TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

We here in the northeast should work together with our neighboring states to find new and better ways to reduce climate-changing transportation pollution.

In recent weeks, Gov. Mills made the bold proclamation “Maine will be carbon-neutral by 2045.” “And we mean it,” she said.

We wish to congratulate the governor for her leadership on an issue with so much impact on the lives of every Mainer, and for inviting stakeholders to recommend innovative strategies to reach this ambitious goal.

When Governor Mills made that statement at the inaugural meeting of the Maine Climate Council last week, the Maine Rail Transit Coalition -- a longtime group of business and political leaders in Portland, Lewiston, Auburn -- launched into action. The MRTC lends its support to the Climate Council, and we are offering our considered advice toward making Maine carbon-neutral by 2045.

MRTC believes Maine can get fully halfway to its goal of 2045 carbon neutrality utilizing a “silver bullet” solution that also provides economic development, workforce housing, tax relief and quality of life benefits beyond the carbon dividend.

That solution is passenger rail, and Maine has a shovel-ready project to link Portland to Lewiston in three to five years. Brunswick, Freeport, Portland have all received the benefits of passenger rail. The communities of Western Maine, along with Rockland, Westbrook, Auburn and Lewiston have all been planning for rail over the last decade. Lewiston/Auburn is next.

The concept for a modern, hybrid-electric commuter passenger train service connecting Maine’s two largest urban centers is based on a plan developed by the Maine Department of Transportation 12 to 15 years ago. It is driven by the demographics and relationships between Lewiston and Portland. This is a plan to move a lot of people on an existing, state-owned, but unused rail line.

There may be a perceived conflict between using the rail for freight. However, at this moment in time we need to move passengers on rail and off the roads to address the issues of congestion, parking, housing and climate. Passenger rail is far more effective, and this can be done. The Grand Trunk railroad route is the solution we are pursuing. This state-owned rail, developed in conjunction with private capital, is the best way to work for everybody.

The critical framework for this is complete. We simply want the state to adhere to plan they devised 15 years ago and updated this year that offers benefits to an economic corridor that encompasses the largest population in the state.

This project has the full backing of the L/A Metro Chamber, the cities of Lewiston and Auburn, a group of 13 towns through Oxford and Androscoggin counites and a large segment of the population of Portland. Maine does not have to wait another 15 years to do a plan that is already good. The work to move forward is done, this can be implemented very quickly to the benefit of a large area of the state.

Linking the downtown centers of Maine’s two largest cities to create a multimodal transit link -- reaching from Casco Bay and downtown Portland to Lewiston-Auburn, setting the stage for a Boston-to-Montreal regional super route -- makes sense.

The route will launch high-frequency, regularly scheduled hybrid-electric passenger trains from Portland Ocean Gateway in the Old Port, along the Eastern Promenade and crossing the B’n’M Bean swing bridge, with stops in Falmouth, Yarmouth, Cumberland, New Gloucester/Pineland Farms, Auburn and Downtown Lewiston.

This infrastructure -- an engineering marvel -- is still in place, publicly owned, and waiting for an investment to provide mobility, economic development, and housing and employment access, and away from carbon-heavy transportation modes that require more and more upkeep.

Everyone agrees roads have always dominated the transportation discussion -- and spending -- in Maine, and that we have thus far committed ourselves to an almost exclusively pavement-based transportation system here. Pavement-based is emissions-heavy, resource extractive, costly to build and rebuild, inefficient for moving people, pollutes waterways, diverts resources from renewables, drives demand for fossil fuels and thus is an untenable path under the bold new Mills carbon initiative. Rail has been a largely unconsidered option in Maine’s new climate reality.

If given the chance, passenger rail advocates will tell a very compelling story about the benefits of rail for Maine, at a very standard cost in terms of bold public infrastructure investment. We will talk about a truly public-private partnership that leverages developers and investors, not public funds. We will talk about making the project long-term sustainable with a bold state bonding program. And we will talk about the vast social costs -- including climate change -- that Maine will avoid by pursuing rail-centered economic development.

Carbon reduction is but one improvement. Workforce housing, clustered business development, traffic reduction and tourism innovation are all within our grasp if we can escape the car culture that’s harming the climate.

Instead of more and more hot top maintenance paving, suburban strip malls and dying Big Box retail shells along with highway budgets that soak up 90% of the federal infrastructure allocation to Maine, we can have a different future.

But only if rail has a seat at the climate table.
Because we will never pave our way out of the climate crisis. And only if you all have a seat with us. Join us. It is Train Time.
Thank you

Anthony J. Donovan
Maine Rail Transit Coalition
Mailto: MELIKESRAIL@GMail.com
www.mainetrain.org

I often drive high school students around to activities and events in local towns and to transportation hubs in Portland, Maine. I am in full support of regional policy development for transportation in the northeast and mid-Atlantic that focuses on reducing fossil fuel use and air pollution. A bonus would be abating road congestion. Now is the time to ramp up efforts to research alternatives to the status quo because it's not sustainable. I want these kids to see that intelligent, concerned, non-narcissistic citizens are doing something now to address climate change.

