Article in the ProJo may give temporary life to a dead issue
By Will Collette
Since 2017, the Charlestown
Citizens Alliance (CCA) has used the specter of what was called “the Old
Saybrook-Kingston Bypass” to stir panic in Charlestown that Amtrak would
destroy the northern half of town by building a new rail line to accommodate
high-speed Acela trains.
The current Amtrak line from New Haven to Westerly currently
runs dangerously close to the shore. While that makes it a truly spectacular
trip through coastal salt marsh, the line is vulnerable to washouts either
quickly in a hurricane or slowly through sea level rise.
The Bypass
was never a real threat to Charlestown because it was publicly revealed after
the 2016 election that led to Donald Trump's first term. Then as now, Trump
also had a Republican-controlled Congress. Trump notoriously hates trains
(unless they burn coal) and the Republican Congress was as reluctant then to fund
Amtrak as it is now, never mind a new rail line through Charlestown.
Indeed, the only apparent interest in rail policy by either
the Trump regime or the current Congress is to sell Amtrak to some oligarch.
Ironically, such a sale may be the only scenario that could actually revive any
rail modernization or expansion as I suggested in THIS
ARTICLE.
But Anderson’s ProJo piece contains this section that may
lead Ruth Platner and the CCA to press the red Charlestown Choo-choo panic button:
And
the Transit Costs Project plan revives the proposed
"Kenyon Bypass" through southwest Rhode Island and southeast
Connecticut that engendered fierce local opposition a decade ago.
In
fact, the new plan would extend the bypass – which starts near Kingston Station
and mostly follows the path of Interstate 95 – all the way to New Haven
instead of returning to the current alignment at Old Saybrook, Connecticut
like the version studied a decade ago in the Federal Railroad Administration's
NEC Future planning.
To
alleviate some of the opposition that helped scuttle the bypass in 2017, the
Transit Costs Project plan would move new tracks north of I-95 through Old Lyme
to reduce disruptions to that Connecticut town.
The
bypass is estimated to cost $5 billion and save 32 minutes of travel time,
while alleviating concerns about flooding of the current low-lying coastal
alignment. Upgrading the Providence and Stoughton lines is estimated to
cost $250 million to $300 million.
But before Charlestown residents once again succumb to
CCA-induced panic, take a closer look. First, remember these facts:
· 🚂The actual Amtrak Northeast Corridor plan is “at
least two years from being completed,” according to Anderson and, in my
opinion, will probably be abandoned by the Trump regime.
· 🚂The $17 billion Northeast Corridor plan has no
funding. In fact, Congress cut total Amtrak funding for Northeast Corridor operations
from a total
of $1.14 billion to only $850 million in the Big Beautiful Boondoggle Bill.
· 🚂The latest version of the bypass, laid out in a
recent report by The Transit
Costs Project, proposes new track be laid well north of the original Old
Saybrook-Kingston bypass. It would skip over Lyme, CT, Westerly and possibly
even Kingston.
· 🚂Further, Charlestown Town Council President Deb
Carney has stayed in regular contact with the RI Department of Transportation
to closely monitor any new developments and none have been forthcoming. She has
reached out to RIDOT specifically about Anderson’s article but, as we go to
press, she has not heard back.
Let’s take a look at the actual map in the Transit Costs
report that spurred Anderson to say the Kenyon Bypass has been "revived":
The dotted line shows the present rail line. The solid line labelled “New Haven Bypass” and “Connecticut Bypass” is the route offered for consideration by the Transit Costs report. Note that it is well to the north of Westerly and Charlestown, though that may not be seen as good news in Hopkinton and Richmond. That is, unless the entire plan is scrapped by Trump as I believe is likely.
Facts have never prevented Charlestown Planning Commissar
Ruth Platner and the CCA from trying to use an Amtrak panic to their political
advantage. In 2017, the CCA tried to compensate for their earlier failure to
take note of the potential new track that was in a report no one at Town Hall
apparently read. Said CCA leader and Town Council President Tom Gentz, “Who’s
got time to read this stuff?”
Exuberant protests led to a legally-binding Record
of Decision ruling out the bypass. But that didn’t stop Platner from trying
to gin up more anxiety with a 2021 claim that “They’re
Back!” She tried
to stir the pot again in 2022. She made an especially
weird move in 2024 attempting to use AI to simulate what a new rail line
would look like.
If Ruth follows her past practice, we should expect to see a
new attempt to get Charlestown residents once again worked up. And, of course,
you can count on Ruth (or her spokes-troll Bonnita Van Slyke) to make the claim
that only the CCA can save us from this deadly albeit imaginary peril.
