Posted on 06/09/2010 6:19:25 AM PDT by Willie Green
Two hundred years ago, New York state and city leaped ahead of the rest of the country economically with the construction of a publicly financed, inter-city transportation project called the Erie Canal.
Today, the city and state are part of a megaregion called the Northeast, which competes with other megaregions in this country and the world. Is there an inter-city transportation project that would allow the Northeast today to gain advantage the way New York State did in 1817?
High-speed rail may be that project. If trains zipped between Boston, Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington at average speeds of 160 mph plus, with local service to smaller cities as well, the Northeast would have a leg up on Chicago, Seattle, or Los Angeles and help it keep pace with London, Shanghai, and other world cities that are proceeding with similar investments.
For the past two years, Amtrak, a dozen states, Washington DC, eight commuter railroads and three freight railroads, the Regional Plan Association, and The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, among others, have been preparing an initial Northeast Corridor Infrastructure Master Plan. It's an impressive document. The estimated $50 billion in improvements would upgrade infrastructure along the entire line and, for example, lower travel time from Washington DC to New York by 20 to 30 minutes. The coalition is asking the Federal Railroad Administration for $18 million for an Environmental Impact Statement.
But despite its merits, the report does not call for or even consider true high-speed rail.
Recently a graduate planning studio class at the University of Pennsylvania, led by Robert Yaro, RPA President, and Marilyn Taylor, Dean of the School of Design at Penn and an RPA board member, have come up with a plan for true high-speed rail in the Northeast. It includes new tunnels under Long Island Sound and taking over highway median right-of-way. It's a plan that, as Daniel Burnham said, thinks big and has the power to "stir men's blood."
Under this plan, two new dedicated high-speed rail tracks would be built from Washington DC to Boston. Trains traveling from DC to New York would take only 90 minutes versus the current top time of 2 hours and 45 minutes. New York to Boston would take 1 hour and 45 minutes instead of 3 1/2 hours. Capacity would exist for 10 to 12 high-speed inter-city trains to travel along the new line each hour allowing for an expanded mix of both high-speed, inter-city, and commuter rail trains in the corridor. The huge boost in capacity would free up track space for commuter railroads in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York to accomodate their expected growth in rider demand.
True high-speed rail service, the plan estimates, would revitalize center cities like Hartford by concentrating growth there and helping make possible an environmentally friendlier and more pleasant lifestyle. People could use cars less and bicycles and transit more. The plan paints a picture where the Northeast leverages its already extensive investment in mass transit and commuter rail to create a true high-speed system that both enhances local connections and improves on them. The estimated cost - $98 billion - is conceivable.
The plan is appealing in its boldness and apparent feasibility. North of New York City, for example, rather than attempting to carve out new tracks through the existing highly congested Northeast Corridor along the Connecticut shore, the high-speed line would travel east by tunneling beneath Long Island and then travel under Long Island Sound through an imagination-capturing 20-mile, three-tube tunnel to New Haven. From there, it would travel along existing rail right-of-way to Hartford before diverting to Boston along the median of I-84, in one fell swoop obtaining much of the corridor for new dedicated tracks. South of New York, tracks would follow along a mix of existing passenger and freight right-of-ways, and new tunnels.
In preparing this report, Penn faculty and graduate students were aided by top transportation and economic development professionals. Scholars from both the United States and the United Kingdom participated in developing the studio's recommendations, giving its recommendations real credibility. The kind of true high-speed service envisioned in this report should be considered under the Environmental Impact Statement the Northeast coalition is about to undertake.
Virtually all of our competitors in the industrialized world have already built or are planning new high-speed rail systems. Even developing countries, including Brazil, India, Indonesia and Morocco, are moving ahead with projects. But there is an argument for moving incrementally toward high-speed rail, rather than leaping there. Former Amtrak and New York City Transit president David Gunn gave a convincing pitch in an interview six years ago with me that the nation would be better off upgrading its current train service to merely fast speeds, before attempting true high speed rail.
