CapeNews.net – An overflow crowd of residents packed the conference room at the Bourne Veterans Memorial Community Center Monday night, December 1, to learn more about and comment on plans to build a new railway platform in town, just south of the Cape Cod Canal, at the foot of the Bourne Bridge.
The platform would serve the CapeFLYER seasonal passenger train.
Some residents at the meeting worried that the new platform would generate too much car traffic in the already heavily-traveled area, when people are picked up or dropped off at the train.
This really is a tough one. On one hand it will attract more tourists and keep people from getting off the train on the other side of the canal and driving over the bridges onto Cape Cod. On the other hand, adding a train station to the Bourne rotary is kind of like serving Ebola sandwiches at an AIDS clinic. Everyone there is already screwed, do we really need to add to their misery?
How about we use this money and energy on some new bridges? Maybe we should focus on getting the 4 million people in cars over the bridge in less than 18 hours and worry about the 16 people on the train a little later?
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Here's my input for what it's worth (nothing 😉 ). It won't increase rotary traffic – why? People who are already picking up in Buzzard Bay are already using the bridge. Currently they must cross over it to get people in BBay and then again to bring them across to Cape. Even if usage increases, again no difference because people still have to crossover to BBay. If the train station were under the bridge, people from Bourne and Sandwich wouldn't need to use the rotary, they would turn off before it down the back road. Parking: Between the Feds and State there is lots of open land they own under the bridge and there are already existing canal parking lots. As far as frequency – my belief is it will be minimal. Summer weekends, hopefully a daily commuter in early morning and in the evening. I've lived near train stations in the center of North Shore towns. Never a big issue. The train comes in, there's flurry of activity, it leaves. The train waiting – you don't hear much noise and it will blend with the bridge noise. There may be a better spot, that someone needs to propose, but I don't see under the Bourne Bridge as necessarily being a bad option. Just an opinion. (An Aside: The train impact won't be the big issue for the rotary, it will be the proposed retail/grocery plaza they are considering between rotary and CC Tech.)