Fast Trains: Upstate New York high speed rail languishes while politicians debate
Fast Trains: Upstate rail languishes while politicians debate
Taiwan’s bullet trains started running in 2007 and now carry 32 million passengers a year on 214 miles of track, at speeds of up to 186 mph.
Germany’s carry 74 million passengers on 798 miles of high-speed track. France’s trains hurtle 1,178 miles at up to 220 mph, carrying 114 million riders. Japan’s pioneering bullet trains carry 289 million passengers on 1,655 miles of track.China may soon have more high-speed track than the rest of the world combined. Spain, England and Italy already have fast trains, soon to be joined by India, Iran, Turkey, South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, among others. So far there are at least 10,000 miles of track, built with government funds.
America was once a railroad pioneer, but that was before today’s car-crazy culture of urban sprawl. Rail service across New York state now is creaky, dusty, unreliable. Fewer than 500 train travelers begin or end their day in Syracuse. Amtrak carried 11 million passengers in New York in 2011 — mostly in the Northeast corridor around New York City.
President Barack Obama and Congress want to spend up to $13 billion to jump-start high-speed rail in 11 designated corridors — including Upstate New York.
Locally, the High Speed Rail New York Coalition, led by CenterState CEO’s Rob Simpson, promotes an upgrade for the 463-mile Empire Corridor. The group has the backing of mayors including Syracuse’s Stephanie Miner, and 13,000 Upstate businesses. Cutting the trip from Syracuse to New York City to 3½ hours would make rail an attractive alternative to the modern ordeal of air travel, they argue; the project could add 21,000 new jobs and $1.1 billion in wages.
But high-speed rail is tangled up in partisan debate, like everything else in Washington. Republican governors in Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio have rejected federal aid for trains, concerned about deficits, cost overruns — and winning elections.
New York’s two Democratic senators are boosters for high-speed rail. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has earmarked $104.5 million in addition to $500 million in federal funds to start the process. But Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, R-Onondaga Hill, last year urged U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood not to give Florida’s $2.4 billion to New York. ‘We simply cannot support this expenditure of precious tax dollars on a project that will not be financially viable in the long term,’ she wrote.
Rep. Richard Hanna, R-Barneveld, says while high-speed might work in the busy Northeast corridor, he’s skeptical about Upstate.
Dan Maffei, the DeWitt Democrat seeking to regain his old seat from Buerkle in November, scoffs at the naysayers. ‘The Erie Canal was not only one of the main things that made Upstate New York successful, it’s why Syracuse essentially is here,’ he said. ‘We have to be bold, like our ancestors.’
Later this summer, a report is due analyzing five alternatives — from doing nothing to building the whole Upstate line. Last month, Amtrak proposed a sweeping upgrade of the Northeast Corridor for 220-mph trains over the next 28 years. So far, however, little has been done.
Half-a-century ago, federal funds built an interstate highway system that helped to eclipse railroads. Today, the future of rail service is emerging around the world. Why not in Upstate New York?
High speed rail would revolutionize New York State. People who work in Manhattan would move upstate if the commute was 45 minutes or an hour some would even do the 2 hour commute to far upstate if high speed rail allowed it.
That would mean money for local economies now struggling. While property values stay more or less constant in and around NYC, depressed property values would rise as demand for homes in upstate New York grew. At 220mph that means Syracuse to Manhattan would be around 90 minutes away. That is how transformative this can be,
Light manufacturing could move upstate where cheaper rents and labor are to be found and the short time span to Manhattan via high speed rail would allow same day deliveries or supply runs or meetings.
So I don’t get why Republicans are against this? Do they have a pathological fear of trains?
I also fault Obama for not being a more in your face president. I think he needed to be more in front of the American people leading them because many decades of right wing ideologies that in the end failed have left many American people traumatized and unable to perceive reality as easily as before.