Photo By Jean Falbo Sosnovich
Gov. Ned Lamont addresses the media during a stop in Ansonia last week.
ANSONIA — Gov. Ned Lamont held a press conference at the Ansonia train station last week to tout improvements to the Waterbury branch train line.
In addition, Lamont highlighted the money coming to Connecticut from the federal infrastructure bill that was approved in Congress last week.
The Waterbury branch is a 27-mile-long, single-track Metro-North train line with six train stations in Waterbury, Naugatuck, Beacon Falls, Seymour, Ansonia and Derby.
For years local officials, riders and transportation advocates have complained that the lack of reliable and consistent train service acts as a major hurdle to economic development in the Naugatuck Valley. The complaints hit a crescendo in 2014, when a commuter described trains on the Waterbury line as an “outhouse on wheels.”
But now officials say that’s changing.
“These upgrades will make your lives easier going forward, and will help bring economic development up and down the Valley. You won’t even recognize this area in 10 years,” Lamont said.
According to information provided by state Department of Transportation Director of Communications Kafi Rouse, this year the DOT and Metro-North completed railroad tie replacements and grade-crossing repairs to enable increased service on the Waterbury Branch Line in 2022.
Train service was replaced with substitute bus service from June 2021 through September 2021 to facilitate this work.
In 2022, weekday service will increase from 15 to 22 weekday trains. The total cost for the new service is $6.14 million annually.
The state budget includes $1.23 million in fiscal year 2023 to match federal funding. Expanded weekday train service will begin in summer of 2022, according to the DOT.
Then, moving forward, as part of the $1.3 billion slated for bus and rail improvements under the brand new $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, the Waterbury Line’s five remaining train stations in Beacon Falls, Ansonia, Derby, Naugatuck and Seymour are in line for major upgrades to their boarding platforms, Rouse said, along with the additional of new signage, guardrails, handrails, variable message signs, P.A. system, security cameras, heated platform access ramps and stairs and site drainage improvements.
Construction on the new platforms is slated to start in fall 2023 with an anticipated completion date of fall 2026.
Mayor David Cassetti welcomes any new improvements to the line, and sees it as further enhancement to Ansonia’s downtown with a newly opened police station, and 400 apartments slated for the area.
“Anytime the federal delegation comes to town is a good thing for Ansonia,” Cassetti said. ”The people moving into the new apartments right across the street from here will use this train line to go back and forth.”
