(rshsdepot) Station Upgrades Needed to Make New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Rail Line Work

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

From the Hartford Courant.
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
 
 
Station Upgrades Needed to Make Rail Line Work
 
By NICHOLAS CARUSO Nicholas Caruso is a designer at Centerbrook  Architects 
and Planners in Essex and an incoming Yale Master of Architecture II  degree 
candidate.
 
Here it is 2007, and the Harford metro area and  Massachusetts's nearby 
Pioneer Valley still are fully dependent on automobile  use, a pattern that has 
continued for decades since trolley lines were removed,  commuter rail service 
was scrapped and bus service was marginalized.  
This is a major reason this area of more than 1.7 million is still decaying  
as a viable business, technology and cultural center. The latest sign of this  
autocentric decay came when _MetLife_ 
(http://www.industrywatch.com/pages/iw2/coOverview.nsp?coID=4692&ID=iw&scategory=Transportation&P=&F=&R=&VNC=hnall)   
confirmed in April that it was moving 1,300 jobs from downtown Hartford to  
Bloomfield, due in large part to lack of ample parking in the city.  
This is a textbook example of why region must have a strong transit system  
and why the state's effort to bring back commuter rail service to the New  
Haven-Hartford-Springfield line can't happen soon enough (it is scheduled for  
2010).  
But the trains are only part of the answer. To make the most of the  
investment, the region must bring people to the train service. We must expand  
stations, develop the areas around stations and link this development to the  urban 
fabric in each city. There are still numerous gaps between tracks and town  
centers.  
In New Haven, the new, centrally located State Street station is a good  
addition but only works as a secondary (and usually closed) platform for the  
city's larger Union Station a mile south of the downtown area.  
In Meriden, there are plans to build up the area around the city's existing  
rail platform, but the concept encourages low density, almost suburban infill  
between Main Street and City Hall.  
Springfield's massive yet mostly abandoned Union Station sits primarily  
within a suburban industrial park with a very unsafe passage linking the  existing 
open station area with the downtown region south of the complex.  
Finally, the largest gap along the line is Hartford's Union Station, which is 
 centered between downtown Hartford, the campuses of Aetna and The Hartford 
and  the state Capitol grounds. It has the capacity to bring in thousands of  
commuters into the city's large financial center. However, the station is not  
prepared to take this new service, nor are the parcels around the station 
being  developed into transit-oriented design blocks that link the station with 
the  $1.3 billion in downtown development. To put it another way, there is way 
too  much surface parking around the station.  
When it comes to strong examples of station work, the state can look at  
places such as Yonkers, N.Y., and Trenton, N.J., for inspiration. The Yonkers  
train station was renovated and the parcels around the facility were built up,  
spurring an additional $3 billion in development across the city. Trenton's  
train station is being renovated and expanded. It is already linked with the  
downtown region and sits next to the northern terminus of a light rail line.  
Today, Union Station is Hartford's most underused asset. It's time to link it 
 with the rest of downtown.  
The second issue is connecting the rail service with all of the communities  
in the corridor. The line will of course pass through active town centers such 
 as Wallingford and Windsor. But as presently conceived, it misses at least 
two  places that would greatly benefit from a rail connection.  
If the line were extended just a few miles north of Springfield, it would tap 
 into the academic and industrial centers in Chicopee, Holyoke and 
Northampton; a  region that forms the upper half of the Hartford-Springfield ``Knowledge 
 Corridor.''  
Within this region is an urban population of 250,000 with dense  
neighborhoods, beautiful industrial adaptive reuse potential and academic  centers such as 
Smith, Mount Holyoke and Amherst colleges, as well as the  University of 
Massachusetts.  
In Holyoke, there is a massive new ``green'' industrial reuse project in the  
city's historic Canal District known as ``Open Square'' that uses local  
hydroelectric power. The mixed-use project is touted as the region's premier  
mixed-used center of art galleries, entrepreneur businesses and urban lofts, all  
of which sits right next door to the rail line, the city's abandoned H.H.  Ri
chardson train station and the rest of the district's beautiful untapped  
industrial architecture.  
Northampton and Amherst are hip and bustling urban academic and retail  
centers, easily accessible from Hartford by rail. Yet, though discussions have  
begun, there are still no plans to bring commuter service back to those  
communities.  
The other area in need of service is Bradley International Airport. The state 
 Department of Transportation quashed a proposed link between Hartford and 
the  airport along the ``Griffin Line'' a decade ago, in part because of the 
cost and  challenge of adding new track from the Griffin office park in 
Bloomfield to the  main Bradley terminal in Windsor Locks.  
However, when the MBTA completes its Rhode Island commuter line extension  
from downtown Providence to T.F. Green Airport and rail links to the New York  
airports are finished, Bradley will be the last major airport From Boston to 
New  Jersey in 2007 without a transit link.  
The state has to link Hartford and Bradley. The advantage of the Griffin Line 
 is that it would also connect Bloomfield center and the University of 
Hartford  with downtown offices and amenities.  
By dealing with these issues and creating a strong foundation for future  
transit service, the region will be poised to grow its economy and become a  
stronger link in the Northeast Corridor  economy.




************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org
To Unsubscribe: http://lists.railfan.net/rshsdepot-photo/unsub.html

------------------------------

End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #1553
********************************

=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org