BY MARTIN B. CASSIDY
Hearst Connecticut Media
In 25 years, a commuter living in Fairfield County might be able to get on a train in Bridgeport and go to Long Island, through a tunnel under the Long Island Sound. Or ride to Bradley International Airport. Or get to Boston in less than two hours.
Given that some days it”™s difficult to get to New York in less than two hours, these options that are part of a Federal Railroad Administration plan to expand the Northeast rail corridor can seem impossible. But the economic importance of the region is so great, and the rail network so integral to it, that not doing so also seems impossible.
“It”™s a 100-year century forward plan for an investment in infrastructure which is on par with when they built the Long Island Rail Road and New Haven Line,” Connecticut Department of Transportation Commissioner Jim Redeker said.
The Northeast Corridor generates a fifth of the nation”™s gross domestic product and is home to one in seven Americans. Train riders between New York and Boston account for just over half of the combined air and rail travel market. Between Washington, D.C., and New York, train riders make up nearly 70 percent of the air and rail market.
Yet the rail system available hasn”™t expanded much since it was built, mostly between the 1830s and the early 1920s, or even since it became clear in the 1970s and ”˜80s that the advent of the automobile as primary form of transportation of commuters and goods was not going to be sustainable.
And as the serious accidents and massive service interruptions of the last year and a half on the Metro-North line have shown, the existing rail network is crumbling.
The result is a rail network that can”™t grow much in the way of routes, number of riders or speed without a major federal-level effort.
Under the Northeast Corridor Future being aired by the FRA now, the rail network throughout the Northeast Corridor running from Washington to Boston would look very different in the next quarter century, with trains capable of speeds of 220 mph cutting travel times in half, and possibly cities currently not served linked in to the system.
“These investments are absolutely necessary to begin immediately and need to continue for decades,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “It”™s going to be a fight but I am more hopeful because there is clearly a consensus around the need to create jobs and our economy.”
What those jobs and the economy would look like in 25 years factors strongly into the FRA”™s planning. Jobs that don”™t have bankers”™ hours and that are spread out around the region would change the demand on the rail network, said William Wheeler, director of planning for Metro-North”™s parent agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
“The industries that are growing are anything but 9 to 5, and generate work in the off-peak, weekends and night,” Wheeler said. “The very nature of work is changing significantly like we”™ve never seen, so when you are considering (adding) more peak capacity you need to ask, ”˜Is the demand really going to be there?”™”
Demographics also will drive changing demand. A younger generation of commuters is expected to embrace transit more than its predecessors and will continue to push up ridership numbers, Rebecca Reyes-Alicea, program director for NEC Future, said.
Finding the land to build out the rail network or even straighten parts of it out to allow for higher speeds would be difficult, but the political realities of such a massive investment may be the biggest obstacle as Republicans now control the U.S. House and Senate and would be unlikely to fund major projects in notoriously Democratic strongholds throughout the Northeast.
The FRA won”™t complete estimates for a slew of new track, bridges and other potential improvements proposed under the Northeast Corridor Future plan until next year. In 2012, Amtrak estimated the needed upgrades between 2015 and 2040 to make higher speeds a reality would top $150 billion.
The Northeast Corridor Future planning process comes as Congress and federal officials are also grappling with funding improvements just to maintain current service levels, a task Amtrak estimates would cost $10 billion. The current Northeast Corridor stretches 457 miles and carries more than 2,000 trains between Amtrak and eight commuter railroads, including Metro-North.
“We definitely believe all the options are worth considering and are looking to the public and stakeholders to really define what the role of rail should be and how much we are willing to support that,” Reyes-Alicea said.
The FRA”™s proposed plan includes a range of options, from mega-projects to establish high-speed rail to less comprehensive changes that would maintain current service but not accommodate expected growth from region to region.
Under the most expensive plan, a brand new Amtrak system would run through a hub in Nassau in Long Island before tunneling under the Long Island Sound to Stamford to connect north to Danbury and Waterbury, and even on to Hartford and Boston. A second option calls for a tunnel linking Ronkonkoma to New Haven en route to Boston.
Fully built out, the system could cut travel times between Boston and New York from the current three and a half hours to 94 minutes, and from two hours and 40 minutes from New York to Washington to 94 minutes.
The run from New York to Philadelphia, a trip that now takes an hour and 10 minutes via Amtrak Acela, could take 37 minutes. To do this, straightening out sharp curves and adding one or more tracks to expand capacity would be required on the 70-mile New Haven Line.
The system also would furnish new direct connections to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Philadelphia International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport and Worcester Airport for air travelers.
Speaking from the perspective of the local economy, Joseph McGee, vice president of public policy for the The Business Council of Fairfield County, is pressing FRA staff to prioritize those upgrades to provide faster, more frequent service between Grand Central Terminal and major stops like Stamford, New Haven and Hartford, a goal he believes is within reach in the nearer term.
“The really tough nut is Stamford to New York,” McGee said. “More frequent, safe and higher-speed commuter rail is a driver that would improve Connecticut”™s economy dramatically.”
McGee has advocated a “30-30-30” plan, which calls for 30-minute rail trips between Hartford and New Haven, New Haven and Stamford, and Stamford to Grand Central Terminal.
The FRA plan assumes nearer term improvements in the Metro-North”™s five-year capital plan will come to pass, including the just-beginning $428 million project to install an advanced collision avoidance positive train control on Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road trains and tracks and a
$743 million proposal to provide direct access to Penn Station for New Haven Line runs.
The state transportation department”™s Redeker said one of the more utilitarian aspects of the FRA”™s process is the creation of environmental impact analyses for mega-projects that will help expedite them when funding becomes available.
Redeker served as chairman of Congress”™ Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission, which has focused on the need to replace much of the corridor”™s infrastructure that is more than 100 years old.
Earlier this year, the group made a report emphasizing the increasing fragility of the corridor”™s aged infrastructure, while also warning that without major capacity expansions ridership demand on much of the corridor could be twice what available track space can provide by 2030.
“All of our movable bridges, a new signal system, and positive train control are kind of a given but one of the messages I am trying to get across as part of this project is the basic investment we are programming across the Northeast Corridor is woefully underfunded,” Redeker said. “It is very clear there are needs for everyday commuters that really haven”™t been invested at the federal level to bring the system to a state of good repair where it needs to be.”
At the same time, Redeker said the process is a historic opportunity for the government to establish a working plan to rebuild the region”™s rail network to anticipate and accommodate economic growth for a century or more.
“It”™s ambitious but it should be, and it is hard to envision what it should be, and we need to think about things we don”™t usually, like what do people 200 years from now need. For me this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and we should do it right and do it well,” Redeker said.
Hearst Connecticut Media includes four daily newspapers: Connecticut Post, Greenwich Time, The Advocate (Stamford) and The News Times (Danbury). See ctpost.com for more from this reporter.
I hope they choose to do whatever is necessary to allow some I-95 tractor-trailer freight to move 100 yards over to the railroad tracks. If Amtrak would only allow it, tracks already connect the whole corridor to the shipping ports in Elizabeth, NJ. Imagine our commute with 1,000 trucks per day off the highway!