I hope you all don't mind, but can anyone give any context? Goddamn, there's a 7 year gap between the last wave of posts and the latest ones now. And even the 2014 batch was a small wave - most of the chatter from 2011 and 2012.
- Is the newest development a new start or a long "brew" from the 2014 study?
- Is this new news because of the new infrastructure bill?
- Did nothing happened between 2014 until just now?
The current round of discussion that reactivated this thread came about as a result of NHDOT holding a public hearing (virtually) on the project and its current status and plans. Based on the slides from their presentation (linked on the last page, and where the station-site renderings came from) they've clearly made some progress. I think it's implied if not outright been stated by them that the recent federal largesse (including the infrastructure bill) was at least one of the motivations for their renewed interest. As for the apparent radio silence since 2014, I imagine there's probably been some status updates if not actual significant progress over the years, but nothing that anyone ever deemed worthy of resurrecting this thread for.
I have to say, whenever I get reminded of how much time so many of these projects just to even start, I start thinking how much of my life has already passed. I was a literal high schooler when I just joined the forum. And the implications for so many projects we keep hoping too. If projects like this are looking so far away still - it does not bode well for so many other projects. Granted, the ones in my mind are much different projects with different economic and engineering barriers. But I feel like the political barriers are still the same even though this involves NH. At these speeds, how many New England area transit projects would we actually see even start within our lifetimes?
The degree to which transit projects can get bogged down around here, by any number of factors, is quite depressing, though I would argue that this one in particular doesn't merit as much despair as some others. (The utter lack of progress on Red-Blue, among the other projects blatantly undermined by Baker & Company, is to me stronger cause for disappointment.) The problem is that New Hampshire is not structured to function well when it comes to transit planning. In addition to a massive state house of representatives and an unusually-powerful governor's council, they've also got a governor who's up for reelection every two years (as are the state representatives). It tends to lead to them changing tack fairly quickly whenever the party in power changes, and the whole system is incentivized towards short-termism. Add that to the state's deserved reputation for not loving taxation that would pay for transit projects (and somewhat-unusual-for-New England small-government-ism) and you've got a recipe for a state whose political and governance structure doesn't tend to incentivize transit. They know it can benefit them (if not uniformly across the state), which is why it makes a lot of sense that they've got momentum again when they see a tidal wave of federal money that can largely eliminate any political drawbacks to the plan, 'cause it won't really be the state taxpayers being asked to directly foot the bill.
It's absolutely bizarre that better connecting your state's middling cities to one of the most dynamic global economic centers is considered at all controversial or "hot-button." I'm not even talking as a transit-enthusiast, this is just meat and potatoes business attraction and retention.
In a state with a government and political culture like NH's, it's going to be hot-button. Most of it's nowhere near urban enough to go without cars (like most of the US) so driving is the assumed default with all the benefits to road interests that come with it. Meaning, transit is inevitably classed as benefitting "some people" rather than everybody (which is also true in MA, just the "some people" who would benefit directly is larger), even if the economic effects (which are pretty intangible to the average citizen) are more widespread. What you wind up with is that an anti-tax, frequently anti-spend state's citizenry (and their representatives) are being asked to pay 'their' money for something a lot of them aren't likely to use (much, if at all) and that doesn't directly, immediately, or particularly tangibly benefit them. Add that ask into a governing structure with a lot of elected officials (the state House of Reps is disproportionately huge), a lot of veto points, and particularly where
everybody including the governor is pretty much constantly running for re-election, and you've got a recipe for an issue that a lot of people won't want to touch because of the political issue, even though rather more of them understand it's valuable on its merits. (Also why the state can tend to get cooperative in a hurry whenever someone else foots the bill. It's less reflexive ideological opposition and more cheapskatery.)
