It’s becoming a tale of two cities — Springfield and Boston — for one company: MassMutual.
The life insurance company, founded in Springfield 169 years ago, broke ground on the company’s new commercial building in Boston’s Seaport District in June.
At the same time, state transportation officials are studying ways to connect Western Massachusetts to Boston by rail service. MassMutual’s CEO Roger Crandall has long expressed support for such a link — not only as a means of alleviating traffic congestion, but as a way of connecting the two regional economies.
“I’ve never seen people who dream big on things like this in the end be wrong,” Crandall told reporters during a sit-down interview with MassLive on Friday. “I was in Boston and thinking to myself, 'Wow all of the complaints about the Big Dig — if that hadn’t of happened, there’s no way the growth would have happened in Boston.”
The interview took place a day after MassDOT shared cost estimates associated with six alternatives to connect Western Massachusetts to Boston. The options range from a mix of train and bus connections — a trip that would take over four hours to travel one-way from Pittsfield to Boston and just three hours from Springfield to Boston at an estimated cost of $2 billion — to five other options that increase in price while decreasing travel times.
The fastest option for Western Massachusetts commuters would offer travel quicker than driving into Boston, two hours and 18 minutes to travel from Pittsfield to Boston and an hour and 19 minutes from Springfield to Boston. This would require a complete overhaul of the existing rail line to offer electrified service of up to 150 miles per hour, and would cost approximately $25 billion, according to estimates provided by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on Thursday.
“Big transformative infrastructure projects don’t just happen,” Crandall said.
Crandall said MassMutual has not taken a position on any of the options put forward in the east-west rail study, noting that MassDOT analysis isn’t finalized yet but said it could “transform some of the key problems we’ve got in terms of congestion, housing prices and pollution from car use.”
Asked about the overhaul of the existing rail line to offer trains traveling up to 150 miles per hour, he said such an investment may pay off in the long run.
“On the one hand $25 billion dollars ... seems like a lot of money,” he said. “When I compare it to the size of the economy, to the size of the potential growth, those numbers don’t seem nearly as big. The old joke is $1 billion isn’t what it used to be."
By comparison, the Big Dig cost about $24.3 billion and was the most expensive highway project in U.S. history.
Crandall stressed the importance of “making it easier for people to move from place to place ... and live where they want to live." He said a rail connection would increase access to lower cost housing options, and in particular make it easier for students who travel from all over the world for college to live in the state.
MassDOT presented the capital costs associated with six different alternatives to connecting Western Massachusetts as far as Pittsfield to Boston during a meeting with the east-west rail advisory committee on Thursday.
Some advisory members of the committee, chiefly Sen. Eric P. Lesser, D-Longmeadow, and Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, a Northampton Democrat, expressed disappointment that MassDOT officials didn’t go far enough in assessing the potential economic benefits a rail connection between Western Massachusetts and Boston would bring to the region, as well as the resulting boon to ridership numbers.
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'I’ve never seen people who dream big on things like this in the end be wrong’; MassMutual CEO Roger Crandall - MassLive.com
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