Politics & Government

DOT Officials Get Feedback About Possibility Moving Windsor Locks Train Station

Windsor Locks officials have been lobbying the Stated Department of Transportation and Amtrak.

More than 100 people attended a informational hearing Tuesday about relocating the Windsor Locks train station from the south end of the community to the downtown area.

Town officials have been working for the past few years to convince the state Department of Transportation and Amtrak to move the station to help foster economic development in the downtown area.

Patrick McMahon, economic development consultant for Windsor Locks, said the town has a once in a lifetime opportunity to move the station back downtown.

“The DOT is spending major resources to investigate bringing the station back downtown,” McMahon said.

Christopher J. Ferrero, a planning consultant from Fuss & O’Neill, said Windsor Locks has “all the bones” with the railway, access to the highway, and a bicycle path along the canal. Ferrero said the urban renewal of the 1950s and 1960s extracted the life of the downtown area.

The emergence of the automobile as primary transportation for families fundamentally changed how areas were developed such as eliminating mixed-use zoning and three-story buildings with businesses on the street level and homes upstairs, Ferrero said.

“In effect what urban renewal did to Windsor Locks and other small towns was suburbanize small cities,” Ferrero said. “We are looking to retract some of those changes.”

Relocating the train station would put it in area where people could more easily walk to nearby businesses, Ferrero said.

The Windsor Locks train stop is part of a project to connect New Haven to Springfield by railroad.  John Bernick, project manager for the state Department of Transportation, said Windsor Locks is critical because it is a hub for connecting shuttles to Bradley International Airport.

The railway will have 23.3 miles of double track and 38.7 miles of single track, Bernick said. Because it has a single track, Windsor Locks would only be able to use peak travel going to Hartford during the morning and coming from Hartford during the evening peak times.

One goal of the project is to be an engine for local economic growth, Bernick said. If the economic growth occurs the way officials hope, longterm jobs, not just construction, would be created by the private sector, he added.

“We want people to live and work near the stations,” Bernick said.


Bernick said the budget for the project is $647 million and that the state has $471 million of that money. The remaining money will be made available when an environmental report is completed, he added. The draft version of the report should be available in October or November.

Bernick said the decision on relocating Windsor Locks’ station will likely be made in January. Nevertheless, any proposal for a train station in Windsor Locks could not happen until there is funding to do it, Bernick said.

First Selectman Steven N. Wawruck Jr. said he was first a skeptic about moving the station. But then he was made aware that 15,000 sets of feet use the train platform in the south end of town, an area that has no economic development possibilities.

Wawruck said officials want to change the dynamics of Windsor Locks’ downtown.




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