Half a dozen people took turns on November 4 telling the Burlington City Council that the city is being railroaded — literally.
A proposal to service Amtrak trains overnight at the old Union Station would create more noise and exhaust on the downtown waterfront, one of the city’s most popular destinations and a residential area to boot. Adding insult to injury, locals told councilors, Vermont Railway plans to install a second track, displacing a section of the popular bike path while increasing train traffic and raising safety concerns.
“The waterfront will be forever changed,” Carl Fowler, a Williston resident who serves on Gov. Phil Scott’s Rail Advisory Council, warned the councilors.
Officials, too, seemed surprised that a second railroad track is planned. Councilor Franklin Paulino (D-North District) said the whole project seems rushed.
“A lot of people, when they think of Burlington, they think of that area. It’s a delicate issue,” said Paulino, a supporter of passenger rail. He added: “I don’t know what the city’s options are. That’s my main question.”
The answer, it seems, is that the city has very few options. Authority to decide where to park the passenger trains lies with the Vermont Agency of Transportation, and a recent study performed at the city’s behest scored Union Station as the best option of five possible depots.
Regardless of where the Amtrak train is stored, Vermont Rail System — the parent company of Vermont Railway — has said that it will add a second railroad track between King and College streets, a plan that, under federal law, is exempt from state or local regulation. The rail operator plans to use the new track to connect its freight cars while the Amtrak train is parked, as well as for its own excursion trains, such as the Polar Express ride during the Christmas season.
VTrans officials insist they’re open to hearing from residents and will gather feedback at the city council’s transportation committee meeting on November 19. They also point to the study conducted by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission as proof that they’re dedicated to finding the right storage location. And the 11-member rail advisory council will recommend an option to VTrans Secretary Joe Flynn before the end of the year. Passenger trains are expected in Burlington by 2021.
Leading the opposition to the Union Station plan is Melinda Moulton. She’s the CEO of Main Street Landing, the redevelopment company that refurbished and now operates several buildings, including the old train depot, near the waterfront rail line. While Moulton has worked for three decades to bring an Amtrak stop back to Union Station, she was aghast to learn that the trains could be stored there overnight.
As part of her research into the planning commission study, Moulton reviewed several years of VTrans emails. She provided Seven Days with about 150 pages of documents that she says prove the whole report was rigged.
In one message from December 2016, Michele Boomhower, VTrans’ director of policy, planning and intermodal development, told Burlington Public Works director Chapin Spencer that while VTrans would support an analysis of alternatives, “we really don’t have any options to move forward with other than storage at the station.”
In February 2017, Boomhower directed the planning commission to do “a very small analysis” of the train storage issue. Later that year, a study consultant wrote that he “went with the ‘less is more’ approach with this report, thinking that it was destined for a shelf at VTrans.”
Instead, a draft was publicly released in June 2018 and the final report in July. Both studies scored Union Station higher than parkland north of downtown, the Vermont Railway railyard near Perkins Pier and another site in the South End.
“This has been a sham,” said Larry Sudbay, who owns one of four condos that sit feet from the station in Main Street Landing’s Wing Building. “Taxpayers, everybody has just been lied to with this report,” he continued. “It’s unbelievable.”
Charlie Baker, the planning commission’s executive director, defended the report. He said the analysis is sound and wasn’t influenced by VTrans or Boomhower, who previously worked as Baker’s No. 2 before taking a job at VTrans in 2015.
“There was nothing precooked about this study, period,” he said.
Boomhower, too, called the process sound.
“While we had an idea of where we thought the train would be best stored … before the report was undertaken, we [now] have a whole lot more information regardless of the scores,” she said. “I think we’re sort of analyzing all of the information that came back from the report.”
It’s been a long-standing goal to return passenger rail service to Burlington, connecting it with New York City and points south. Planning began in earnest in 2015, when the state was awarded a $10 million grant to upgrade rail lines between Rutland and Burlington. Rutland brought Amtrak service back in 1996 to great fanfare. Vermont Railway built a second track at that city’s train station so its freight trains could maneuver around the overnighting Amtrak cars.
