Opinion/Your Turn: Bourne Rail Trail will provide economic, health, environmental benefits

On April 2, the president of Mass Coastal Railroad, Christopher Podgurski, took to this paper to disparage the efforts of a coalition of residents, businesses, and local and regional legislators who have worked tirelessly for several years to make the Bourne Rail Trail (BRT) a reality. The project is now within reach thanks to forward-looking public officials who recently secured federal funding that will serve the interests of Bourne and the Upper Cape for decades to come.

It is important to realize that Mass Coastal Railroad is a private company whose for-profit operations benefit another private operator, Cavossa Disposal Corporation, all of which serve no public purpose. There is no removal of municipal trash from Falmouth, Mashpee, Sandwich or Bourne by train on the track that will be replaced by the rail trail.

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Presumably, these private companies make a profit from the operation of this otherwise unused rail line. So, of course, these businesses oppose the removal of the track. Mass Coastal leases the state-owned and maintained railroad tracks, and its president produced an opinion filled with inaccuracies and misleading statements about the widely supported effort to create the shared-use pathway.

The BRT project would provide economic, health and environmental benefits that far exceed what’s generated now by this underutilized, taxpayer-owned resource.

On March 7, the Bourne Select Board voted unanimously to ask Gov. Healey to approve the pivot to a “rail-to-trail” plan for the BRT. That change from a “rail-with-trail” design was supported at the meeting by a large delegation of legislators and state and federal officials.

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The Bourne Rail Trail would connect two of the top tourist destinations on Cape Cod — the Cape Cod Canal Bikeway and the Shining Sea Bikeway — and create a world-class and legacy-defining initiative that would link the villages of Bourne, Falmouth, and Sandwich. In addition, the underutilized segment of track — the Falmouth Secondary —that would be removed generates far fewer economic benefits than would the BRT, as demonstrated by the results of other pedestrian/bikeway pathways.

A 2019 study conducted for MassTrails estimated the Cape Cod Rail Trail contributed $9.2 million in economic activity and generated $1.5 million in state and local tax revenue in just a four-month period. The Cape Cod Rail Trail also contributed to 4,000 fewer vehicle trips during the four-month study period.

Mass Coastal operates over the Falmouth Secondary line thanks to the financial support of the public, which includes taxpayer-funded repairs to keep the rail line operating. There is minimal revenue from the operation of this line, Mass Coastal’s biggest customer being a private operator that uses the track to move some of its constructionand demolition debris off Cape. There is no public benefit that comes from the operation of this line. The Falmouth Secondary is not used by any of the Upper Cape towns for the disposal of municipal trash.

Podgurski talks about the significant truck traffic that is avoided thanks to the train, a convenient argument to continue public subsidization of Mass Coastal’s for-profit operation. In fact, taking Podgurski at his word that use of the train saves 3,500 truckloads per year, that is approximately nine trucks per day or fewer than two trucksevery four hours. The notion that Mass Coastal’s use of the Falmouth Secondary line mitigates local truck traffic is marginal at best.

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The Mass Coastal opinion attempts to argue that leaving the rail in place would provide environmental benefits. However, allowing the rail to remain in place alongside the future BRT would require the construction of eleven bridges and walkways over sensitive waterways. “Rail-to-trail,” on the other hand, would not only avoid thoseexpensive complications; it would also fund and safely clean up — to borrow MassCoastal’s own words — “coal cinders, arsenic and cyanide from nearly 200 years of railoperations.”

In December of 2022, there was a large fire at the facility served by the Falmouth Secondary that involved a train car full of construction debris erupting in flames. We should all be thankful the fire was contained to that transfer station and did not occur as the “trash train” was traveling through Bourne’s residential neighborhoods.

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We are sensitive to the needs of Joint Base Cape Cod and are grateful to observe that JBCC officials have shown a willingness to engage over the future of the Falmouth Secondary line.

Thanks to the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority, we have federal funds in hand to construct the Bourne Rail Trail, right now, at the lowest possible cost with the least environmental impact. Let’s seize the opportunity.

Ken Cheitlin of Pocasset is the president of the nonprofit Friends of the Bourne Rail Trail.David McPherson of Pocasset, is the chairman of the Bourne Town Administrator’s Advisory Committeeon Pedestrian Bicycle Pathway.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Opinion: Bourne Rail Trail a better option than a for-profit train