Ripping up the railroad will harm the city’s economy

To The Daily Sun,

Laconia holds the keys to grow economic development. It’s the Lakes Region’s largest city with the area’s best infrastructure — infrastructure that’s essential for developing a diverse economy. Yet the mayor and City Council appear determined to throw away a key.

Laconia was once a thriving manufacturing town, but the loss of manufacturing and a population shift to larger cities decimated our economy. Fortunately, the tide is turning. The Internet and adequate transportation have enabled people to work far away from big-city expense, traffic, and congestion and live where they wish, close to lakes, mountains, and recreation. Like here. Companies are responding by relocating where costs are lower and lifestyles are better. CruCon in Moultonborough is a recent, local example.

Yet many of these companies need more than highway access, especially as traffic increases and trucking costs soar, and those companies will demand rail access. Lakeport, Meredith, Ashland, Plymouth, and the cities to our north are all connected by a rail line through Laconia and Franklin down through Concord, Manchester, Nashua, and into Boston. Keeping that rail access through Laconia is critical to the Lakes Region’s economic development, and for the cities and towns to the north that depend on this link. Yet shortsighted individuals, swayed by a pseudo “study” touting hypothetical guesstimates, are ready to rip up our freight and passenger rail line based on hope and hype. And once those rails are gone, it will be prohibitively expensive to replace them. Last year, this railroad brought $17 million in proven, positive economic impact in tourism revenue in our area through the Winnipesaukee and Hobo Railroads, not counting the added freight revenue carried by the New England Southern RR that operates on the same tracks. These railroads create the equivalent of over 380 full-time jobs. The reason is that tourist railroads, with strong appeal to young and old alike, are growing in revenue, as they are relatively rare nationwide, and freight railroads give businesses a vital alternative to combat the increasingly high cost of trucking goods in and out, especially in cities without rail service. Yet we are being asked to substitute this proven economic impact data with a “study of projections” that a rail trail would somehow do better than a railroad? How, exactly?

Unlike tourist railroads that are rare because they’re expensive to develop and maintain, there are rail trails in most everybody’s home town — so why would people come to Laconia to use ours? Laconia needs more diverse and higher-quality economic growth. That growth will require robust communication and transportation infrastructure. And vision.

Let’s not rip up what we already have and critically need for our future and replace it with a lack of vision covered in smoke-and-mirrors guesstimates.

Jay Williams Jr.

Moultonborough

Editor’s note: The railroad track between Franklin and Concord has already been removed and the corridor is part of the Northern Rail Trail which runs from Boscawen to Lebanon.