The same could happen when the Ethan Allen Express returns to Burlington, where a crew would clean the cars, empty the onboard septic tanks and refuel before the next morning’s run. Neighbors say that will be noisy, and they worry that idling trains will pollute the waterfront that Burlington has worked so hard to clean up.
Under a federal law known as preemption, railroads can bypass local construction and zoning permits and environmental review. If a train blocks your business’ entrance? That’s just too bad.
Vermont Rail System leases the Burlington track from the State of Vermont. The terms say that, so long as the railroad is conducting railroad operations, the trains can keep on rolling.
“We have full use of the railroad, absolutely,” Vermont Rail System vice president Selden Houghton said. “VTrans doesn’t get involved in the operations at all. They’re merely the landlord; we operate it.”
Other towns have tried and failed to fight the railroad. In 2016, Shelburne got mired in a lengthy legal battle over Vermont Railway’s plans to build a large salt shed not far from the LaPlatte River. The town surrendered earlier this year after spending more than $500,000 in legal fees and losing two court appeals, the Shelburne News reported. The railway argued successfully that federal law exempted it from town oversight.
Boomhower said Burlington’s second track would likely be protected by the same law.
“The second track is not something that is able to be modified [or] put in another location,” she said. “That’s just part of the project.”
Noise and emissions should be minimal, Houghton said, noting that the people concerned about these impacts did choose to live next to an active railroad. There’s no room to store the Amtrak at the railyard near Perkins Pier, he said, though that would be the city’s preference. The planning commission’s study estimated it would cost $50 million to store the train there because Vermont Railway would need to move its operation to make room.
Longtime waterfront advocates aren’t convinced, and they worry that all this train activity could tarnish the Queen City’s crown jewel and return it to its industrial past. Passenger trains stopped at Union Station from 1916 to 1953, and the area once boasted 15 tracks. For years, freight trains made frequent runs to the coal-powered Moran electrical plant and oil tanks along the Lake Champlain shoreline.
But during the 1980s, then-mayor Bernie Sanders’ administration fought to reclaim the waterfront for parks and other uses, an effort capped by a 1989 Vermont Supreme Court decision that helped the city acquire 60 acres of land from the railway.
Other waterfront champions include former governor Howard Dean and environmental activist Rick Sharp, who led a citizen group that successfully lobbied to convert a disused waterfront rail line into Burlington’s bike path in the 1980s and ’90s.
Dean said it’s “crazy” and “bad public policy” to lay a second rail track on the waterfront. As governor in the early 2000s, he pushed for a short-lived commuter train between Burlington and Charlotte. Sharp, who recently wrote a book about his efforts to create the bike path, called the plan “ludicrous.”
“The only one that seems to want that there is the railroad,” Sharp said. “The track itself is actually owned by the State of Vermont. We the people of Vermont own the track.”
Despite their opposition to the plan, both Dean and Sharp think that the bike path, if displaced by the rail track, should be moved off the railroad’s right-of-way. In 2016, Sharp convinced voters to support a nonbinding ballot item that proposed moving the bike path between King and College streets onto land owned by the Lake Champlain Transportation ferry company. Since then, Mayor Miro Weinberger said he has had “productive conversations” with the ferry company’s Trey Pecor and with the ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, which leases land from the city just south of College Street.
“I’m optimistic that we will find a way to get this done without the use of eminent domain,” the mayor said.
While the city may not have a say on installation of a second track, Weinberger thinks VTrans’ request for feedback on the train storage question is genuine. Neighbors’ concerns over air quality and safety are valid, he said, but their worries that the waterfront will be reindustrialized are “dramatically overstated.”
“Adding a passenger [rail] siding is not going to bring back oil tanks and a coal-burning plant,” Weinberger said. “We’re not going to make a decision based on that kind of sentiment.”
Rather, the mayor said, the city will consider which location has the least impact on homes and businesses and will pressure VTrans to choose that option. Fighting the railroad would be messy, Weinberger said, but the city hasn’t ruled it out.
