Opinion: The Financial Impact Of the Rail Trail

A Letter to the Editor from John Ciampa:

Over a decade ago, our town leaders, with significant support from the Lynnfield community, decided to pursue a rail trail in Lynnfield. These leaders were successful in obtaining a fully funded feasibility study, a fully funded initial design and a fully funded construction project. All fully funded by the state with no funding required by Lynnfield.

What other costs are necessary to complete and maintain the Rail Trail? These future costs include land to construct the Trail, a final design, environmental insurance, annual maintenance and long-term maintenance. The right to use the MBTA’s land for 99 years can be obtained for $1. The final design cost, worst case is estimated at $300,000. This is worst case because grant money has already been obtained to offset this cost and there are other non-Town funds available to offset the remaining final design costs. Environmental insurance is a one-time cost which is estimated to not exceed $50,000.

Annual maintenance is estimated at a conservative high end of $8,000. The cost of this maintenance to the Town can be greatly reduced by outside funding sources and volunteer efforts, as commonly done in other communities. Long-term maintenance costs are typically funded by the MA DOT.

So, what is the Town looking at for costs? Worst case one time final design and environmental costs of $350,000 and annual maintenance costs of $8,000. Based on the number of households in Lynnfield this equates to less than $90 per household to complete the Trail and less than $2 annually per household to maintain the Trail. Remember these amounts are worst case costs to the Town before factoring the availability of the many non-town funding sources.

The complete package of committed funding is unheard of in current day community projects. Think of all the community projects completed in Town over the last 20 years and how much of these costs had to be borne by the Town. These costs to the Town have typically been in the millions of dollars per project. This project on the other hand requires very little financial commitment from the Town. What a value! We will be obtaining a great community asset at minimal cost to the Town.

To clarify two misconceptions about the funding of the Trail. Most of the funding for this project is provided by the MA DOT. This particular funding is restricted to constructing rail trails. This money can only be used to construct a rail trail and cannot be used to fund any other Town projects. So, if the Town does not use these funds to construct the Trail, the Town loses them. Further, you will not be saving any tax dollars by not constructing the Rail Trail. We, through our state taxes, fund the MA DOT and its projects. If the Rail Trail is not constructed, then your tax dollars will not benefit our Town, but will benefit one of the many towns waiting in line to utilize this money.

The April 9 ballot vote does not commit Town funds to the Trail project. So, on April 9 it makes sense to vote “Yes” to continue the Rail Trail project. This project is a great value to our community at minimal cost to our Town.

John Ciampa