Tagged: transportation

Planning efforts surrounding economic development through the life sciences and transportation in the Berkshires are about to head into their next stages.

The Berkshire Regional Planning Commission is asking county residents to weigh in on planning efforts examining potential station locations for North-South passenger rail between Pittsfield and the state border with Connecticut, as part of a $240,000 federal grant. 

The Massachusetts House of Representatives is poised to vote on raising taxes, including a 3 cent increase in the gasoline tax, to fund the state’s transportation system.

   The $500 million dollar tax increase faces an uncertain fate in the Massachusetts Senate, according to Democratic State Senator James Welch of West Springfield.

The transportation funding plan unveiled by Democratic leaders in the Massachusetts state legislature has been met with a mixed response, with Democratic Governor Deval Patrick threatening to veto the plan if certain objectives aren’t met and House Republicans criticizing the plan for raising taxes without making other reforms to government.

And lawmakers in the Berkshires seem to be equally as divided on supporting the plan introduced by House Speaker Robert Deleo and Senate President Therese Murray, both Democrats, last week.

Democratic leaders in the Massachusetts legislature and House Republicans both answered Governor Deval Patrick’s 2014 transportation budget with plans of their own, but the governor is warning that a plan too small would hurt low and middle income families .

A recently launched grassroots campaign advocating for improved public transportation in the Berkshires is now online, and some are hoping that it will catch on in communities across Massachusetts. 

The Wish I Had Transit campaign was recently launched by volunteers in the Northern Berkshires, in less than two weeks since the idea of using social media to demonstrate the need for improved public transportation was discussed at a community forum in North Adams.

Massachusetts’ Secretary of Transportation visited the Berkshires on Thursday to pitch the governor’s transportation budget, and to discuss the newly filed transportation bond bill with local legislators and heads of town governments.

Construction work begins this month in two Hudson Valley counties to prepare for a new bypass tunnel. New York City Department of Environmental Protection officials say site-preparation work will soon begin for the Rondout-West Branch Bypass Tunnel, a roughly $1 billion project that will repair leaks in the Delaware Aqueduct. DEP contractors will begin working at sites in Newburgh, in Orange County; and in Wappinger, in Dutchess County, where shafts will be built to allow for the construction of the 2.5-mile bypass tunnel. Last year, DEP purchased several properties off Route 9W in the Town of Newburgh, just north of Pine Road, where it will build one of the shafts. The shaft construction site in the Town of Wappinger, off River Road North, will be built on property already owned by DEP. The site work and bypass construction will be done through a project labor agreement with the Hudson Valley Building and Construction Trades Council. The agreement is expected to create roughly 160 jobs.