I did make it to the Transportation Committee meeting; fortunately, the rail item was first up. Again, remember that I am not a professional reporter, although this time I did have a pen and paper with me.
Essentially, the item was initially about
this memo from the previous meeting, a proposed charge (apparently submitted by Councilor Marshall) for a Rail Task Force that covered such things as compiling an inventory of Portland rail lines, collating what has gone before in terms of studies, etc. The committee's staff person (whose name I am not going to use here) said that, rather than assembling a committee to do that sort of thing, she was prepared to put together a briefing book for the committee that would take care of a lot of that, using info from the recent Small Starts and Portland North planning docs, and identify what gaps there were between the info she had and the data desired from the proposed charge. She said that she would have it to the committee within two weeks; I hope to be able to get a copy if it isn't online.
Turning to the
Downeaster / NNEPRA RFQ, the staffer's initial observation was that it was decidedly Boston-oriented, as opposed to bringing travelers north. She also thought that the extant info from Small Starts / Portland North definitely was not used to inform the document. The largest item of interest in the RFQ, though, was Item 5: Portland Station. The feeling at the meeting was that NNEPRA definitely seems to be concentrating on the West Commercial St. location; Councilor Marshall in particular would like to see a new station, if there is to be one, closer to Center St. and the Old Port (i.e., the Fish Pier parking lot). The same "West Commercial isn't a particular improvement in walkability" argument that has been discussed here was brought up. The staffer has requested that, once the consultant is selected, she be kept notified of their public meetings so that she may attend; she has also asked to be put on the list of people to be notified of NNEPRA BoD meetings.
Some of the discussion revolved around city zoning, and that it's likely that either of the discussed locations could have zoning concerns regarding non-marine passenger transportation facilities; obviously, the city can adjust those policies, but they have to desire to do so first (that's my phrasing, not that of anyone in the meeting).
There was one vote taken at the meeting, but I am going to hold off on mentioning it here for a few days. Beyond that, the chairman plans to devote an entire monthly meeting to rail questions at some point in the next few months; my guess would be during the summer as those agendas are currently open. The intent is to bring in a lot of the interested parties: NNEPRA, Portland Trails, Maine Rail Transit Coalition, etc. It struck me as slightly interesting that Pan-Am was not in the vocalized list, but since it was kind of an off-the-top-of-the-head thing I'm not reading much into it.
"...And then I thought, every time some company creates a more powerful locomotive does Superman become more powerful as well or is he stuck at 1938 locomotive power levels?" - A friend of mine elsewhere
Anything I post here is mine alone and does not represent the views of my employer.
