Looking west on Route 9 at the I-495 interchange (via Google Maps)
A couple regional planning committees have been studying the I-495 corridor from Berlin to Hopkinton, including the portion that runs through Southborough. This week they presented some ideas to improve the traffic capacity of interchanges on 495 and to reduce traffic along the corridor, reports the Metrowest Daily News.
In addition to redesigning the interchange at 495 and Route 9, the planning committees suggested a regional train station at the intersection of 495 and the Mass Pike.
Vera Kolias, Southborough’s town planner, said (the regional station) might still benefit the area because many spaces would open at the already packed, smaller stations in Southborough and Westborough. “Then you have more local folks at the local station and regional folks at the mega-station,” she said.
You can read all the details in the Metrowest Daily News.
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The train station idea is preposterous, as the MDN article makes clear. One of the commissions concedes the station (which would cost umpteen million dollars, of course) would attract only 600 new train riders per day – a drop in the bucket.
When your only tool is a hammer, the old saw goes, every problem looks like a nail. When you serve as a “transportation program manager” on a planning commission, every problem looks like an excuse to add buses and trains – even though history shows their effect will be marginal and their cost outrageous.
They would be incredibly hard pressed to build a train station in the immediate area. Just about everything (if it hasn’t been filled in yet) is a wetland. The head of the Sudbury is there as is Great Cedar Swamp, just to name few.