MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION – OFFICE OF
TRANSPORTATION PLANNING
STATE FREIGHT AND RAIL PLAN
NORTHEAST REGION MEETING NOTES
LOCATION OF MEETING:
State Transportation Building
10 Park Plaza, Boston, MA
DATE/TIME OF MEETING:
March 25, 2010, 2 p.m.
MEETING ATTENDANCE:
Public attendees who signed in:
Roger Bergeron, Pan Am Railways
Astrid Glynn, TPRG
Syd Culliford, Pan Am Railways
Rob DiAdamo, TPRG
Kevin Dooley, Tighe Warehousing
John Hahesy, Melrose Resident
Jay Green, City of North Adams
Deb Hadden, Massport
John McQueen, WalkBoston
Steve Olanoff, Westwood Resident
Jim Gallagher, Metropolitan Area Planning Council
Lynn Vikesland, Massport
John Kyper, Roxbury Resident
Bob D’Amico, City of Boston
Robert LaTremouille, Cambridge Resident
Marilyn Wellons, Cambridge Resident
Michael Paster, GEI Consultants
Abby Swaine, US EPA – Region 1
Douglas Low, New England Central Railroad
Promise Otaluka, FHWA
Charles Planck, Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail
Anne McGahan, Boston MPO
John Read, Boston Redevelopment Authority
Mike Callahan, Boston MPO
Bruce Leish, Metrowest Growth Management Comm. Bill Kuttner, Boston MPO
Frank DiMasi, Regional Transportation Advisory Council
Justin Howard, Northern Middlesex Council of Governments
MassDOT Office of Transportation Staff:
Ned Codd, Office of Transportation Planning, Study Project Manager
Paul Nelson, Office of Transportation Planning
Timothy Doherty, Office of Transportation Planning, Director Rail
Jamey Tesler, Office of Transportation Planning
Consultant Team:
Ronald O’Blenis, HDR, Project Manager
Daniel Hodge, HDR
Jon Lee, HDR
Laurel Raferty, Portscape
HANDOUTS: Summary of highlights of the draft Massachusetts State Freight and Rail
Plan
PURPOSE/SUBJECT: This was one of four regional public stakeholder meetings that
were held in March and April 2010 to provide information on the Massachusetts Freight
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and Rail Plans that were developed and to receive input from stakeholders about key
recommendations and findings.
BACKGROUND: The MassDOT Office of Transportation Planning conducted a
comprehensive evaluation of the Commonwealth’s freight and rail transportation
systems, their operations, and effects on economic development and quality of life. The
evaluation concluded with the publication of two separate documents - a State Freight
Plan that is multi-modal (includes air, rail, truck and maritime transport) and intermodal
(transportation by more than one mode, e.g. truck and rail) in its scope, analysis, and
recommendations. The second is a comprehensive State Rail Plan that includes a detailed
analysis of all rail infrastructure and operations, both freight and passenger. The study
began in the spring of 2008 and will conclude in the spring of 2010.
Welcome and Introductions
Ned Codd, MassDOT project manager of the Mass Freight & Rail Plan welcomed
attendees. He said the purpose of the meeting was to present draft findings, hear what the
public had to say and incorporate public comments into the final plan. Ned noted there
were really two closely related plans that were developed – a multimodal freight plan
(includes air, rail, truck and maritime transport) and a rail plan that included both freight
and passenger rail. The state needs to have a State Rail Plan in place to utilize federal
funding.
The Mass Freight & Rail Plan examined the condition of infrastructure, trends, policies,
issues, and opportunities for improvement. The cost/benefits of five investment scenarios
were assessed and recommendations were made in the area of land use policies, the
regulatory environment and funding and financing. Ned Codd said cost/benefits had to be
considered in relation to other state policies such as reducing emissions and smart
growth. He also said future freight planning should not exclusively rely on highway
expansion.
Mr. Ronald O’Blenis, Project Manager for the HDR consultant team, made a presentation
that covered the topics of freight movement and trends, truck freight, maritime ports,
airports, freight rail and passenger rail, cost/benefit analysis, study findings and
recommendations. He noted a copy of each regional presentation would be posted on the
study website: www.mass.gov/massdot/freightandrailplan.
Summary of Public Comment and Questions
[Please note questions or comments made by members of the public are in italics.
Responses to the questions were made by Ron O’Blenis and Ned Codd unless otherwise
noted.]
Concerning 286k and double-stack: When will the CSX line be a complete double-stack
route?
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The bridge reconstruction projects necessary for double-stack clearance to Westborough
will be complete by September 2012.
Are there only two North-South double-stack routes in Massachusetts?
Yes.
The Amtrak slide is misleading; you can only take a train in a North/South direction from
Worcester once a day.
The slide you are referring to does not indicate frequency of service, just the passenger
rail connections.
I am concerned with the planned abandonment of Beacon Park Yard because this will
lead to more trucks in the City, on Route 9, and on I-90. Also Moran rail terminal in
Chelsea was not mentioned.
The relocation of CSX intermodal activities from Beacon Park Yard (BPY) to other
facilities have been closely studied and analyzed by MassDOT. Moving operations
outside of the Boston core will allow double stacked rail cars to serve the expanded
facility in Worcester, which helps lower shipping costs and would not be possible at BPY
due to the large number of bridges and other physical constraints. Further, having the
intermodal trains terminate in Worcester will free up capacity on the rail line to allow
additional passenger trains between Worcester and Boston. Lastly, and most related to
your question, a survey of drivers showed that most of the freight moved from BPY is
headed to areas outside of Boston and the inner core, so we expect the relocation of BPY
to reduce truck traffic in the urban core of Boston.
