New York high-speed rail
High-speed rail in New York has been a topic that is consistently discussed among legislators, political leaders and in particular, several past governors since the 1990s, but thus far little progress has been made.
In his campaign speeches prior to his defeat by Governor George Pataki in 1994, Mario Cuomo promised to bring high speed (maglev) rail up the Hudson Valley and along the Catskill Mountains route.
Frequently cited as a partial solution for Upstate and Western New York's economic stagnation, faster rail transportation between New York City and the rest of the state has been suggested as a way to make rural areas grow into suburban destinations for daily commuters, and easily accessible for businesses to relocate to cheaper real estate.
Rail travel largely stagnated in the post-World War II economic boom, as the New York Thruway was built, and then the rest of the highway transportation and suburban lifestyles burgeoned.
In the early 1980s the State of New York paid Conrail to install cab signals from Poughkeepise to Hoffmans, west of Schenectady, to allow 110 mph train service.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, New York Governor George Pataki attempted to secure, among other things, a high-speed rail link to Schenectady using federal emergency aid money.
[5] From 2004 until 2012, the unused Turboliners sat in storage at a cost of $150,000 per year to the taxpayers until a decision by Governor Andrew Cuomo to liquidate the remaining fleet for scrap metal.
[8] In addition, the Empire Limited Amtrak service between New York and Albany already has one of the highest levels of ridership outside the Northeast Corridor and Acela lines.
[10] In October 2009, the state applied for funding for a number of these projects from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail program.
In the past, New York investigated gas turbine alternatives which would not require electrification, such as the JetTrain by Bombardier Transportation[citation needed] or the older Turboliner fleet, but neither project proved feasible.
[23] According to a report by the New York State Senate High Speed Rail Task Force, such a route would serve Plattsburgh via Albany.
He maintains that a Toronto high-speed rail service has the potential to increase environmentally-friendly traffic and decrease congestion on the Peace Bridge.
This route would also require connection of the Binghamton line to the Empire Corridor to avoid a dead end, most likely through the existing New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway's northernmost branches to either Syracuse or Utica; the former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad line that connected the cutoff to Buffalo via a route through the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes is mostly abandoned.
The project would create routing alternatives and add 25 train scheduling slots to the current system used by Amtrak and New Jersey Transit by constructing another Hudson River crossing.
Originally planned by Amtrak to come on line in 2030, Gateway was announced soon after cancellation of NJT's Access to the Region's Core (ARC) project in 2010.
