Railroad EIS

When: Saturday, August 15 from 9 am to 5 pm
Where: Rocky Neck State Park ( 244 West Main Street (Route 156), Niantic (East Lyme), CT )
and
When: Sunday, August 16 from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm
Where: Scarborough North State Beach ( 870 Ocean Road, Narragansett, RI )

The New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study team is popping up again with very short notice in Narragansett, RI and in Connecticut.

The August 6 “pop-up” was not a presentation, but instead a table with pamphlets, a bulletin board for the public to place three stickers each on the topics they were most concerned about, and members of the Amtrak study team circulating for one on one conversations with the public. Most of what was at the “pop-up” is already available at the Capacity Planning Study website. But the conversations with the study team members were still enlightening.

When: Thursday, August 6 at 6 p.m.
Where: Ninigret Park at the New Pavilion

With less than 48 hours notice before the event, a notice went up on the Town of Charlestown’s web site and Facebook page that Amtrak would be conducting this pop-up event. No notice was sent by Amtrak to the many residents who have signed up to be notified via the study email list.

Effective opposition to additional rails or rail realignments that destroy environmental and cultural treasures such as the Carter Preserve, the Pawcatuck River, or our historic mill villages “would be meaningfully more difficult under the 2025 SPEED Act, which would limit the role of the National Environmental Policy Act in shaping projects with federal funding or permits”

CT Mirror story on Amtrak’s New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study. Unlike NEC Future, the new study is not being conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a federal law that requires agencies to evaluate the environmental impacts of major infrastructure projects before approving them. Gregory Stroud said. “How do you engage with a federal process if you don’t know what rules it’s governed by?” Post links to story at CT Mirror.

The New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study includes a website that allows the public to sign up for the study’s mailing list and optionally to provide input to Amtrak about the study. Links to sign up and comment are in this post.

In early June, Amtrak launched a website that allows the public to sign up for the study’s mailing list and provide input. Included is a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document. Amtrak says the website will be enlarged as the study progresses and more information becomes available.

In 2016, the Federal Railroad Administration released a plan to bisect Charlestown with a new high-speed track known as the “Old Saybrook to Kenyon Bypass.” Amtrak made an announcement on May 21, 2026, that the study required by the FRA’s 2017 Record of Decision had finally received the federal and other funding to proceed. The “New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study” is on the table, and that is extremely important and could be potentially devastating for Charlestown’s natural, historic, and residential character.

Amtrak has the go-ahead to move forward with a long-awaited two-year study to decide how best to achieve high-speed rail service linking New Haven and Providence on the Northeast Corridor. Will it include the destructive “Old Saybrook to Kenyon Bypass?” This is just the beginning—there is nothing definitive yet. Story is at the CT Examiner and you may need a subscription to read.

On May 3, the CT Examiner interviewed Joseph Barr, Director of Network Development in the East Coast, who is working on the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study.  The Kenyon to Old Saybrook bypass is not off the table and Mr. Barr speaks of a past Environmental Impact Statement as if it was complete, but NEC Future never had environmental data for Charlestown and nearby towns. We will need to get that environmental data to them all over again. See our web page on the Federal Railroad Administration Plan for background.

“Because they had such a failed public process before, and because what they proposed was so devastating to the environment, historic resources, to people’s homes, they ought to want to start with a really open process, because people will assume that they don’t have any other ideas, because I’ve only heard of two, and one has been taken off the table. So if they have another idea, no one knows what it is, and the people in the path of that other idea ought to know, too.”

CHARLESTOWN — Years after a proposed “Kenyon to Old Saybrook” high-speed-rail bypass through areas like the historic district of Old Lyme and and Stonington’s Olde Mistick Village sparked public outcry in Connecticut, few realize the pivotal role that Charlestown played in stopping the plan, or at least delaying it until now. Story at CT Examiner.

Ruth Platner: “I asked Bard to make some images that combined high-speed trains with some of the destruction the new route would create such as the permanent fragmentation of 1,800 acres of permanently protected open space, but Bard refused to create such disturbing images. If these images violate the ethics of a robot, why are they okay to make a reality in Charlestown!?”

