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Poll Finds Strong Statewide Support For Springfield-Boston Passenger Rail Link

An Amtrak train arrives at the station in Hartford, CT.
WAMC

A new poll finds there is overwhelming support in Massachusetts for a high-speed rail passenger rail line between Springfield and Boston.

The much-talked about, but never formally studied, east-west rail project is supported by 74 percent of the people who responded to questions from the Western New England University Polling Institute.  

The project has support in every part of the state, according to polling institute director Tim Vercellotti.

"It even crosses party lines," said Vercellotti.  "We found an issue in Massachusetts where Democrats and Republicans agree. 80 percent of voters who identify as either Democrats or Republicans said they would support such a plan."

Democratic State Senator Eric Lesser of  Longmeadow  has campaigned, so far without success, to get MassDOT to do a formal feasibility study of east-rail rail.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.