NH Business for Rail Expansion

Michael Skelton

“The GMCC represents more than 850 businesses across Southern New Hampshire that employ tens of thousands of our state’s residents and generate millions in economic activity. The Nashua-Manchester corridor also serves as the economic backbone of our entire state; as goes the economic output of our region, so goes the rest of New Hampshire. Therefore, economic growth along the corridor is important to the overall growth of our entire state’s economy. In order to have a sound public policy debate on this issue in the future, we must have all the facts. Completing the Project Development phase will allow for policymakers to have an informed debate on this issue and truly assess whether the benefits outweigh the costs.”

Mark Huddleston

For more than 15 years, UNH’s Durham campus has benefitted from daily Amtrak services connecting our community with Boston and Portland. This service expands the horizon for our students, and has proven to be an important admissions advantage for the university. We believe our students and campuses in Manchester and Concord would similarly benefit from access to quality transit opportunities. The university supports transportation investments that connect our campuses to the region and connect NH residents to our institution.

Graham Chynoweth

The Boston area, with its world-renowned collection of colleges and universities, is within reach, but the connection between Massachusetts and NH is thwarted by congested highways. Rail expansion can change that. Rail expansion will allow NH’s growing business and high-tech community to tap the vast talent pool in the greater Boston area. Without rail expansion, those congested highways will continue to serve as proverbial roadblocks, impeding the organic growth of NH’s business community, ultimately leading to business stagnation, and ultimately, regression.

Mark Brewer

Passenger rail could play an important role in enhancing access to the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, greatly benefiting NH’s statewide economy.

Mary Carter

As the Head of School for The Derryfield School, which was founded in 1964 and has a student body of 388 and more than 50 faculty members, I am concerned about rail because the connection between southern NH and Boston is a key factor for many of our prospective students and their families, along with prospective faculty members. Currently, NH’s transportation infrastructure is limited. To properly compete for young, talented minds, NH absolutely needs a multi-modal transportation infrastructure.

Arthur Sullivan

New Hampshire’s business community knows supporting passenger rail is not just the right decision for the Granite State—it is a no-brainer.

As the owner of Manchester-based Brady Sullivan Properties, one of the largest and most successful real estate development companies in NH, I am extremely interested in passenger rail expansion. The NH Capital Corridor Rail Expansion Project presents an incredible opportunity for developers in the state’s busiest corridor. Across the country and the world, developers seek out train stations as prime opportunities for mixed-use developments. Train stations are major hubs of activity and I would certainly expect that trend to follow once passenger rail is expanded in NH.

Matt Cookson

For more than 30 years, the NH High Tech Council has been the voice of technology and innovation in NH, and what we are hearing more and more from new, prospective and established business owners—and certainly from workers—is the following question: what are the most effective ways we can attract and retain talent? Business owners know an effective passenger rail system along NH’s Capitol Corridor allows them to access talented workers throughout southern NH, northern Massachusetts and the greater Boston area. And, a passenger rail system gives workers an efficient commuting option that both provides workers with flexibility in terms of where they live, and also helps alleviate congestion on NH’s busy highways.

Jeremy Hitchcock

I have spoken with countless skilled workers in Boston who want to be a part of the story we’re building here in NH. But they feel cut-off. The distance between Boston and Manchester is almost identical to that of San Francisco and Sunnyvale. Yet everyone would say, without hesitation, that Apple is part of Silicon Valley. Rail would provide those trained Massachusetts workers with that connection to NH, along with countless others.

Alex Puglisi Horton

With anemic economic growth, a well-documented lack of in-migration and the percentage of New Hampshire’s population age 65 and older set to double over the next 20 years, policy makers need to make some serious choices. They can maintain the status quo and risk falling further behind our regional counterparts. Or, they can follow the will of more than 74 percent of New Hampshire residents who support passenger rail expansion and the thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate development and reinvested worker’s earnings that it will deliver.  Either way, large and small business owners are watching.