ON THE RIGHT TRACK - SAVE THE BOURNE RAIL TRAIL

The Bourne Rail Trail / Shining Sea Bikeway Extension (BRT) will be a critical new segment of Vision 88, the effort to circumvent Cape Cod with a system of pedestrian and bicycle pathways. A 6.5-mile pathway, the BRT will connect the Shining Sea Bikeway in Falmouth to the Cape Cod Canal Pathway, and create a multi-use pathway running uninterrupted for 26 miles all the way from Sandwich to Woods Hole.

This is a legacy project that will be of huge value to the area, as has been demonstrated by the Shining Sea Bikeway and other multi-use paths already in place. It will improve the lives of residents, enhance the experience of visitors, be a boon to local businesses, take cars off the roadways, and improve safety for bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists alike.

Pretty much everyone wants the BRT. The only opposition is from parties who do not want to see the Falmouth Secondary rail line removed. They argue for the construction of the pathway next to the rail line. In fact, that is neither advisable nor feasible. If we want the BRT, we must remove the rail line. The so-called rail-with-trail BRT will simply never happen. That design is the current plan and it has proven to be cost prohibitive (upwards of $80 million!) and impossible to achieve given that the rail corridor is too small to also accommodate a pathway, requiring the taking of significant private property which will be fought and expensive. Most important, it is not the trail anyone wants. 

So, let’s build a beautiful pathway, not an industrial corridor with a pathway in it.

And let’s do it now! The Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority has secured $20 million in federal funding to build the BRT, but only as a rail-to-trail project. It is estimated that the funding will be sufficient to build the entire trail, all at once, at no cost to Massachusetts. Quite a contrast from the four times that amount needed if the track remains, not to mention likely taking decades, in multiple phases, to accomplish, even if necessary land acquisition is possible. Time is of the essence, as this federal funding depends on a commitment now to build rail-to-trail.

DON’T BE MISLED BY THE SOLE ARGUMENT MADE FOR KEEPING THE TRACK

Mass Coastal is leading the fight to keep the rail line. Of course they are. They have a good deal there, with the operation of the track subsidized by the taxpayers, such that even an old, little used rail line generates some modest return for this private, for profit company. Mass Coastal’s revenue is principally derived from its operation of trains for Cavossa Disposal, a private, for profit company that uses a couple trains a week to move construction debris off Cape and make it someone else’s problem.

Mass Coastal’s sole argument against the much greater public interest served by the BRT is their claim of helping the environment by “keeping thousands of trucks off the Cape’s roads and bridges.” The reality is use of the Falmouth Secondary results in a relatively minor impact, at best. You can’t help but notice that Mass Coastal gives no hard data and only make this claim in the context of all of Mass Coastal’s operations. At one place buried in its website, Mass Coastal claims that over 9,000 truck trips would be added if the Falmouth Secondary were removed. There’s no time period given for that claim, but if we assume they mean per year, that’s one truck per hour.

Hard data from Mass Coastal and MassDOT about use of the track and revenue derived from its operation has been elusive, to say the least. Given the infrequent use of that track, however, the number, conservatively estimated by those not named Mass Coastal, is one truck every seven hours. So, its use of the Falmouth Secondary line results in an insignificant number of trucks removed from the roadways. Moreover, we are in the process of replacing the current Bourne and Sagamore bridges onto the Cape with new, state of the art bridges, easily able to accommodate this level of truck traffic. 

The BRT, for its part, will result in the removal of far more cars from the roadways, as people will use it to commute and to recreate, instead of jumping in their cars.

So, let’s do this! Let your local and state officeholders know that you are on board! Pull the track and build the BRT now with federal funding!

Friends of the Bourne Rail Trail