“This would stink,’’ said Nyamekye, who served in Afghanistan until last summer. “I would have to drive in. I didn’t even know this was going on.’’
Nyamekye and other T riders have an opportunity to say what they think about the proposals. On Tuesday, MBTA representatives will hold a hearing in Framingham Town Hall from 6 to 8 p.m. to present their plan and gather public input.
The meeting is one of 20 that have been scheduled throughout Boston and its suburbs since the controversial proposals were unveiled along with warnings that the authority’s crushing $5 billion debt and aging infrastructure will probably to strain the budget even more in the future.
Commuter rail riders and their advocates west of Boston, including state and local officials, are expected to give MBTA representatives an earful. The proposed cuts come at a time when commuter rail was supposed to be expanding in the region.
Three years ago, Governor Deval Patrick struck a $179 million deal with railroad freight giant CSX in which the state purchased the company’s tracks between Framingham and Worcester, as well as other facilities, CSX moved its terminal operations from Allston to Worcester and Westborough, and both would fund improvements to rail bridges and tunnels between Interstate 495 and the New York state line.
With much of the freight traffic removed from the tracks, the deal paved the way for several additional trains to travel between Boston and Framingham and Worcester in the coming months, to as many as 20 inbound trains on weekdays. Now, those additional trains might cost more and not operate on weekends and late at night.
“It does seem unfortunate,’’ said Westborough Town Manager Jim Malloy, whose community welcomed the news of additional commuter trains after suffering years of infrequent and unreliable rail service because CSX freight cars had priority on the company’s 21-mile portion of track.
