MBTA South Station.jpg

Train passengers leave Boston's South Station on a recent snowy morning. (Gintautas Dumcius/MassLive.com)

(Gintautas Dumcius/MassLive.com)

Massachusetts officials are taking another step in looking at linking North Station and South Station, two major transportation hubs in Boston.



Proponents say the connection could be an economic boon to the Greater Boston area, though the price tag could be the range of billions of dollars. Backers include former Governors William Weld and Michael Dukakis, as well as Congressman Seth Moulton, D-Mass.



Gov. Charlie Baker's transportation chief, Stephanie Pollack, announced Wednesday the opening of a request for proposals for a reassessment of the feasibility of a North South Rail Link, closing a one-mile "gap" in downtown Boston. The state plans to select a technical consultant and the feasibility assessment is expected to last eight months and cost roughly $1.5 million.



The assessment is expected to provide guidance on whether further technical and financial analysis of the project is needed. The state last eyed the rail link almost 15 years ago.



Baker remains somewhat skeptical about the project.



"We'll see what it says," he said of the feasibility study during a sit-down with the editorial board of MassLive/Springfield Republican.



Baker said he has made it clear he has his doubts but he's trying to keep an "open mind" about the project.



MassLive/Springfield Republican also asked Baker about an east-west connection: A high-speed rail proposal, pushed by state Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow, linking Boston and Springfield.

State Sen. Eric Lesser petitions President Donald Trump for Boston-Springfield rail line funding



Lesser has argued that the link could be an economic boon to Western Massachusetts, and he is re-launching an effort to get a feasibility study. Like the North South Rail Link, the proposal has bipartisan support.



The proposal made it through the Legislature last year, but Baker used his veto powers to seek an amendment to the proposal and expand it to include other transportation modes.



The Legislature didn't take up the change, so the proposal died, and Lesser is giving it another go this year.



"This is a transportation question," Baker said Wednesday when asked about the proposal and whether his stance remains the same. "It's not a rail question."

Picknelly lobbied against rail study, sending email two days before Gov. Baker's veto



Lesser called the North South Rail link a "worthy project."



"But the idea that in one breath that can be embraced and east-west rail can be dismissed is something that all of us in Western Mass. see and feel time and time again and should be very outraged over," Lesser said.



"I absolutely support looking at ride-sharing, looking at autonomous vehicles, looking at rail, looking at electric vehicles, you name it," he added "I agree with that but it doesn't seem to me it should come at the expense of moving to the next phase of determining what next to do on a project that would really transform our region."



A feasibility study of the east-west rail proposal is necessary because those types of studies are conducted by engineers, laying out costs, scope and potential benefits, if there are any, the senator argued.



"It can't just be part of a broad look that's so broad that we don't learn anything substantive," Lesser said.