User:Mrc603/Lowell Line

Article Draft
''Following section taken from Lowell Line article. Will add more up to date information to this section, as well as a broader view of the project as a whole.''

Proposed expansion to New Hampshire
MBTA Commuter Rail service connecting Concord, Manchester and Nashua from the Lowell Line used to exist in NH, ending in 1967. The service came back in 1980 for a quick 13 month return, but the program grant was cut by the Reagan Administration in 1981, and commuter rail service has remained not available. '''In October 2010, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation received a $2.24 million federal grant to study an extension of the Lowell Line to Concord. In January 2011, a bill was introduced into the New Hampshire legislature to end the proposed extension and give up a potential $4.1 million grant into its planning. The MBTA acquired trackage rights from Pan Am in May 2011 as part of a larger transaction. '''

The 2020 census revealed that from 2010 to 2020, the population of NH increased by 61,000, with migration to NH making up 89% of the state's new residents. Since 2001, rail transit on the Amtrak Downeaster has been connecting the Seacoast Region to Boston, with stops in Dover, Durham–UNH, and Exeter. With no rail transit in Hillsborough County, the states most populated county, most commuters drive on U.S. Route 3 or Interstate 93 to get to Boston. NH Department of Transportation traffic data from 2014 reveals that southbound traffic on these two highways during rush hour is exceeding the highway capacity by 25%, and average speeds as low as 12 mph, with the volume of cars only expected to keep increasing. Due to local environmental and financial constraints, expanding either highway is not a possible solution. Although traffic in NH dropped by 58% at the beginning of the pandemic, traffic data is beginning to look similar to 2019 pre-pandemic numbers again, and more commuters are back on the road.

=== In December 2020, a $5.5 million contract was awarded to AECOM for preliminary engineering and design work, environmental and public engagement services, and final design, for the project to extend MBTA commuter rail service to southern New Hampshire. ===

With President Joe Biden signing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in November 2021, $66 million has been allotted to rejuvenate rail transit in the United States, which is bringing the commuter rail service to NH closer. The current plan is to extend the Lowell Line up through Nashua and Manchester, the state's two most populated cities. The proposed expansion would include four new stops: South Nashua near the Pheasant Lane Mall, Crown Street Nashua, Manchester–Boston Regional Airport, and either Depot Street or Valley Street in Manchester. In January of 2022, the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved the location for new facilities to house layover trains adjacent to the the Manchester Transit Authority facilities. Extending service to NH could provide an expected 34 trains a day to Nashua, and 16 a day to Manchester, connecting commuters from Nashua to Boston as low as 54 minutes, and commuters from Manchester to Boston in as low as 1 hour and 25 minutes, and 3,120 passengers a day. The track from Lowell to Manchester exists already from the previous commuter rail service. Jonathan Bruneau of Jacobs Engineering states, "It's a beat-up little railroad however it doesn't look that bad. If you're out there and you're looking at it, it supported coal trains for years. We're just gonna try to make it a little bit better, a little bit faster". The project cost and finish timeline still remain unfinalized as of early 2022, but was estimated to cost $246 million in the 2014 NHDOT report, and the project still waits approval from the federal government.

Controversy:

The expansion of the commuter rail to Southern New Hampshire has been met with both positive and negative reviews. Support for the commuter rail is that it will ease congestion on I-93 and Route 3 and bring more families and business to NH. Opposition to the expansion is that people do not want to have any increases in taxes, and some consider the project to not be necessary. MBTA Commuter rail ridership has dropped 25% pre-pandemic from 40,569,600 riders in 2002, to 32,143,251 riders in 2018. NH Governor, Chris Sununu, once against the commuter rail, calling it "boondoggle", has since changed stance and now in support of the project as of 2022, with the possibility of Amazon relocating to NH.