Main Street Landing’s Moulton hopes the city will step up and join the fight. After decades pushing for Amtrak’s return, she is now viewed as the train’s most vocal opponent, an irony that’s not lost on her. Standing in the empty lobby this week, Moulton recalled how, with Dean’s help, Main Street Landing refurbished the aging station in the late 1990s, readying it for the trains. Just a few years later, Jim Carrey and Renée Zellweger filmed a scene for the 2000 comedy Me, Myself & Irene in the brand-new station. Moulton watched the film with tears of joy: Amtrak had finally arrived, if only for four days on a movie set.
She wants the train back — but not parked overnight on the waterfront.
“We just feel really sad that after all the years we worked to bring passenger rail back, that this comes with it,” Moulton said. “We fought for this train, and at the end of the day, it’s a stick in the eye.”
Correction, November 14, 2019: A previous version of this story mischaracterized Mayor Weinberger’s position on challenging the railway over its decision.The original print version of this article was headlined “Runaway Train? | Burlington officials, residents have little say in railroad plans that would alter downtown waterfront”
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This article appears in The Winter Preview — 2019.
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In one message from December 2016, Michele Boomhower, VTrans’ director of policy, planning and intermodal development, told Burlington Public Works director Chapin Spencer that while VTrans would support an analysis of alternatives, “we really don’t have any options to move forward with other than storage at the station.”
Why did it take three years almost for this to come out. This should have been brought to the attention of interested parties or was it Chapin’s plan to just let this go forward. Like the bike lanes it’s not about what the people of the neighborhoods want, it’s what Chapin wants. That is a carless world!
Oh no, not a return of industry!
Melinda Moulton took $1.5 Million In Federal Railroad money and another half Million from the State Transportation fund to build a train station and now is complaining that they are going to put trains next to her building? That’s not just NIMBY. That’s some combination of greed and chutzpah that is so big, it should have its own zipcode.
Hats off to STACYBTV802
Melinda Moulton was before trains before she was against them.
Feels like this is karmic retribution for a city administration that was indifferent to the changes at BTV and the affect on South Burlintgon.
Hats off to STACYBTV802
Melinda Moulton was for trains before she was against them.
(Fixes typo in earlier post.)
Headline should have been: ” Entitled Rich Person Complaining Again.”
So this is getting rammed down their throats just like all the bike routes on the streets of Burlington? ROFL
Why not roll the train up to Essex Jct. or even St. Albans? Not only solves the problem, but adds interconnection with the Vermonter.
If we go by the numbers – which we probably should – Union Station storage is by far the cheapest option.
1. Northern Urban Reserve – $2,290,000. (although looks like there is an extra 0 that may be a typo or not, so the cost may be that or 22,900,000).
2. South Urban Reserve – $2,240,000.
3. Union Station – $300,000.
4. Rail Yard – ca. $50,000,000.
5. Flynn Ave. – $1,500,000
Opposition makes 0 fiscal or logical sense.
“…the people concerned about these impacts did choose to live next to an active railroad.” This IS true!.
Why does a ‘waterfront champion’ not want the train at all costs?. Why would ANYONE who wants Burlington to thrive and prosper not want the train? Let’s think big.
There’s a big difference between having a train pass the building, and having another track built with a train sitting there all day or all night, getting put-together and serviced.
Ms. Moulton is right in wanting the train, and she’s right in not wanting one sitting there for 12 hours getting serviced, while idling and keeping people from enjoying either the bike path or the waterfront. And ECHO.
Many commenters don’t seem to see that it’s two different things – having rail service in town, and having a freight-yard in town.
There is No Way it will cost only $300,000 to put it at Union Station (building another track and making all other arrangements – like taking away all the greenery and the family-friendly bike-path). The railroad says it’ll cost $50,000,000 to put it a block away, at the railyard? Come On. False math – you realize how much work it will be to put in that second track, and have access for all the trucks involved in this? Remember – the work on City Hall Park is costing $6,000,000.