Require that any community that receives federal subsidies for infrastructure improvements performs an audit on their systems and identifies components that provide a low rate of return. Those parts of the system that cost more to maintain than they generate in tax revenue need to have a plan for either a) generating new growth to pay for the infrastructure, or if and when that growth fails to materialize, b) abandoning or privatizing those segments that are too inefficient to pay for themselves.

Require communities and agencies receiving federal money for transportation improvements to perform the same analysis on their transportation systems. Prioritize funding based on the rate of return that infrastructure investment provides.
Invest only in the maintenance of existing infrastructure or in key improvements that can demonstrate a REAL return on the investment (not the imaginary cost/benefit analysis that engineers routinely do, but a financial analysis of the real improvement in property value). Let's not build anything new that we need to maintain but instead make better use of the immensity of what we have. I would target those areas that have the highest rate of return in the state and local analysis that have been performed.

Target whatever subsidies we are going to have for purchasing a home to those geographic growth areas that have been identified as having the highest rate of return. We should no longer subsidize inefficient development patterns that will cost us more money to sustain than they produce in return.

Put money into retrofitting communities to be self sufficient. This would mean transforming neighborhoods to be mixed-use with complex, urban streets. Roadways connecting neighborhoods would need to be simple and efficient, which would likely require the closing (purchasing) of accesses and reconfiguring intersections to be primarily roundabouts or secondly smart connected signals. In addition, grossly inefficient areas that have no realistic hope of generating a reasonable level of investment should be proactively abandoned or their infrastructure privatized.

Abandon "cap-and-trade" schemes. Instead, build a smart grid that would allow for "congestion-pricing" of energy demand. Sit back and watch the market create massive levels of efficiency.

Eliminate the gas tax and all vehicular Level of Service references within antiquated laws and manuals. To fund roadway improvements, adopt a tax on Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and add congestion pricing tolls to our most congested highways. Sit back and watch the market create massive levels of efficiency.

Consider game-changing megaprojects, like Empire State train discussed earlier.

Put money in people, not infrastructure. It is small business filling needs in the market that will get us out of this long-term. There is no way to know what those needs are today - only innovators and entrepreneurs on the ground can figure that out. Small businesses do not require new infrastructure or massive investments in systems. If we are going to subsidize something, I would pay 75% of the salary of a new hire before I would extend unemployment benefits again.

We need so much change in land use:
Track the actual costs of infrastructure vs tax revenue (Strongtowns.org) to prevent new strip malls, box box, and sprawling neighborhoods,
Make active transportation/complete streets the norm
Make most streets 25 MPH and allow small (golf cart size ) vehicles
Promote driverless cars to reduce need for car ownership and space devoted to parking
Redude parking minimums in zoning
Return neighborhood streets to pedestrians and let them be social spaces!

Maine should use TCI as an opportunity to invest in local transportation solutions that help Maine people get to where they need to go in an affordable way that’s good for our environment. I am surrounded by people who are food insecure. There is food available, but many have no transportation to get to food banks. We need more access to public transportation.

Transportation and the climate changing pollution, related to the use of fossil fuels for the purpose of 'getting to work' or for other so-called 'necessary' movement of people, is a question we have front and center, now ! There are other dirty, polluting uses of the fossil fuels that have a negative effect on our environment, locally as well as globally. Here, we're looking at a possible change in the means of transportation and just how we should cover the costs involved with the changes. These discussions over-look the possibility of 'local', community based vocational endeavors, that would allow members of local communities an option of utilizing employment opportunities in or near their home communities. The addiction we face daily, using fossil fuels to 'commute' to our employment situation, is removed from the equation, when a community based economic opportunity exists. We have worked 'locally', with folks that are interested in a community based, worker-owned business, that can release folks from the 'commute' to earn money to pay bills and raise their families. We have worked with 'low skilled' people and those with limited abilities, to establish a sustainable, clean-energy economy, assembling solar modules, locally ! This effort, with the small funding required for community based economic opportunities, in every town across the State of Maine, would be an example of local 'ingenuity', as well as a way forward toward a future without the fossil fuels that are the problems we face as a world-wide population ! Thank you !

I live in Kittery but I’m about to move to the Bridgton/ Fryeburg area. We really need clean, public transportation. I am seriously looking at Bridgton over Fryeburg because Bridgton has a very minimal public bus to Portland. But the trip takes 90 minutes! How about using the TCI funds to develop a clean energy bus route to fryeburg and Bridgton and a dedicated express bus lane at least from Bridgton to Portland!