NASHUA – With Friday’s passing of Senate Bill 241, the next step toward evaluating the possibility of bringing passenger rail to New Hampshire – as well as two train stations to the Gate City – can begin.

Phase two of the Capitol Corridor project, which will use federal funds and a fraction of the state’s existing toll credits, can now start. This phase is the project development and cost analysis phase, and according to state officials, it has been years in the making.

“We have the designated funds that we received a couple years ago,” said the bill’s lead sponsor State Senator Melanie Levesque. “We had a bill similar to this a couple years ago but it did not pass, so we have the funds in reserves.”

Levesque, who worked diligently alongside fellow senators and representatives who support the idea of bringing passenger rail to the state, said 80% of the Capitol Corridor’s project development phase would be federally funded and the difference would be made up of toll credits.

The toll credits are generally used for highway projects, however they can be allotted for other projects pertaining to transportation. The credits are earned because of the state’s robust turnpike system that functions as part of the national highway system. When the state spends money to maintain or improve their turnpikes, they are given a 1:1 dollar to credit ratio.

The credits themselves cannot be used in just any capacity since they are not actually money given to the state; because of this, New Hampshire has built up a seemingly endless supply of toll credits saved.

“The state has million of toll credits,” Levesque said.

“You can’t designate this money to build just anything,” she continued, “it’s not like real money, it’s an earned credit.”

“As people pay their tolls, the money is put aside in these toll credits,”said Rep. Michael Pederson (D-Nashua), who sits on the public works and highway committee supporting the bill. “The money is put towards federal funds, so taxpayers wont have to pay a dime towards phase two.”

Pederson, who spoke on the floor of the statehouse on June 6th, while detailing much phase two, said that the during the analysis, they will be looking at multiple objectives relative to cost, and feasibility of the passenger rail.

“The objectives of the Project Development phase are to obtain an ‘engineering plan, environmental permitting, a geotechnical analysis develop a firm project costs,'” Pederson said while addressing lawmakers last month, “and ‘to identify the funding sources that are required to apply for Federal Transit Administration funding.'”

Phase one of the Capitol Corridor Project was an in-depth study, which took place in 2015. It detailed many of the benefits passenger rail would bring to the Granite State:

• Transportation for an estimated 668,000 daily riders on weekdays.

• Rail expansion would create an estimated 3,400 jobs in construction.

• 5,600 permanent jobs with a growth rate of 1,700 jobs per year starting in 2030.

• Rail would help to generate 1.9 million square feet of commercial real estate.

• $750 million in real estate investment from 2021-2030.

• $220 million in reinvested workers earnings put back into the economy beyond 2020.

Levesque said that even though SB 241 passed through, the realization of passenger rail in the Granite State is no more a sure thing than it was prior to Friday. While phase two, which will be undertaken by a consultant not decided on by the State Department of Transportation, will be finished within the two to three years it would take to actually begin construction. Another obstacle, Levesque said, is that rail still needs to be put into the 10 year plan, which did not pass earlier this year and is up for review in the fall.

Furthermore, Levesque said that after the phase two is complete, legislators would once again have to vote on whether or not they want to proceed with rail, based on the analysis’ findings.

“We can’t go to the next step without this, we can’t actual implement this without know what the costs are,” Levesque said. “This is an important step – it would move forward only if we had a viable plan for the funding for the construction and operation of the project.”

“After the analysis we would have to actually vote on wether we could implement rail,” she continued, “it goes back to the legislature again.”

Legislators noted that with the Project and Develpoment phase of the being payed for through the Federal means and the toll credits, New Hampshire taxpayers will not be asked to pay a dime toward the analysis.

“There is no state taxpayer money going into getting the project development phase done,” said Nashua rep. Sue Newman, who also sits on the public works and highway committee.

Along with Levesque and Pedersen, Newman said the going through this phase is integral to seeing the feasibility of passenger rail, which would extend from Boston via the Lowell Line all the way up through two stations in Nashua, with the possibility of going as far as Manchester.

“This phase should give us all of the answers to be able to make informed decisions about the feasibility of moving forward,” she said.

While many republicans in both the house and the senate have voiced their opposition to the bill, it became law on Friday, when governor Chris Sununu let it pass through legislation after deciding to neither sign or veto it. Sununu couldn’t be reached by press time on Monday for a comment.

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