Do you really think it will put in a second track and all preparations for servicing for $300,000? This project will also require bulldozers, cranes and the rest. I’d love to see some itemized bills on this comparison.
We do not need to destroy the bike-path and waterfront to please the Railroad. You’ll see sooner or later.
I keep seeing the suggestion that this train should be run up to St Albans by NIMBYists. That’s not likely to happen. I’d say impossible, but I’ve learned not to commit to absolute statements; after all look who’s president.
Running the train up to St. Albans every night would require a separate agreement with the NECR, who owns the track north of Burlington and the yard where the train would be serviced. This would interfere with their nightly freight operations. The NECR moves it’s freight south and services it’s customers overnight, the only exception being the chip train to McNeil that runs during the day. It’s not impossible to work around an opposing northbound Amtrak movement, but it would require hefty financial incentive for the NECR to consider it. That amount would likely dwarf the current proposals over time, assuming they don’t just laugh you out of the room.
There’s also the issue of scheduling. Train crews are bound by hours of service regulations. The run up to St Albans and back every tour of duty would substantially eat into a crew’s maximum allowable hours, basically for nothing.
Not to mention the actual costs of the crew, fuel, and extra wear on the train and infrastructure for a 2+ hour trip to nowhere.
I wish this idea would just go away. It’s nonsense.
I’m a bit perplexed as to why my question about parking the train in Essex Jct. or St. Albans has gotten so many dislikes. I’d be curious to hear the objections.
Here’s another idea: I see there is a disused spur line exiting the rail yard and then paralleling Pine Street for several blocks. It looks like there’s room to park the train near Howard St. across from Dealer.com. I understand a recreation path is planned in this same area as part of the Champlain Parkway project, but it looks like there may be room for both projects.
IT, are you talking about behind the old Maltex building? I know the tracks on pine st have been long gone but that’s a good idea too. I doubt Miro will stand up for the people! Has he yet?
ITGuy –
most people who read these are grumblers who hit “dislike” instinctively if they see a word or thought which opposes their own. Sometimes dozens of them will appear, as if summoned – which makes me wonder if there is a group effort on some issues. So don’t take it personal.
For instance: Mr. I give up – he “wishes the idea would go away.” I’m not sure which idea, but you get the idea. And his “name” refers to someone who can see no way to discuss the matter at hand – but he is doing just that. (He isn’t giving up, is he?) He has invoked the idea of “NIMBY” which would mean “just don’t do it in my backyard” though in this case some consider the waterfront our frontyard – either way, he means we say it’s a good idea as long as it is not too close to us. He’s right – the railroad is a good idea, but not in our frontyard – “NIMFYism” at work.
“I doubt Miro will stand up for the people! Has he yet?”
What does the phrase “stand up for the people” even mean? Who are “the people”? Which people? Burlington has 42,000 of them. Are you saying he’s not “standing up for” the rich people in their waterfront condos who want Amtrak service in Burlington but don’t want to see or hear or smell the trains anywhere near their buildings and views? Are those the people you say he’s “not standing up for”?
“Has he yet”? Yes, he has stood up for the people of Burlington. Just not the way you want, apparently. But many of the other 42,000 think he’s doing great.
Vermont Rail Systems are not good neighbors, though they go far trying to convince you of that. Putting a salt shed on the banks of the LaPlatte River in Shelburne Village?? Horrible. The noise has caused huge grief in nearby neighborhoods. At least, in our legal battle, we were able to reduce the number of the ginormous sheds to 2, from 4.
Also, during that period, many posts showed up on our Front Porch Forum lambasting and trolling our selectboard who worked so hard on that case, and glorifying Vermont Rail Systems … These posts turned out to be from fake identities!!
So yes, IMHO VRS will stoop to astonishing lows in their fight to get what they want, regardless of the cost to the environment, the neighborhoods, or the wishes of the citizenry. Ask folks in Charlotte who had their own VRS battle a few years ago. VRS was positively vindictive and malicious in their behavior.
Watch ’em like a hawk. Don’t put anything past them.
