Priorities of Central Mass.

[Lowerdeck]

Feel free to share your ideas, suggestions, comments.

First off... commuter rail needs to be expanded in and out of Worcester. The current MBTA system is lousy, mostly thanks to CSX. Something needs to be done, whether new right of way or some agreement between the state and the company.

Secondly... is anything ever going to happen with the Common Outlets site? Wasn't CitySquare supposed to be coming around sooner than this?

Third ... traffic in some areas is not pleasant. Ideally, commuter rail expansion would be nice to include connecting suburbs to Worcester. But is Worcester big enough to be a hub of its own? Having to deal with 395 on a daily basis, Oxford and Auburn (south of the Pike) is not pleasant. If commuter service - rail, WRTA, whatever - is expanded from suburbs like Oxford, Shrewsbury, Leicester/Spencer ... good. If they need widening on 395 to Route 16... could be better but could be worse.

[Lowerdeck]

Getting Quinsig downtown would be nice. I don't think anyone would deny that. However, I would prefer to see one of the four year colleges that can draw good residential population do something significant downtown. From a standpoint of revitalizing downtown and making it more of a destination and hipspot ... a community college with commuter students will see people coming into the city for their classes and maybe a quick bite and then drive back to Oxford or West Boylston or wherever. If a place like Holy Cross or WPI built a downtown campus, where students come from all over the place, more students would be around to actually explore the area.

I went to college in Danbury CT. Down there, there's a new apartment building built for students as an alternative to dorms. Downtown business has shot up as a result, cause there's more people there in closer proximity. The dorm students on campus meanwhile rely heavily on cooking or getting takeout from neighborhood pizza/Chinese places.

Question becomes... what Worcester four year college drawing heavily from out of region would be adventurous enough (or needing expansion badly enough) to lure downtown?