South Coast Rail — reconnecting two cities after a long separation

Musing and mulling on a weekend trip to Boston on the spanking new New Bedford train:

There are lots of folks, young, middle aged, old and very, very old. Nice crowd so early in the day. And lots of high-energy kids, an off-to-the-circus feeling. We are moving. Still a mess outside before the northbound train loses sight of Route 18. Lots to clean up. But I love that natty new pedestrian bridge. A classy welcome to our city. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for fighting for that architecture.

Behold that Church Street station! It’s just as nice as the one downtown, maybe with even better parking. Could this train be the home run this city has been looking for all these years?

All those forlorn hopes – getting to keep the Morgan instead of handing it over to Mystic, or landing that GM plant that would go to Framingham. Hard to forget Rosemary Tierney on the one-yard line with the game-changing casino. Ouch. Then, Fred Kalisz putting his heart and soul into the Oceanarium to make us a destination city. Poof. All for naught. 

I wonder what will happen to offshore wind. You would think it’s here to stay. Just look at what it has done to our waterfront. Those giant cranes and turbines and the new docks, an infrastructure for decades to come. Jon Mitchell’s legacy. Must be billions already invested. But still no guarantee. Now the wind is changing direction. No way they can just walk away. But these days everything seems so up in the air. Who knows?

But The Train that Bill Weld promised is finally here, late, of course, and with delays, but operating. It could greatly change things. It already has. At least on the surface. Our city has that get-ready-for-company feel from top to bottom. Real estate spiking. How are hard-pressed renters managing? Good luck finding a phone booth to lease. Gentrification bites to the bone. 

That bridge over Route 18 is significant, elegant when it’s all lit up at night, saying we are here, ready for life, energized. Route 18? Why do we still call it that? Yea, it’s supposed to be named after JFK but I never heard it called anything but Route 18. With the train and the train’s trimmings, it’s truly a grand boulevard in the making. Got to get rid of those eyesores, including that awful ramp off 195, but I guess  that’s being addressed; and the planned rezoning might prod an even more serious civic cleanup. Giving Route 18 an apt new name could be the icing on the cake. Baker Boulevard sounds suitably grand to me, honoring the tenacious sea dog and planner who helped trigger the turnaround. The city could also honor the string of mayors who contributed to the waterfront makeover over the years, notably John Markey and John Bullard and Tierney and Kalisz and Scott Lang, on to the incumbent. 

It’s been so long since we had an easy connection to Boston. We have grown close to Providence, naturally enough. We get covered on their TV stations and have an airport there within easy reach. Driving to Boston can be hell, relatively speaking, with all the congestion, the construction, the troopers, you never know.

But Boston is Boston, a great world city, a magnetic place drawing visitors from around the world with its museums, universities, hospitals and history, so central to America’s past, not to mention its sport teams, restaurants and distinct culture. Our ties to the capital are strong and deep though no doubt weakened by long separation.

Boston scorns us, forgetting we used to be the second city. The Boston Herald once called us the state’s armpit and now even the Globe refers to us as Snitch City. New Bedford is more the city of See No Evil where secrets go to die. Separation distorts reality. Truly. Insularity cuts both ways. Boston doesn’t always get us and vice versa. But we are married for better or worse. 

Now, getting to and from Boston is no longer much of a hassle. You can just sit and think and read and watch people. I wish those kids would stop running back and forth down the aisle. Do they have parents? They must be the people sitting behind me, laughing. Not lifting a hand. The kids are having too much fun. 

Taunton already. Our train moves us alongside Route 140 at 80 mph … Easy ride to that interesting old town. New station. Smart connection to Fall River. Lots of politics had to be involved in spacing the stops. I guess Bill Straus deserves a shoutout. He was on the committee that had to be in on the planning. 

I wish those kids would settle down. I don’t want to look like a grumpy old man but they are driving me nuts. My father would have whacked me, for sure, if I  behaved that way.

Stopping in Bridgewater. My goodness, that’s Bridgewater State. Smack dab by the campus. What a gift to that college. My God, what if UMass held on to the Star Store? The train would have brought all those art-minded students from the Boston area. What a godsend that would have been. Spilled milk; no time for tears. But Marty Meehan pulled a Buckner… big error for sure. 

Montello Station. Montello? Never heard of it. Campello, too… Brockton is doing pretty well. 

Holy smokes. Getting closer to South Station after swerving through Braintree and Quincy and what do you know, another stop, by UMass Boston and the JFK Library. 

Here comes The Hub. My oh my, it’s changed. Used to be a walkable place. Now it looks a little like Atlanta or Indianapolis with all the old walking places hemmed in by massive towers of glass and steel jutting sky high and creating deep shadows and swirling winds enough to knock your hat off. Those massive towers even lurk high above South Station, its classic lines blurred by the giant soulless towers above, its sidewalks blocked by even more construction. 

Downtown Boston seems a different place from what I once knew well. It could be any sprawling urban center anywhere. I wonder how the old-time Brahmins would feel about the shadows; they fought long and hard for building height limits. They were right about that.

I am struck by a troubling thought that Boston is now nearer to us but also farther away… the old Boston anyway. I can’t envision who is going to live in those giant skyscrapers and pay what I imagine would be exorbitant rents except the super rich. Who’s going to work in those offices in this pandemic age? Who is going to sign the long-term leases in these unpredictable times? Maybe I’m too old, as my grandkids tell me, to grasp how everything is going to work out after I am gone. 

But as I ride home to New Bedford, I’m wondering whether diminishing our insularity comes without some drawbacks. New Bedford is a place that generally knows itself. I’m not sure that Boston really yet knows this new Boston. But I’m 90 years old. What do I know about the new?

Ken Hartnett is the former editor of The Standard-Times and a founder emeritus of The New Bedford Light.