Conversation About Emerging Plans To Again Route New Rails Through Southern RI

CT Examiner editor Gregory Stroud shares information about current planning for high-speed rail in the northeast, including how the decisions made might affect southeastern Connecticut and Rhode Island. This 52-minute video is a refresher on the past flawed federal process and provides information about the “New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study” that began in November.

In 2016, the Federal Railway Administration unveiled plans to bisect Charlestown with a new high-speed track that runs from its western edge through homes in the bucolic Burdickville village, across a four-generation farm-to-table operation on top of Schumankanuc Hill, over Native-American tribal land through the center of the 1,112-acre Carter Preserve (owned by The Nature Conservancy), and splitting the Revolutionary-era Amos Green Farm, adjacent properties protected by conservation easements, and federally funded Historic Columbia Heights housing, then over Historic Kenyon to reconnect with the existing railroad near the eastern edge of town in the Great Swamp.

This was caused by the “Old Saybrook to Kenyon Bypass” which was part of the “preferred alternative” in the Tier 1 Final EIS.

The Federal Railroad Administration released their Record of Decision on July 12, 2017 and dropped the “Old Saybrook to Kenyon Bypass” from the plan. Great news and a big win for Charlestown, however a study is required that leaves the door open to the Bypass. That new study, the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study began in November 2023.

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Visit The Railroad Page To Learn More About Past Work To Stop The Bypass