New Hampshire Commuter Rail Discussion

[BandA]

5307 Urbanized Area Formula Grants

All preventive maintenance and some Americans with Disabilities Act complementary paratransit service costs are considered capital costs.

For urbanized areas with populations less than 200,000, operating assistance is an eligible expense. Urbanized areas of 200,000 or more may not use funds for operating assistance unless identified by FTA as eligible under the Special Rule

The federal share is not to exceed 80 percent of the net project cost for capital expenditures. The federal share may be 90 percent for the cost of vehicle-related equipment attributable to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Clean Air Act. The federal share may not exceed 50 percent of the net project cost of operating assistance.

FY 2019 5307 Apportionment Formula.
In FY2019, there is about $10M available nationwide in the fixed-guideway tier for >200,000 population areas. I'm guessing NH would need the formula to be boosted for them to get enough. What is the Special Rule and would NH Commuter Rail be eligible?

[gokeefe]

Check the circular. The "Special Rule" appears to be as follows:

Operating assistance remained eligible in UZAs with populations less than 200,000; however, previously authorized exemptions for specific UZAs over 200,000 were repealed and replaced with a single nationwide exemption for fixed route transit operators that operate fewer than one hundred buses in peak service. Qualifying operators are eligible for operating assistance in an amount based on an individual operator’s percentage of all public transportation service in the UZA.

[gokeefe]

Click on the $5.2B in FY 2019 Apportionments to see the breakdown. There is about $900M+ available to cities with a population between 200,000 and 1,000,000. About 1/3 of that is for rail and 2/3 for bus. Depending on how the population was counted New Hampshire would stand to receive between $5M and $15M (rough guess).

I would imagine that NHDOT probably already gets some of these funds and uses them for bus service on the interstate. Pretty sure they do the same with their CMAQ funds.

[BandA]

I didn't see the starting figure & started with the wrong amount!

[John Smythe]

Think about it for a moment, when you go to figure how many riders will use the train one needs to consider those persons who live in the smaller border towns near the planned stops. If they have local bus routes then many will simply take the bus to the station to catch the train.

A majority of those train riders will weigh the costs of fuel to drive to Boston & back home, the parking fees at some rip off parking garage that can fetch up to $40 per day, the hours spent stuck in traffic jams on Rt 93, etc. Lot's of $$ to be saved. Add it all up, even the MBTA going all the way to Wickford, RI, just past T.F. Green Airport is only $13.25 one way from S. Station. We had the same problem with the Nay Sayers when the 3 Old Colony Lines commenced operation.... " Nobody's going to give up their car " yeah right..... currently some 19,000 riders a day take the train in from the South Shore

[Rockingham Racer]

And a new law is in effect

https://manchesterinklink.com/nh-passen ... blTZIjIGjY

[artman]

And a new law is in effect

https://manchesterinklink.com/nh-passen ... blTZIjIGjY

This IS a big deal. Sununu let the bill become law without his signature, which is a departure from his past ideology.

From the above link:

Senate Bill 241 utilizes a miniscule portion of the state’s abundance of toll credits to leverage federal dollars designated to fund the analysis.

I am not sure how 'toll credits' work. It is not using toll revenue (I believe) as mentioned in below article:

Another article mentioning this is todays, Union Leader

Sununu let become law without his signature a measure that allows state transportation officials to seek federal grants and to use turnpike toll spending as matching money for the development phase of restoring commuter rail service from Boston to Nashua and then on to Manchester and Concord.

As an executive councilor, Sununu opposed the project but then he signed on to the concept as part of the state’s unsuccessful bid to get Amazon to locate its second world headquarters in New Hampshire.

Sen. Melanie Levesque, D-Nashua, was the bill’s prime author.

“Passenger rail is a key component to New Hampshire’s efforts to grow our economy, ease traffic, improve commutes, and attract and retain young professionals. I’m pleased SB 241 will become law, which lifts a barrier to passenger rail in New Hampshire by allowing our state to access federal funds for an in-depth analysis of expanding rail in the Granite State,” Levesque said.

[John Smythe]

There have been many feasibility studies, plans & proposals conducted by NH DOT over the last decade regarding restoring freight and / or passenger train service along certain routes. So far I can only imagine how much money was spent undertaking such work. What do they have to show for all those dollars spent ? What physical work has taken place other than to crank out a lot of paper reports ? Monies for such undertakings have been available for years through the FRA, Federal DOT, State DOT, etc. All that's happened is the cost of steel rail, materials & labor have soared. Seems no matter how many times they keep widening the highways by the time the project is done it's time to start all over again.

Mass knows how to get money for rail projects, like the 3 Old Colony Rail Line rehabs done back in the mid - late 1990's. Dozens of miles of unused lines were rebuilt & put back into service, those being Greenbush & Plymouth. Greenbush route had not seen a freight train since the early 1980's. If there's a will, then there's a way.

[b&m 1566]

A lot of studies yes but every study done, has been needed before any shovel can hit the ground.
And as far as Sununu, allowing it to become law without his signature goes, I think it's nothing more than a political game. By not signing the bill he can be pro rail or pro anti-rail. He will sway which ever gets him votes for re-election and the fact that he didn't veto the bill, tells me the pendulum is starting to swing the other way in NH and although I question the studies, studies are showing more people in this state support rail than not and I think the law makers are realizing that. The petitions that have gone around, the cooperate sponsors pushing for rail and the fact that NH lost out on Amazon corporate office moving to NH, is starting to wake up the lawmakers in this state. There's a long way to go for NH and allowing this study to be done, by no means, means that NH is going to have commuter rail at any point in the near future, this study doesn't mean that NH is committing itself to rail.

[Tallguy]

Has this gone anywhere? Is there a study in thr offing

[b&m 1566]

I haven't heard or seen anything about the study and while searching for anything in regards to that study, I stumbled across this report, which was released last year in August. A month after Sununu, allowed the bill to be come law for the study to take place, the Capital Corridor project, was removed from the states 10 year transportation plan. See page 1 (3rd page down).

[Rockingham Racer]

Business as usual in the Granite State. Have they finished widening I-93 yet?

[jaymac]

Rockingham Racer » Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:57 am
... Have they finished widening I-93 yet?

Not yet -- there's still some vegetation left from Nashua to the Mass. border.

[codasd]

I know this has the proverbial snow balls chance with the MBTA running deficits. Since the MBTA owns the track to the NH border put a platform right by the mall parking lot. With malls turning into ghost towns they may look at it as a cheap way to get vehicles onto the property. You would need an ADA ramp to negotiate down to the platform and a dead head up for the first run in the AM. Problem is that the track appears to be class 2.

[newpylong]

Worse, Class I. It also does not make sense to have the furthest terminal with no layover facility.