, the other major stumbling block is the issue of liability. State lawmakers are still debating whether to impose a $75 million liability cap for damages incurred in rail accidents.
The authority’s 27-member board of directors will be comprised of officials from Nashua, Merrimack, Bedford, Manchester, Concord, Dover, Durham, Exeter, Rockingham, Strafford, Claremont, Franklin and Berlin.
Members of the state Senate and House of Representatives, planning commissions from the central and southern New Hampshire and the Upper Valley Lake Sunapee regions, and a representative from the Manchester Airport will also join the board of directors.
Wayne Gagne, the chairman of the Commuter Rail Advisory Committee who has advocated for the train service for 17 years, called Friday’s bill signing “a great moment for the state.”
“I know what a commuter rail can do for the communities and the economy,” said Gagne, who has worked in the railroad business for 34 years. “Our citizens need to have another mode of public transportation.”
