Former Danbury Mayor Responds to Newspaper Critic: ‘I Don’t Care What He Thinks’

An editorial piece was published in the CT Mirror on Tuesday (2/23/21) titled "The Maybrook Rail Line Study is a Waste of $1 million." In it, author Jim Cameron makes a case that the Mayrbook proposal will not save commuters the time, proponents say it will.

The Maybrook Line connecting Danbury, CT and Brewster, NY used to be for cargo only. The proposed plan would see the cargo trains converted into passenger trains.

Passengers in Danbury would now connect to the Metro-North station in Brewster, switch trains and take the Harlem Line into the city instead of taking the train from Danbury, to Norwalk, onto the main line there and into the city.

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Cameron mentions that former Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton is a backer of the Mayrbook Line conversion and that the former Mayor believes the Maybrook Line could shave an hour off the commute for some. Cameron believes the Maybrook Line would amount to a savings of ten minutes off the commute and says the $1 million grant awarded to Danbury for the study is a waste of money by the state.

We asked Boughton what he thought of the article when he joined the Ethan and Lou Show Friday.

He said, "You know, I did read that piece by the way and apparently, everybody's an expert, everybody's an engineer, but you know I actually listen to the engineers and the experts who have looked at this and know that it will save. Whether it's 45 minutes or an hour, whatever, a significant time off their commute. I think that, I'm not really sure, this guy, he's against everything, he just wrote another piece against being against something else," said the Hat City's former mayor. "He's just a miserable person and I don't care what he thinks, who cares? The fact of the matter is that we know here in Western CT that linking Downtown to Southeast and then on into New York City is a financial home run, windfall, economic development masterpiece that will forever change this area. And, anybody who doesn't understand that, doesn't understand commuting and how to commute. And, just because you happen to ride around on a train once in awhile or you're a train-a-phile, that doesn't mean you know how to develop a local economy."

Boughton continued and you can hear the entire Ethan and Lou segment below.

Danbury Train Wars 2021 - Ethan and Lou Segment (3/1/21)