Data from Beacon Park Yard shows freight is distributed all back to the I-495 and Route
128 belts. So currently, freight rail coming from the west moves into Boston by trail, to
then be shipped back out west via truck. The location in Worcester is in a better position
to support freight distribution activity.
What is the assumed diesel cost of transportation in your scenarios? A steady value of the
cost of diesel is not prudent planning for this analysis.
The value was escalated with the cost of inflation, but the value shouldn’t make a
significant difference in the analysis.
The analysis has shown that truck is more expensive and not consistent with State
planning policy of transportation and smart growth development. Scenario was meant
primarily as a test case to compare to the other modal options in the remaining scenarios.
Follow up: Rail is encouraging more travel on I-495.
There is still freight distribution activity inside Boston’s urban core which will continue
to be served by rail.
I don’t see analysis of freight rail through Connecticut and Rhode Island. Does freight
travel on the Hartford railroad to NY/NJ?
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Most rail freight headed to New York does not travel through Connecticut. Most freight
currently travels west to the near Albany area to cross the Hudson River and then travels
south. Historically, freight did travel down the rail that is now the Northeast Corridor, but
it was not an efficient route, and often included transfers to barges in the New York area.
Grand Junction food terminal in Everett, MA is accessible by PanAm, and CSX still uses
Readville. I did not see them in the plans. Are we giving up on them up forever?
We are not showing everything in this plan. We expect that rail freight service will
continue to the existing distribution facilities and industrial sites in eastern
Massachusetts. Additionally, recommended programs such as the Industrial Rail Access
Program would help encourage rail freight service to these locations. We do expect that
intermodal service and some distribution facilities will continue to move to the larger
parcels outside of Boston as the trend has shown.
Follow up: Freight railroad and disaster planning should be part of state policy to keep
assets and encourage growth. Do we have a state disaster plan and redundancy routes?
We have a wide opportunity of investments to suit emergency needs, but planning for
disasters is an effort, better covered by other agencies and/or studies.
Passenger rail to Fitchburg should be a big portion of the plan. Have we used congestion
models to show areas where congestion is/will occur?
All goods movement demand was applied to future transportation traffic model results to
estimate congestion.
Scenarios for investment in freight rail, did not mention the Commonwealth’s restrictions
that do not allow applying state funds to private (rail) entities.
This is included in the recommendations along with Public Private Partnerships (PPP) as
opportunities for implementation.
The flyer says there will be core network improvements for highways; will the state
initiate every project over a 1.0?
The scenario analyses (and the resulting benefit/cost ratios) are meant to be a framework
for comparing the benefits of investments in different modes of transportation. As we
have stated in the presentation, the total costs of the projects included in the analyses are
much greater than the Commonwealth can afford. MassDOT will use the results from
these analyses and the feedback from the stakeholder meetings to develop a more detailed
plan to implement freight and rail system improvements.
Air Quality improvements were discussed in the presentation. Were the air quality
estimates broken down for the Boston Area specifically that could be used by the MPO?
No. The analysis wasn’t intended for MPO regional analysis, but rather on a statewide
basis to serve as a comparison of potential projects.
I need some cold hard facts. I want to know the dates of the final purchase of the Beacon
Park Yard from Harvard University and the price of the easement purchase from CSX
and Harvard? There are some fuzzy facts out there.
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The title to the land will be exchanged when two things happen: (1) MassDOT completes
reconstruction of the identified bridges to allow clearances for double stack rail cars and
(2) when most of CSX’s facilities have been relocated from Beacon Park Yard. The
compliance date for the move is by 2012.
Will a new commuter rail station be built in Westborough at the former freight facility
where the CSX mainline intersects I-495?
The facility was once an autoport, and will reopen under CSX’s current relocation plans
as a transload facility within the existing footprint. Some additional track will be added,
and the facility will have approximately 25 truck trips per day. There will be no
commuter service there as CSX owns the facility.
Between Worcester and Boston, there are two grade crossings in Framingham and
Ashland. What happens if work trips to places other than Boston continue to increase?
Who will fix that? This plan does not address this.
As we know from the Travel Demand models, most of the destinations are in Boston’s
Urban Core. Yes, there is travel demand to other destinations. This plan is for the overall
freight network and is not scoped to address general commuter patterns. Many of the
documents prepared by the local MPOs (the STIP, TIP, and Regional Transportation
Plan(RTP)) address regional transportation needs and improvement projects.
At the moment there are two independent studies looking at the grade crossings in both
Ashland and Framingham.
Did the MPOs RTP all include accelerated pavement maintenance?
Each MPO is responsible for preparing its own RTP and is therefore responsible for the
subject material it covers. MassDOT, through the Office of Transportation Planning, will
be working closely with the MPOs to provide assistance or guidance when needed.
Will there be new rail freight out of Port of Boston? Can you explain more about the
Taunton Transload facility?
There is currently no rail service out of the Port of Boston. The analysis of freight trends
provided in this report did not show a significant demand for this service. Construction
of a transload facility in the Taunton area was included in the analysis because there is an
opportunity and available land for a private facility.
What were the basic differences between the last presentation and this presentation?
Last year we presented the existing conditions and infrastructure constraints. This
presentation covered the results of our analysis and recommendations.
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