Rail Terminal

Will Benefit Newtown

To the Editor:

I have a number of issues with the editorial entitled “Trucks, Trains, and Hawleyville,” which appeared in the July 21, 2000, edition of The Bee.

1. Why does The Bee take a negative stand on the expansion of a local business, and to the state providing the majority funding? Newtown clearly needs a bigger business base in order to offset the increasing tax burden on homeowners. This past spring a majority of voting townspeople defeated the referendum that would have raised taxes by over 10 percent. Housatonic’s constructing and operating this freight terminal should benefit the residential taxpayer by offsetting (albeit in a small way) the residential predominance on the Grand List.

2. What’s the problem with growing business in Hawleyville? Haven’t I been reading in this paper for many years that Hawleyville has been targeted by area planning agencies as the most logical location for commercial development in Newtown? And that a big reason for that is the Exit 9 interchange? Heck, Phase 2 of the sewer line extension from The Homesteads eastward along Route 6 will turn northward along Route 25 and terminate in Hawleyville! Isn’t this part of the plan to attract more commercial development into Hawleyville that’s been bandied about for years? I can understand Hawleyville residents’ resentment of their corner of town evolving from residential to commercial, but their issues need to be directed at the planners who came up with this vision a long time ago.

3. The statement: “If you were wondering why DOT is making plans to construct additional lanes on I-84, now you know” is misleading and just plain false. DOT’s study of improvements for I-84 between Exits 1 and 11, which has been going on for over a year, was commissioned as a result of dramatic traffic growth since the last lane expansions to the Danbury segment were completed 15-20 years ago. The study also addresses obsolete interchange designs, which now pose safety hazards due to today’s typical I-84 traffic volumes and speeds. Exit 9’s geometry was found to be one of the most deficient and in need of reconstruction. The study’s probable recommendation to add a third lane in each direction through Newtown has nothing whatsoever to do with the plan to add a new railroad freight terminal at Hawleyville. Did The Bee’s editorial writer not bother to read the copious articles published in this paper on the I-84 study’s findings before erroneously concluding that the freight terminal is the sole reason why DOT is recommending a wider I-84?

4. The final paragraph really leaves me scratching my head. One sentence states that in the early 1900s over 150 trains passed through Hawleyville every day. Now that the present train frequency there is one-hundredth of what it was then (thanks in large part to the proliferation of government-funded interstate highways), the following sentence suggests that low-use railroad lines are “more suitable for hiking than railroading in modern times.” This is utter nonsense, and it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the regional transportation problems we are facing. Today’s underused and out-of-service rail lines must not be reconstructed for recreational use, as they are a critical future resource that will someday be a catalyst for relieving the over-used and under-maintained regional highway infrastructure.

To be sure, commercial expansion in Newtown will mean more truck traffic on the town’s major arteries. In this case 500 yards of Route 25 between the railroad crossing and I-84 will see a truck traffic increase. Exit 9 and I-84 will ultimately be expanded in capacity, whether or not the rail freight terminal is built. The Maybrook rail line through Hawleyville was double-tracked until the early 1960s, so there is plenty of room on the right-of-way to build the 2,400-foot siding and adjacent truck roadways without additional land acquisition. However, CDOT should ensure that Housatonic construct the siding in such a way that the Route 25 grade crossing is not blocked for extended periods by the daily switching activities, a problem which happens every afternoon when the railroad switches cars in and out of its lumber reload facility.

There is a lot more to be celebrated than condemned in the advent of this rail terminal to Hawleyville. It’s a shame that The Bee editorial found only poorly-thought-out negatives to bring forward.

Cameron Gilchrist

2 Susan Lane, Newtown                                                July 25, 2000