IN MARCH 2025, communities along the South Coast at long last received the MBTA commuter rail service they had been promised for nearly three decades, connecting the Gateway Cities of Taunton, Fall River, New Bedford, and Brockton to Boston and bringing passenger rail back to the region for the first time since 1958.
State and local leaders said during a transportation conference at Bridgewater State University (BSU) last week that the South Coast Rail project has since helped bolster the region’s economic competitiveness, tourism, and housing growth.
But getting there was no easy feat, and it was only phase one. Just over a year later, state officials have yet to roll out a plan to finance and finish the second phase — also called the “full build” — that was proposed nearly a decade ago. The full build, in addition to adding new stops to the route, would provide faster, electrified service.
State Sen. Mark Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat who has led the call for rail service in the region since he was elected in 1993, joked that flying cars will exist before phase two.
A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation told CommonWealth Beacon the MBTA is prioritizing maintenance and repairs of the existing system over moving forward with the final phase. The full build is not outlined in the MBTA’s current five-year Capital Investment Plan.
Prior to 2017, the project featured a single phase known as the Stoughton Electric Alternative, the preferred and least environmentally damaging alternative for the South Coast Rail project. Then, former Gov. Charlie Baker and his administration announced a two-phase construction plan after decades of inaction on Beacon Hill.
“One administration after another didn’t do what was needed,” Montigny said during the conference celebrating the one-year anniversary of the South Coast Rail. “Just to think about all the years, headaches, and people that stuck with it over time — it shouldn’t have taken this long.”
Phase 1 of the plan extended the existing Middleborough/Lakeville Line to points south. That is now called the Fall River/New Bedford Line. The final phase promised a faster, climate-friendly, more direct route from Boston to New Bedford via an extension of the Stoughton Line. That electrified service was supposed to launch sometime in the 2030s, well after Phase 1.
“Phasing the project will begin service more quickly and allow the region to accrue the benefits promised by the full build project,” a 2018 MassDOT report said, estimating the total cost of the full build to be $3.2 billion, including nearly $1 billion for Phase 1.
Local officials have expressed concerns that the trips between Boston and New Bedford, which currently take between 100 and 110 minutes without delays, are too long. Meanwhile, it takes approximately an hour to drive from New Bedford to South Station without traffic.
“We need to do everything we can to shorten that ride,” Montigny said.
When asked about the length of the route during the BSU conference, interim MassDOT secretary and MBTA general manager Phil Eng said he is focused on double tracking sections of the commuter rail’s single-track territory, which would help to speed up the ride from Boston to New Bedford.
The final phase, in addition to bearing a high price tag, would require a large and complicated environmental permitting process due to the proposed line running through the Hockomock Swamp and other protected wetlands. Environmental concerns about the rail line’s impact on endangered species and drinking water supplies were a sticking point in the earlier discussions of the full build.
“I don’t feel it was based fully on legitimate environmental concerns. I feel it was used, like so many environmental arguments, to thwart progress,” Montigny said.
The final phase would also establish new MBTA stops in Easton and Raynham, as well as a second stop in Taunton that is just minutes from downtown. Stops would also be added at Ruggles Station and Back Bay Station in Boston, according to the 2017 MassDOT plan.
“We are grateful that we have rail in Taunton now. However, it’s just on the outskirts of the city, and to see phase two actually happen in my lifetime would be a huge economic driver for the city,” Mayor Shaunna O’Connell said.
In the three months prior to the opening of the Fall River/New Bedford Line, average weekday ridership was about 6,500 riders per day. Immediately following the start of service, average weekday ridership increased to 10,000 riders per day, according to MassDOT. From April through December 2025, total ridership increased 37 percent compared to the same period in 2024, representing nearly 600,000 additional trips.
Despite the uncertainty around the full build and the two-year delay of Phase 1, which was supposed to open in 2023 but was held up by project leadership changes and a lengthy testing phase, the commuter rail service has already helped spur some housing development in the region. O’Connell pointed to a 275-unit luxury apartment complex currently under construction near the new East Taunton Station that will include retail space.
“Developers know about rail and the advantages it brings,” O’Connell said. “They have been coming to us.”
But in New Bedford, Mayor Jon Mitchell said it’s too early to see any new housing development near the city’s two new stations.
The Church Street Station is located near a neighborhood with single-family homes, while the downtown New Bedford Station is located on an industrial waterfront, neither of which are prime locations for new housing development, Mitchell said.
For now, it’s unclear whether the region will ever see the final phase of the South Coast Rail. After a 30-year fight for Phase 1, these four economically disadvantaged cities — or as Brockton mayor Moises Rodrigues calls them, “the four forgotten cities south of Boston” — are well aware that only time will tell.
“We all thought we’d never see this rail in our lifetime, so I’m going to keep hoping for phase two,” O’Connell said.