But we should at least consider it.
There is no question in my mind that there is a need and demand for true high-speed rail in the Northeast. Maybe it's time for another great leap forward. Or maybe a combination of hops, skips, and jumps will do the trick.
If the trains from NYC to DC and DC to NYC were one way and dumped into their related water ways, I could support this idea.
EPA studies kill these things before they ever get started.
Pay for your own toys without spending tax money.
The Erie canal shipped freight. Moving commerce will always improve your economy. If moving people fast on high speed rail would improve your economy then Europe and Japan would dominate the world already. The fact is our private rail is more efficient at moving freight then their rail. In fact Europe moves most of its commerce by trucks on highways. Europe has a lot to learn from the U.S. in moving commerce. The problem moving people by rail in the U.S. is that rail is competing with highways. You would have to triple the price of gasoline and charge sky high tolls to get people travel by rail. This is what Europe and Japan do.
We have airplanes if one wants to go fast. We are to spend untold billions to save an hour? As long as it’s not tax money, fine. Otherwise it’s Amtrak 2.
Moving commerce will always improve your economy. If moving people fast on high speed rail would improve your economy then Europe and Japan would dominate the world already.
That's a silly objection.
Business commuters ARE commerce.
And since when has Japan become an example of a non-competitive economy?
I keep saying, don’t give this bunch any bright ideas about rebuilding the Erie Canal...
‘the high-speed line would travel east by tunneling beneath Long Island’
BIG DIG 2-—the Sequel.
So Willie, does you band play any songs other than “Loco-Motion” (Little Eva 1962)?
I just dream of making the northeast corridor as “competitive” as possible. We'll all be SO much better off.
Yes, our nation would be "SO much better off" if we shot ourselves in the partisan foot and starved the northeast corridor into economic collapse and submission.
/sarc
(Good grief... no WONDER "the Stupid Party" can't get elected in this region.)
If you are only moving people you will not improve your economy. It is silly to compare the Erie canal to high speed rail. One moved freight and helped to industrialize America. The latter moves people only and has limited ability to improve the economy. This article was trying to compare the two in which there is no comparison.
It is silly to compare the Erie canal to high speed rail.
It'silly to imply that settlers didn't migrate westward as passengers on the Erie canal.
Freight may have been shipped back east, but it was people who were moving west.
Correct. They moved. They didn't commute. And the freight lines followed them.
I keep saying, don’t give this bunch any bright ideas about rebuilding the Erie Canal...
Hey! Thanks for the inspiration!
I just found a Great YouTube for that also!
“In preparing this report, Penn faculty and graduate students were aided by top transportation and economic development professionals. Scholars from both the United States and the United Kingdom participated in developing the studio’s recommendations, giving its recommendations real credibility.”
“Scholars” = Marxism impaired members of the Academented Nomenklatura.
“Penn faculty and graduate students” = appeal to Ivy league aura of infallibility.
The basic premise needing examination is whether AMerica should be crammed into a seething mass of UberUrban development?
Huge urban areas are dependent on centralized large government. That is what differentiates America from Europe.
We are decentralized, land owning, sovereign citizens.
Europeans are subjects acted upon by their Ubermenschen in the agencies of their multitudinous levels of government.
IMHO, America is best served by a historic demographic, not crime ridden “Urban Paradises” like NYC (America’s finest example of Big Sh*tty run amock).
And, let us not forget the many smaller, but all too real examples of the socialists “Big Sh*tty end game. I refer, of course, to “The Debacles in Blue” - Detroit, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and America’s ultimate pool of urban cess, New Orleans.
Correct. They moved. They didn't commute. And the freight lines followed them.
The only reason they didn't start to commute on the canal was because someone built high-speed rail. THAT was when it became easier for people to travel back and forth across the mountains on business.
The Box Tops ain’t got time to take a fast train.
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