Next Stop, West Fitchburg

Once again, the West Fitchburg commuter rail station idea is picking up steam. There's talk of landing $750,000 in grant money to study what it would take to get a station in West Fitchburg and make the connection on an old railbed from that spot to downtown to add on to the commuter rail.

I'm a fan of the commuter rail (once upon a time it took it all the time) and think the effort to speed up the current trip is a good idea. Shortening that trip as much as possible is vital.

But I just can't fall in love with this West Fitchburg idea. Yes, people are skipping the downtown stop to go to North Leominster, and a West Fitchburg station would likely scoop up a bunch of folks from west of Fitchburg that go to North Leominster, but the West Fitchburg station goes against the reasoning behind the recent expansion of the downtown station, and the proposed rail upgrades.

Locally, the idea behind the faster service and the big downtown station and garage was to lure people downtown. Some of those people are from out of the neighborhood or the city who park there every day. Some would be downtown residents, able to walk to the train station for their daily commute. A West Fitchburg station gives a whole bunch of Fitchburg residents a reason not to go downtown every day, and elminates those out-of-towners once and for all. It would, essentially, make the "new" garage downtown obsolute and unnecessary, just years after it was opened.

The problem, in many ways, is perception. From the Route 31 exit on Route 2, the difference in time between from the downtown stop to the North Leominster stop has to be under five minutes, especially when you consider what a cluster that Route 13 exit is. At night, when people want to get home, the time difference has to be less. Coming out of that North Leominster station, you're stuck for multiple light cycles to make the left turn to Route 13 and then have to make an unlighted left turn onto Route 2. It can take 10 minutes sometimes.

I'm sure there's not grant money available for a "Our train station isn't really that far way," but city officials should pay more attention to marketing the downtown station and trying to reap the benefits that is supposed to produce than moving into West Fitchburg.