Three years after Walpole residents successfully drove a polluting power plant out of town, Walpole faces the prospect of another project that threatens to negatively alter the quality of life of Walpole residents and cause environmental and safety problems in South Walpole.  The MBTA, the operator of the state’s public transportation system, has released a feasibility study exploring a proposal to introduce full-time commuter rail service between Walpole and Gillette Stadium in Foxboro – a service that would use an existing CSX freight train line running through Walpole neighborhoods.  The project is part of an economic development plan pushed by the town of Foxboro and by state officials, as the area around Gillette and Patriot Place that would be served by the new train service is categorized as one of nineteen economic growth districts around the state.  But while the plan may be good news for Foxboro and state officials eager to promote development around the Kraft family properties at Gillette Stadium, there is no tangible benefit to Walpole anywhere in the proposal.  However, Walpole will be burdened with the negative effects of the project, including the disruption of the quiet neighborhoods near the tracks, the adulteration of the town’s aquifer, and the possibility of even more budget dollars being given to the MBTA in the future.  In adProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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tion, given that the MBTA is already grappling with millions of dollars of debt that Massachusetts taxpayers and rate-paying commuters will be forced to pay off for years to come, the expansion of the commuter rail line is fiscally irresponsible for the MBTA at this time.

One of the few advantages for Walpole outlined in the new feasibility study is a plan to renovate the historic Walpole train station in Walpole Center.  Town officials have previously expressed a desire to improve the area around the train station to promote economic development in the downtown area, and the Walpole Master Plan cites the improvement of the station as a key step in this goal.  There is no doubt that the remodeling of the legendary Walpole station could provide a boom for Walpole in the form of future development downtown.  But even while the already-bankrupt MBTA would pay for the station renovation itself, Walpole could end up paying for some of it in the long term.  Selectmen fear that if the plan came to fruition, the town will be forced to indirectly foot the costs through an increase in the town’s annual MBTA fee – a figure that is already nearly $500,000 and may double under the proposed Foxboro expansion, according to Walpole Selectman Cliff Snuffer.  At a time when the town already faces crippling budget decisions every year, Walpole is not in a position to be expected to pay even more to the MBTA.  If the expansion occurs, Walpole residents should be on alert for more teacher layoffs and deeper budget cuts than have already occurred.
Furthermore, with the MBTA already receiving a portion of state sales tax revenue, all Massachusetts taxpayers and ratepayers are on the hook for the Foxboro MBTA expansion – expanding the line means a higher debt to pay off in the future, through either higher taxes or higher train fares.  The MBTA already spent over $30,000 just to conduct the feasibility study, and plans call for millions to be spent on upgrading the existing train line to accommodate the Foxboro expansion.  The MBTA can hardly afford to maintain its own existing transportation system, let alone add more.  State transportation executives have already gotten criticism for their proposal to expand the Green Line into Somerville, an initiative that is staunchly opposed by Michael Widmer, President of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.  “There’s no way the MBTA should even be talking about expansion. They don’t have the resources to maintain the current system,” Widmer pointed out in a Boston Herald article.  Indeed, the MBTA doesn’t have the money to fund an expansion into Foxboro, either, and the costs of it will be inevitably shouldered by all Massachusetts residents.
From a public safety standpoint, the expansion proposal offers troubling scenarios for Walpole.  The feasibility study calls for up to forty trains per day using the existing railroad crossing next to the South Walpole Post Office on Summer Street.  Currently, freight trains only use the crossing a few times per year, but the possibility of having forty trains every day worries Selectmen.  Cars would be stopped up to forty times per day by trains crossing the road, and with Summer Street as a major thoroughfare, the frequent crossings would disrupt traffic in the area.  But the most concerning possibility that Selectmen fear is that accidents between trains and vehicles will dramatically increase at the crossing site.  According to official estimates by the Federal Railroad Administration, there were over 1,000 collisions between cars and trains in 2009, although other estimates put the number even higher, at a stunning 9,570 collisions between trains and cars in 2009.  Forty trains crossing Summer Street per day puts both Walpole drivers and trains at risk and disrupts the flow of traffic through South Walpole.
The feasibility study also recommends that a layover facility for overnight train storage be built on part of the site formerly owned by Bird Machine Company in South Walpole.  The study calls for the MBTA to build a six-track facility capable of storing six 850-foot-long train sets, each set made up of one locomotive and nine coaches.  The facility would be equipped with spill pans for oil runoff and spills from the locomotives, which worries Selectmen.  “If [the MBTA] had genuinely looked at the Bird Machine site they would very quickly and very clearly understand that that is our aquifer,” Snuffer said.  The proposal to have spill pans being located so close to the town’s water source is a serious concern that should worry all Walpole residents.  Furthermore, the layover facility calls for trains to sit idling throughout the day and night, disturbing the residents of the area.  Snuffer called the South Walpole area an “Audubon sanctuary from an auditory perspective.”  Indeed, South Walpole is mostly residential, and forty loud trains per day will disturb the quiet neighborhoods tremendously.  Even more troubling, however, is that according to Snuffer, town officials were taken by surprise at the proposal that Bird Machine would be used as a layover facility.  Snuffer and his fellow Board members are upset that they were not involved in the discussion over use of the site, as the town is actively exploring a number of other potential uses for Bird Machine, including putting conservation land there or promoting economic development on the Bird Machine site.  The lack of interaction between the MBTA and Walpole officials over Bird Machine is disconcerting and is an irresponsible way to start the conversation about the expansion proposal.
The expansion would most definitely be a boom for the economy in the area around Gillette Stadium, but Walpole reaps little, if any, of those benefits. Walpole needs to defeat the proposal to expand MBTA service through Walpole to Foxboro.  The quality of life of Walpole residents, among other factors, is at stake.