NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Supporters of a proposed new Metro-North railroad station that would be built in West Haven or Orange are pleased with the inclusion of $14 million for the station in the new 20-year plan that the state Transportation Strategy Board forwarded to the General Assembly this week, the New Haven Register reported.
The prospect of a West Haven station on Sawmill Road between Hood Terrace and Railroad Avenue “is more real at this point,” said Michael Mercuriano, chairman of the West Haven Railroad Station Committee.
While money for the station still would have to be appropriated by the legislature something that is far from automatic during a tough fiscal period its inclusion in the plan, with funding proposed for 2005, says that the station “is a priority project,” Mercuriano said.
Orange First Selectman Mitch Goldblatt, who still hopes to convince the state to build the station on property off Marsh Hill Road in Orange, also was cheered.
“I think it’s good news for moving ahead with a railroad station,” Goldblatt said.
The South Central Regional Council of Governments designated the Orange site as a backup last December when it voted to recommend the West Haven site.
Goldblatt on Wednesday had questions about why the Transportation Strategy Board recommended $14 million for the station, which has been estimated to cost between $25 million and $30 million, with the West Haven site generally expected to cost more than the Orange site.
He said he has been told the answer is that the $14 million figure represents what the state would expect to put into the station, with the balance to come from the private sector as part of a public-private partnership.
Neighbors with an interest in each site have offered to build the station and lease it back to the state, with DiChello Distributors making the offer in Orange and Martin DeGrand making the offer in West Haven.
Both sites are within close proximity to the sprawling Bayer Corp. campus, which straddles the West Haven-Orange border and is the largest employer and taxpayer in each community.
The Transportation Strategy Board recommended that the state support the outcome of a current state Department of Transportation study of an additional railroad station in West Haven or Orange “and encourage such development to be done as a public/private partnership.” West Haven Mayor H. Richard Borer Jr. said that with the $14 million, plus “whatever federal money we can shake loose for the station, in concert with either municipal money or public-private partnership money, we can make that project happen.”
“Our concern is that the legislature hears loud and clear that this is an important part of getting cars off of I-95 and getting people to use rail,” Borer added.
“Budgets and the economy are cyclical, but transportation is a constant need,” he said.
The state has appropriated $2 million to study the environmental costs and benefits of a station either on the West Haven or Orange site. Both are continuing to be studied in case a problem arises that makes it impossible to build in West Haven.
West Haven, meanwhile, has a consultant working on a $28,000 master plan, looking at ways to create a “pedestrian-friendly,” transit-oriented environment linking the proposed railroad station to the city’s downtown.