CHARLESTOWN, R.I. (WPRI) – Residents of Charlestown are sounding the alarm over the federal government’s proposal to realign segments of track in South County to accommodate high speed Amtrak trains.
The proposal for the Northeast Corridor (NEC) was released last week, and includes a new segment of track between Old Saybrook, Connecticut, and the village of Kenyon in Richmond, Rhode Island.
“It’s like a nightmare,” said Charlestown Town Council President Virginia Lee.
She said last week’s Eyewitness News report about the plan was how she first learned of the federal government’s proposal.
Just days after that report aired, the Charlestown Citizen Alliance posted a blog calling it a “Christmas Surprise.” Another resident crafted an online petition opposing the plan, saying it has been “kept secret until very recently.” That petition had more than 1,500 signatures by Thursday evening.
Lee said people are frightened and heartbroken at the idea a 220-mile-per-hour train could soon be barreling through their neighborhoods. She said people were “totally blindsided” by the proposal.
However, the plans to construct what the FRA calls the “Saybrook-Kenyon bypass” haven’t been kept secret – they’ve been public since 2014. The FRA even held a public comment forum in Providence in December 2015, and officials held an open comment period from November 2015 to February 2016 during which they received roughly 3,200 comments.
The plan released last week comes after the FRA considered multiple options to overhaul the Northeast Corridor, including proposals to add service between Providence and Hartford, and yet another plan to bypass Rhode Island altogether. While those proposals were scrapped, the Saybrook-Kenyon bypass remained.
According to Federal Railroad Administration renderings and documents, the new, two-track segment would run “primarily on embankment or at-grade, continuing from New London County, CT, east through Westerly, RI, adjacent to the NEC, shifting south through Branford and Wood River Junction, reconnecting to the NEC in Kenyon, north of the Pawcatuck River.” The FRA said the new segment could accommodate trains travelling at speeds up to 220 miles per hour and help shave 45 minutes off the travel time between Boston and New York City.
Eyewitness News asked the FRA if any homes or businesses in the path of the proposed tracks in Rhode Island would need to be moved or demolished for construction of the railroad. A spokesman said an environmental impact study would be done to determine the specific route and its alignment if the plan is approved.
The proposal had received heavy push back from residents just over the Rhode Island border in Connecticut, where U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Friday called the FRA’s plan “dead on arrival.” But in Rhode Island, residents were mostly quiet until now.
U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, ranking member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that handles transportation funding, had been a vocal proponent of maintaining Rhode Island’s position in the Northeast Corridor, but he hasn’t endorsed the specific plan laid out last week.
“He has worked to ensure Rhode Island isn’t left out of the future of the Northeast Corridor and he will continue working to ensure Rhode Islanders have a voice in this process, which still requires further studies, extensive environmental assessments, and community input before any new track alignment is set,” Reed’s spokesman, Chip Unruh, said in an email. “Senator Reed is working with the Town of Charlestown to make Amtrak officials available for a community forum and is asking people to share their views directly with the FRA.”
The FRA is now in the midst of a 30-day waiting period, where they’ll receive and consider feedback from the public before issuing their final Record of Decision, or “Selected Alternative.” After that, they’ll detail the process for implementing the proposal.
According to the FRA, the plan – a vision for the Northeast Corridor through the year 2040 – would require state approval, adequate federal funding, environmental impact studies and additional public comment periods before being put into action.
Maps of the route which are raising concern in Charlestown because they show homes, farms and nature preserves would be in the train’s direct path are labelled with asterisks noting, “The location of the new segments is illustrative and represents the information used to analyze effects of the new segments as part of the Tier 1 EIS process; the location of new segments will be determined in Tier 2 project studies.”
The Rhode Island Department of Transportation released this statement to Eyewitness News Friday saying, “The State of Rhode Island has made it clear that real estate impacts require additional study before anything moves forward.”
The Charlestown Town Council will be holding a public comment session on the proposal on Tuesday, Jan. 10 at 7 p.m. in the Charlestown Elementary School cafeteria. They’ve also created an email, Amtrak-Comments@charlestownri.org, to collect electronic comment from concerned residents.