The Merrymeeting Greens call on concerned citizens and public officials to consider a wiser course of action for rail service in Brunswick and Maine.

We are enthusiastically in favor of developing transportation choices, including passenger rail, that are fully responsible to our communities and our shared environment.

Rather than spending our limited public funds to shoehorn a large layover facility next to a desirable Brunswick neighborhood, we propose an alternative vision that will lead to a better future for rail passengers and Brunswick residents.

We should electrify our tracks to eliminate pollution risks and reduce operating costs. We should negotiate a better host railroad agreement to allow more frequent service. We should place into service more affordable and lightweight rolling stock. And we should expand rail service to Brunswick Landing, the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, where more parking is available and industrial facilities are zoned.

Clean and efficient equipment and making frequent and affordable trips from Portland to Brunswick Landing will better connect the greater Portland area to our new community college campus, business innovation center and executive airport, improving the quality of life for residents and visitors alike. With careful planning, we can design, build and manage a surface rail system that provides real value to anyone who prefers not to drive the I-295 corridor.

Some politicians oppose the idea of extending affordable, convenient and clean rail service to Brunswick Landing. The concerns they express are real, but not impossible to overcome. We all recognize that it will be difficult to appropriate the funds necessary to establish a viable public transportation hub in Brunswick. This financial reality makes it all the more important not to waste our money on poorly conceived projects.

Public funds should not be spent to erect a maintenance and layover facility to service polluting, dieselpowered locomotives on contaminated soil above a groundwater aquifer and next to a stream flowing to the Androscoggin River, which is struggling to recover from decades of contamination. Instead, we should save our money while we build the political will to invest in sustainable solutions to our transportation challenge.

Our current passenger rail service requires public subsidy to operate. Spending millions of additional dollars to construct an industrial building between Stanwood Street and Church Road in Brunswick fails to maximize the utility and efficiency of Downeaster service. No matter what type of layover structure we build in town, neither our state nor federal government can continue to subsidize the operation of dirty and inefficient equipment that makes infrequent, inconvenient and unaffordable trips and fails to connect to one of Maine’s critical economic growth areas, Brunswick Landing.

The fundamental problem with Downeaster service to Brunswick is not the two “deadhead” moves a day to return and retrieve the train to and from Portland. Rather, it is the fact that the train does not provide enough value to enough people to attract sufficient ridership to cover the cost of operation.

Investing in the infrastructure necessary to provide convenient, affordable and clean train service that takes people where and when they need to go (including the hundreds of commuter students attending our growing community college), and that promotes growth where we want it (spurring redevelopment of the former Brunswick Naval Air Station), is a better way to maximize the utility and efficiency of rail service for Brunswick and all of Maine.

Instead of arguing about whether our neighbors should have known a maintenance shed for aging diesel locomotives could be built in their back yards, let’s work together to redirect the politicians and public officials who are preventing progress, and figure out how to create a train service that really works for Brunswick and Maine.

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Fred Horch lives in Brunswick. His fellow Merrymeeting Greens members Bob Dale, David Frans, Mary Heath, Rosalie Paul, John Rensenbrink, Sam Smith and Herschel Sternlieb contributed to this article.