Regional New England Rail (Amtrak & State DOT & NEC)

[F-Line to Dudley]

Great! I alighted at this station with a bicycle in August and noted how much more accessible this station will be with the new platform.

The new Wells-Brunswick round trip appears to be a step towards Portland-based regional rail. I hope this is successful and we see layered short-turn regional and intercity trips fill out the schedule. If successful, I'd love to see some infill stops that serve short-turn regional trains (Kennebunk? Biddeford? Scarborough? South Portland?).

Kennebunk has been a real debated proposal because the rails are within walking distance of Downtown and it would function as an effective Wells-Saco spacer at roughly the midpoint. That's probably next on the infills pecking order after West Falmouth. Biddeford is only 2 miles from Saco...a little bit too close. It's also bus-served from the Saco stop, so not a super high priority in the absolute. Scarborough really has no spot to put in a station facility with any parking because of the adjacent marsh wetlands, and it was only a lightly-served flag stop for the beaches back in the B&M days with the downtown instead being served by the much closer Eastern Route routing. It would probably struggle because there's no sidewalks or bike infrastructure anywhere close to it. South Portland is probably a no-go because of yard limits traffic concerns with big Rigby Yard, plus it's already bus-served.

 

[bigeman312]

Kennebunk has been a real debated proposal because the rails are within walking distance of Downtown and it would function as an effective Wells-Saco spacer at roughly the midpoint. That's probably next on the infills pecking order after West Falmouth. Biddeford is only 2 miles from Saco...a little bit too close. It's also bus-served from the Saco stop, so not a super high priority in the absolute. Scarborough really has no spot to put in a station facility with any parking because of the adjacent marsh wetlands, and it was only a lightly-served flag stop for the beaches back in the B&M days with the downtown instead being served by the much closer Eastern Route routing. It would probably struggle because there's no sidewalks or bike infrastructure anywhere close to it. South Portland is probably a no-go because of yard limits traffic concerns with big Rigby Yard, plus it's already bus-served.

Interesting! I'm surprised that Black Point Rd in Scarborough (the site of Blackpoint Surf Shop) isn't considered a viable option in Scarborough. That parcel is 1.1 miles to the center of town, about 2.5 acres in size, larger than the footprint of Brunswick Station (including the parking lot, the station building and all of its tennants, with multiple retail spaces, and the parking lot for those retail spaces) and is more than twice the size of the footprint of Exeter Station + parking lot.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Interesting! I'm surprised that Black Point Rd in Scarborough (the site of Blackpoint Surf Shop) isn't considered a viable option in Scarborough. That parcel is 1.1 miles to the center of town, about 2.5 acres in size, larger than the footprint of Brunswick Station (including the parking lot, the station building and all of its tennants, with multiple retail spaces, and the parking lot for those retail spaces) and is more than twice the size of the footprint of Exeter Station + parking lot.

Train station plans come to a halt in Kennebunk

KENNEBUNK The Board of Selectmen voted last week to pull the plug on plans for an Amtrak Downeaster station that would have brought passenger rail

web.archive.org

Kennebunk was actually approved by town vote in 2014 for a seasonal stop (a la Old Orchard Beach), but they scrapped the plan in 2018 when it ran into siting issues. Since a lot of planning work had already gone into it and it came oh-so-close to actually happening, it wouldn't be hard to revive...especially if it was re-proposed as a full-time stop this time.

As I said, Scarborough's thoroughly dreadful sidewalk coverage really sharply limits the catchment (unlike Kennebunk's walk to Downtown). Black Point Rd. is a pedestrian- and bike-hostile dragway the whole way into Downtown, and if you're not going to get any multimodal traffic you're going to need a parking lot that's a bit bigger than the other Downeaster stations that are located with multimodally convenient access in traditional downtowns. Easier reach would be to pulse up Bus Route #60 frequencies between Portland and Saco via Route 1 through Downtown Scarborough. It's a fast, limited-stop trip...just woefully infrequent on its current schedules. That's at least fixable with more frequencies (which can then be a means-test for train station demand), while the access conditions around a Scarborough train stop are always going to be compromised by the lack of bipedal infrastructure.

 

[bigeman312]

Train station plans come to a halt in Kennebunk

KENNEBUNK The Board of Selectmen voted last week to pull the plug on plans for an Amtrak Downeaster station that would have brought passenger rail

web.archive.org

Kennebunk was actually approved by town vote in 2014 for a seasonal stop (a la Old Orchard Beach), but they scrapped the plan in 2018 when it ran into siting issues. Since a lot of planning work had already gone into it and it came oh-so-close to actually happening, it wouldn't be hard to revive...especially if it was re-proposed as a full-time stop this time.