Gigrape52@gmail.com –
I am referreing to the spur that runs between the Maltex building and Pine St. I’m thinking the train could park just a bit south of there in a spot that looks very overgrown on Google Maps right now. It seems like there’s enough distance between Howard St. and Electric Ave. that no driveways would be blocked. Again, it would require coordination if a rec path goes there, but both might fit.
Charlie Messing –
Thanks for your comments. I genuinely wanted to know what the objections were to the St. Albans option. If “i give up” thinks I’m a NIMBY type, he’s wrong. I live in Dorset where the impact of any of these options would be quite minimal. I’m just a curious rail buff.
i give up –
Thanks for your explanation about the challenges involved in the St. Albans option. I didn’t think working with NECR would be so difficult as there are already agreements for the Vermonter. But I’m not an expert in these matters. On the other hand, once the Vermonter reverts to Montrealer service I could imagine considerable interest in Burlington/Montreal service. I know the track between Burlington and Essex Jct. is terrible, but I like to be optimistic about such things.
Charlie,
I think I explained my point pretty thoroughly. Do you have a rebuttal?
ITguy,
The track is indeed terrible between Burlington and Essex. Rail upgrades would be necessary to run a passenger train on it if you wanted to connect Burlington and Essex, but that’s putting the cart so far before the horse you can’t even see it. We don’t have service to Montpelier yet so there’s nothing to connect currently.
Dealing with the task at hand I think that working something out with the VRS is still the best, most cost effective option. Notice I didn’t previously make any comment about where to park the train in Burlington. I thought that if I didn’t voice an opinion people would focus on the one point I was trying to make, I.E. running the train north out of town simply wont happen. I don’t think the Union Station location is ideal, but it’s the only option that doesn’t require significant infrastructure upgrades or a separate deal with the NECR which is why it’s the cheapest. I personally think the Flynn Ave location is best compromise, but the tax payers would need to buy the VRS a new siding.
Check out table 1 and 2 here:
https://www.ccrpcvt.org/wp-content/uploads…
My prediction is that the train will be parked at Union Station for a while but wont stay there, and the attempts to cut costs on this project will lead to more money wasted down the road. But I am usually wrong about these things. It’s why I don’t gamble.
Hey there Give Up,
no, that’s fine. St. Albans is far, and far-fetched.
My concern is that the Railroad says that every other option costs a lot more. One spot is predicted to cost $300,000 (Union Station) and another to cost $50,000,000 (I think it’s the spot by Flynn Ave). Neither price is realistic. It could never cost that little to put a second track by the bikepath. The other spot would cost 167 times more. How does that make sense? It’s like one of them will be made with a bulldozer or two, near some streets, and the other will be deep in the jungle a thousand miles away. I had to compute those figures – 167 times…we must see the itemized estimates!
And how much would it cost to fix the track from Union Station to Essex Junction? Millions? I think anything they do will cost millions. Not fifty of them, though.
The Portland Loo, intended for the new City Hall Park, will cost $200,000. It’s a single toilet in a one-ton steel enclosure. Can you see a bunch of trees going down and rails being laid for 600 feet costing less than twice that?
Oops – it was the Railyard location that would involve moving all the other stuff they have there to a new spot and to start from scratch there (?) which is why that option would cost 50 million.
The spot by Union Station they pretend is just about already there!
Why they are not counting the ripping away of 20 feet of grass and trees on the west side (by the lake), two months of digging, construction and such is a mystery.
Charlie –
According to an article on vermontbiz.com from September, the Union Station location would only cost $300,000 because VTR plans to build the siding regardless of what Amtrak does. This is apparently related to the excursion trains that run during the summer. The mayor is quoted: Weinberger’s office sent this message to VBM in late August: “We have been informed by VTR that they are building a second track regardless of the Amtrak. Therefore, we are working on plans to relocate the Bike Path to the west side of the track.” The $300,000 price tag is for adding 3 phase power equipment that would allow the diesel locomotive to power down for the night.
