A few more details and expressions of support in the Granite State

Earlier this year, Gray Chynoweth, CEO of Manchester high-tech company Dyn, asked a group of early career professionals at The Startup Institute in Boston how many of them would consider commuting to Manchester for work.

“I think it was like three out of 50 raised their hand,” he said. Off the cuff,  he asked them how many would commute to southern New Hampshire if there were a convenient commuter rail option.  This time, about 35 hands went up.

Interest in creating a passenger rail system from southern New Hampshire to Boston has been bubbling up for years, but stakeholders are more optimistic now than ever that it could turn into a reality. 

The $3.7 million Capitol Corridor study is halfway complete this month. On March 5 consultants  working for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation announced their most specific set of  extended options for the 73 miles between Boston and Concord to date at a public scoping meeting at the DOT in Concord

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Progress in New Hampshire

Extending passenger rail service from Massachusetts into Nashua and Manchester could

draw more riders each year than Amtrak’s Downeaster train, according to the chairman of the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority.

Preliminary estimates show commuter rail service in New Hampshire’s Capitol Corridor could draw as many as 3,100 boardings per day.

That number includes people taking the train south from Nashua and Manchester and those riding north to reach destinations in New Hampshire.

Extrapolated over the course of a year, the number of train trips to or from New Hampshire could top 800,000.

That number far exceeds the ridership for Amtrak’s popular Downeaster train, which runs between Boston and Brunswick, Maine, with a series of stops in New Hampshire. Amtrak reported close to 560,000 trips on the entire Downeaster line during its most recent fiscal year, which ended in October.

The figures were offered up for comparison Wednesday by New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority Chairman Tom Mahon. They’re another piece of data that could be used by proponents to bolster the argument for extending commuter rail service from Lowell, Mass., into New Hampshire.

The subject was the focus of a public forum Wednesday at the New Hampshire Department of Transportation building in Concord, where contractors studying commuter rail issues for the state presented their latest findings.

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