As I said, Scarborough's thoroughly dreadful sidewalk coverage really sharply limits the catchment (unlike Kennebunk's walk to Downtown). Black Point Rd. is a pedestrian- and bike-hostile dragway the whole way into Downtown, and if you're not going to get any multimodal traffic you're going to need a parking lot that's a bit bigger than the other Downeaster stations that are located with multimodally convenient access in traditional downtowns. Easier reach would be to pulse up Bus Route #60 frequencies between Portland and Saco via Route 1 through Downtown Scarborough. It's a fast, limited-stop trip...just woefully infrequent on its current schedules. That's at least fixable with more frequencies (which can then be a means-test for train station demand), while the access conditions around a Scarborough train stop are always going to be compromised by the lack of bipedal infrastructure.

I agree Scarborough's thoroughly dreadful sidewalk coverage is a problem, but it's a solvable problem. A 0.8 mile sidewalk extension along Black Point Rd is a project on a scale so much smaller than adding an infill train station. We are certainly capable of coordinating both components. It would be pretty sad if that sidewalk extension were seen as insurmountable and a reason not to pursue rail service in Maine's seventh most populous municipality. Of course, I'm not arguing against Kennebunk or a relocated Portland station on St. John St. All of those would also be great for Portland-based regional rail.

 

[JeffDowntown]

I agree Scarborough's thoroughly dreadful sidewalk coverage is a problem, but it's a solvable problem. A 0.8 mile sidewalk extension along Black Point Rd is a project on a scale so much smaller than adding an infill train station. We are certainly capable of coordinating both components. It would be pretty sad if that sidewalk extension were seen as insurmountable and a reason not to pursue rail service in Maine's seventh most populous municipality. Of course, I'm not arguing against Kennebunk or a relocated Portland station on St. John St. All of those would also be great for Portland-based regional rail.

You would be amazed how hard it can be to do a nominal 1 mile sidewalk extension, depending on 1) width of the owned right-of-way and 2) opinions of the abutters. I saw this first hand when the West Haven Metro North Station was opened in 2013, and there were attempts (moderately successful after a decade of work) to extend sidewalks for better pedestrian station access.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

You would be amazed how hard it can be to do a nominal 1 mile sidewalk extension, depending on 1) width of the owned right-of-way and 2) opinions of the abutters. I saw this first hand when the West Haven Metro North Station was opened in 2013, and there were attempts (moderately successful after a decade of work) to extend sidewalks for better pedestrian station access.

Pretty much the entire distance on Black Point Rd. that doesn't have sidewalks (the first third of it immediately south of Downtown to the Eastern Route does) is directly in the middle of the marsh on an embankment hemmed in by guardrails. It's going to be extremely difficult if not impossible to EIS and widen the alignment any to fit in even one sidewalk, and the road itself doesn't have enough contiguous narrowing room to do it either. Somewhat surprisingly, the road is already signed as a bike route even though it has no specific bike infra, so you definitely aren't taking the shoulders (which aren't that wide to begin with) to do it either because that would nuke what little there is to safely support the pre-existing bike route.

If it's even possible to make that a ped route, it's definitely not going to happen for a very long time given the thorny environmental permitting.

 

[bigeman312]

Good to know that I was wrong about the feasibility of a sidewalk extension. Thanks for the info.

 

[riptide]

I wonder how the station siting issue that derailed the previous Kennebunk effort would get resolved in the event of a future push for an infill station. The DOT didn’t like the historic station site, and the abutters didn’t like the alternative site across the street. Yet Summer Street looks like the obvious connection into the downtown district (maybe even the only rational connection), so something's going to have to give eventually.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I wonder how the station siting issue that derailed the previous Kennebunk effort would get resolved in the event of a future push for an infill station. The DOT didn’t like the historic station site, and the abutters didn’t like the alternative site across the street. Yet Summer Street looks like the obvious connection into the downtown district (maybe even the only rational connection), so something's going to have to give eventually.

The fact that the last proposal was only for a seasonal stop meant there was finite amount of give before any sort of planning stalemate made it not worth the basic time and energy to proceed any further. And they still got very far along in final talks before it came unglued in the span of just a few weeks. If they remounted the effort as a full-time stop, the calculus would be a lot different: way bigger boon to the local economy and local mobility, and more reason to keep expending the energy to push it along to its completion. I doubt they'd revisit it unless it were a full-time proposal, but if they do it's a lot more likely to succeed this time because what they'd be getting would be so much more meaningful than last time (plus the route ridership is up overwhelmingly vs. a decade ago).