Hey Mr. IT Guy,
I see what you’re saying, and what they’re saying. I don’t believe it, but I think the $300,000 figure comes from discounting a bunch of the work. “They were going to do it anyway” so they don’t count those
dollars.
Yes, I have heard that the Railroad is always insistent that they have the right to do anything, and that they have no need for nor patience with the people who live near a project.
That does not make me give up. We shall see. We can be obstinate too.
The new idea revealed by VTRANS of a building siding adjacent to the Mc Neil Plant for Amtrak servicing is indeed very good news–if VTRANS is serious and doesn’t wildly over-design the project to protect their far-advanced plans to use Union Station. One possible benefit of this spot is that its semi-rural setting should keep project costs reasonable.
Only one switch would be required, plus about 700 feet of siding, (this allows for the two engines, five Amtrak cars and a reserve slot for the occasional extra car), and that lower cost might make it more likely the balance of the work to upgrade thru to Essex Jct. might actually still be done before we all perish of old age! Even the “Hot Start” unit could probably be moved if needed when service to Montreal became possible via ESX. It should be much easier to arrange/handle truck access there as well.
But if the decision is made to move the Amtrak facility away from Union Station the city and the state MUST oppose anything beyond platform work at Union Station/Main Street Landing. VRS could still use the platform for its Dinner Train–as the two trains can easily be scheduled to not overlap each other at all.
They have options–but again, if the city/state relieves any potential congestion in front of Union Station by storing the Amtrak train at the power plant site, they have no need to move anything in their yards. So how can this be a requirement to handle Amtrak?
C.B. Hall covers this at https://vermontbiz.com/news/2019/november/21/amtrak-controversy-intervale-emerges-option?utm_source=VBM+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=d54b3d23db-ENEWS_2019_11_21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e56b36a4-d54b3d23db-286713713
The claimed $300,000 cost for the Amtrak facility at Union Station is totally deceptive. The only rational reason for the added trackage there is to get freight trains around a stored passenger train each night. The report assumes only the cost to build a short platform raised 8 inches above the railhead and to install at “Hot Start” ground power box.
But the passing track project also requires a new 800 foot + mainline, two #8 switches, two sets of four quadrant total exclusion crossing gates (a pair at each of King and College Streets), the reconfiguration of the narrower surviving east side access for service trucks and riders and the relocation of the bike path to the west side of the tracks–at least in part on LCT Co (ferry) land. Part of their boat house will probably face demolition. The real project cost is likely to exceed $2,000,000.
Ironically if Amtrak is serviced elsewhere almost none of this is needed–indeed the $300,000 VTRANS allowance may be high if we then to just raise the platform to 8 inches above the railhead parallel to at least the length of two coaches. This is the only work required under ADA regulations.
Further to the cheap dismissal below of going to St. Albans the repair of the Burlington-St Albans branch line is a priority in the current Five year State Rail Plan just below getting the Rutland-Burlington project completed. No one is suggesting St. Albans as the final destination of Vermont’s Amtrak trains. Our proper goal has always been Montreal–where there are 4,000,000 potential riders.
The state has already seen a treaty passed by both the USA and Canada which will permit Customs and Immigration formalities to be conducted for both countries in Central Station–as they already are in Montreal for air travelers at Trudeau (Dorval) Airport and for Amtrak riders at Vancouver’s Pacific Central Station. If we are lucky the work to build this facility will be done by or very shortly after the 2021 target for Amtrak to reach Burlington.
In any event the advantage short-term to St. Albans is that complete Amtrak service facilities already exist there and the train can easily be scheduled to allow the required crew rest time. Ultimately we can expect to see both day and night trains restored not only within Vermont, but to/from Canada and the Northeast Corridor cities as well–if only we have the vision not to accept two separate Amtrak routes in Vermont disconnected by only 7.97 miles of slower track.
Thank you Mr. Fowler, for your research and your cogent comments!
Yes, it did sound more like a $2,000,000 project at Union Station, rather than $300,000. You make plenty of sense. My hope is that you can affect the decision which is now “up in the air” and get it “back on track.”