What ever happened to “I think I can”?

Constraints baked in to the Cuomo approach

The Cuomo administration is still in the study phase of its “High Speed Rail Empire Corridor Project.” The object of the study is to determine which faster, more reliable train system would best connect the state. The DOT is a lead author of the initial feasibility study, due out this summer. (The FRA will evaluate the state’s plan once it’s finished.)

An online briefing issued by the administration earlier this year identified 10 possible scenarios. One requires no action beyond improvements that have already commenced; three others would not appreciably increase speeds or quality of service and so have been discarded. Other options the DOT and governor’s office are considering involve two variations on trains that can reach 90 mph, another that would hit a maximum of 110 mph, and still another, the quickest, that would reach 125 mph. In real, day-to-day use, all will average well below those marks despite being classified as high-speed rail.

Two speedier options were mentioned in the online briefing — 160 mph and 220 mph — but were ruled out. The document said they are “cost prohibitive,” but offered no further explanation of the downsides (or potential upsides). When asked to articulate the reasoning for the elimination of true HSR, Marie Corrado, project director for HSR at the DOT, said her agency, along with the FRA, made the decision based on a “very elaborate” analysis. “The FRA has told us and we agree that it’s not a feasible thing to be looking at right now,” she said.

Despite Remapping Debate’s repeated requests, Corrado did not produce the analysis she said had been carried out by the DOT and the FRA. When Remapping Debate contacted the FRA about the document, Rob Kulat, a public affairs specialist at the FRA, said that no analysis specific to New York exists. The FRA did provide a two-page PowerPoint presentation, designed to be a general assessment for a national audience, the thrust of which was that the “cost of building for higher speeds…increases greatly as you go faster” and that, “generally speaking, there is a diminishing return on travel time as speed is increased.” The document pointed out, though, that the appropriate solution will “differ from corridor to corridor.”

Corrado acknowledged that the DOT’s own cost estimates were based only on a single scenario: running high-speed trains on the existing railroad line. Rebuilding the track would be expensive along the current route, which in places curves around hills and outcroppings, skirts the water, and weaves through small, historic towns, including Sleepy Hollow and Croton-on-Hudson. The steep price can be explained in part by the need to position new track over the river at some points, and secure rights-of-way from private landowners to help achieve the “softening” of curves that true HSR requires. The latter would oblidge the state to exercise its power of eminent domain, something Corrado did not believe would serve the public good.

Would true HSR between Albany and New York offer substantial potential benefits?

Robert Paaswell, a professor of civil engineering at the City College of New York and director of the University Transportation Research Center, has been an advocate for high-speed rail along the Empire Corridor for 20 years. He sees a rich sharing of information and ideas resulting from stronger connections between New York and Albany.

“If you can go to Penn Station and know you can get a train every hour, or every hour and a half, and know you’ve got a 90-minute ride, it changes the total complexion of the New York-Albany relationship,” he explained. This would be the case not only for political reasons — because Albany is the state capital — but, Paaswell points out, Albany is a growing center for technology, as is New York City.

A closer link to the Big Apple would likely bring an influx of people to Albany. “If we were an hour outside of New York City, what would that do to our region in terms of growth and expansion?” asked F. Michael Tucker, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Economic Growth in Albany. “We would be able to be a bedroom community like Westchester and Long Island,” he explained. “It would result in us becoming an outer-ring extension of one of the world’s largest economic areas.”

A range of new jobs would result. Construction workers would be needed to build new housing and commercial properties. Stores and restaurants would open. More tourists would visit the city. People would spend more time and money in Albany, and the city would increase its tax base. “Once you started doing this you would get a virtuous circle of highly skilled jobs,” explained Mark Reutter, a former editor of Railway History magazine and a fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute specializing in rail transportation.