The on-going “New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study” will recommend a new off-corridor route that meets goals for time and capacity included in the 2017 NEC Future Record of Decision. Whether that means a return to the idea of a bypass, such as the controversial route previously planned through Charlestown, or a direct inland route between Hartford and Providence is not yet clear, although a recent interview with Congressman Joe Courtney hinted that the direct inland route may already be off the table.

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.

Amtrak officials acknowledge that the ground rules for the new study guarantee a new off-corridor route and require the same metrics previously used to justify a controversial high-speed-rail bypass through Charlestown and coastal Connecticut. Read text of story in the CT Examiner.

Federal Railroad Administration announced $16.4 billion of funding for passenger rail projects along the Northeast Corridor, and additional funding to reevaluate and finalize high-speed rail options across southeast Connecticut and southern Rhode Island. The study follows up on the “Kenyon to Old Saybrook Bypass” proposal for an inland high speed rail route slated between Kingston, R.I. and Old Saybrook that faced multi-state opposition and was set aside in 2017. 

Five years after the Federal Railroad Administration set aside the idea of a high-speed rail bypass between Old Saybrook and Kenyon, R.I., in the face of near unanimous opposition across the region, the federal agency announced today that it was reviving a key study intended to settle, once and for all, a route for rail travel between New Haven and Providence.

Since July 2021, when the The Northeast Corridor Commission released Connect NEC 2035, a 15-year development plan and planning process for the Northeast Rail Corridor, Charlestown’s Town Administrator has written to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) several times asking for information. Now seven months later, Charlestown has finally gotten a reply from the FRA, but not a lot of answers.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont discussed accelerating investment in high-speed rail by leveraging the new federal funds provided by the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act at a meeting with Amtrak officials. A spokesperson for CT DOT said the meeting did not include a status update on the Old Saybrook to Kenyon bypass.

A U.S. Department of Transportation “Providence to New Haven Capacity Planning Study” has some local officials wondering whether the original plan to run train tracks through sections of their town, and other Rhode Island and Connecticut towns, might not be dead after all.

Charlestown’s Town Administrator, Mark Stankiewicz, has written again to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) asking for clarification on the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study. The concern is that the study leaves open the door for new rail alignments that could negatively impact Charlestown’s residents and natural resources. The Town has had no response to its August letter to the FRA. The text of Mr. Stankiewicz’s newest letter to the FRA is in the post.

On November 3rd, 2021, a meeting took place between representatives of Charlestown and the RI DOT Director Peter Alviti and RI DOT Intermodal Programs Chief Stephen Devine. The meeting was requested to provide an update on the NEC Connect 2035 plan and specifically the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study.

At the Council meeting, I proposed a motion “to authorize Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz to take whatever action is necessary to protect the town” from changes to rail alignments or other proposals that may be made as part of the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study. The authorization is needed so that the Town can be nimble as circumstances unfold.

Town Council member Deb Carney recounted assurances from Amtrak CEO William Flynn at the August 10 Town Council Meeting that the most likely new route for a high-speed rail connection from New Haven to Providence would be along the I-95 corridor. As far as NEC Future is concerned, the route “more parallel to Route 95” is the Kenyon to Old Saybrook Bypass. And if we are to believe the verbal assurances of Flynn, rail officials are once again on a collision course with eastern Connecticut and southern Rhode Island.

We ask that the Town Council and our State Government Officials inform the Federal Railroad Administration that Charlestown should have a seat at the table on the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study; that there be a complete environmental impact study; and that we remain opposed to the Old Saybrook to Kenyon Bypass.

On July 16th the Connecticut Examiner reported that both of Connecticut’s senators support the just-announced Connect NEC 2035 that implements the first phase of the Federal Railroad Administration’s NEC Future plan. No mention was made of continued opposition to the Bypass. What was offered instead was a promise from Connecticut’s US Senator Chris Murphy to be “sensitive to existing communities that live by the rail.” This letter, written by Ruth Platner, was published in the CT Examiner as a response.

In 2016, the Federal Railway Administration released a plan to bisect Charlestown with a new high-speed track known as the “Old Saybrook to Kenyon Bypass”. The Northeast Corridor Commission has now released Connect NEC 2035. This plan does not include the Bypass, but what the maps in the release do have is a giant circle covering our region, indicating that high-speed rail in our area will be studied. The “New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study” is on the table, and that is extremely important and potentially dangerous for our town.