The future of high-speed railroad service in New York (May 2008)
On Feb. 28, 2008, newspapers across New York State published their fourth in a series of occasional Upstate Focus editorials.
The issue of concern chosen for that day was high-speed rail service.
Each newspaper published its own opinion, reached independently. Here are the editorials:
Batavia Daily News
Want a ticket to ride? High-speed train an expensive gamble
Think of this: A trip to Albany in an hour. Or to New York City in less than three hours. It's almost enough to make you consider commuting.
That's a big part of the reasoning behind a renewed push to construct high-speed trains connecting the major upstate cities and New York City. The visionary plan has been touted by no less than Sen. Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, and it's gotten support from the state's two other political heavy-hitters, Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Not that it's a particularly new idea. It's just a good time to raise the issue again, now that the "in" political posture is to say you want to help upstate develop. The plan is as visionary as the Erie Canal was in the early 1800s, or the Thruway was in the 1950s. The canal system and Thruway both represented huge gambles on the part of government, requiring huge investments that, fortunately, paid off in a surge of economic development the length of New York State.
A high-speed rail has the same potential for development along its length today. But it is just as much a gamble requiring a huge investment with no guarantees of success.
A 2005 study by the state Senate High Speed Rail Task Force broke the vision into stages. It recommended first making some $1.8 billion worth of improvements to existing rail lines between New York City and Buffalo, and then ultimately constructing a new system of super-fast trains, possibly along the Thruway, at a cost of $10 billion to $20 billion. In August, the Task Force and state Department of Transportation finalized a memorandum of understanding to implement $22 million in initiatives. The initiatives involved improvements at the Rensselaer and Hudson stations and approaching Penn Station.
What is likely to make high-speed rail such a hard sell upstate is that so much of the preparatory foundation work is centered downstate. Upstaters may see more of their hard-earned tax dollars going to subsidize downstate transportation while they pay higher gas taxes and Thruway tolls. Upstate won't benefit directly until billions of tax dollars have been spent to fulfill the high-speed rail vision.
Where is a state with a budget deficit going to come up with billions? If it's from more taxes, it's defeating the main purpose of encouraging economic development, because no one's going to want to live or do business in an even more heavily taxed state no matter how fast the trains are.
Only the larger cities would have depots under the plan. That's understandable. A train that stopped at every burg along the 425-mile-plus line wouldn't be a fast train by any stretch of the imagination. But people in our three counties - Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming - might be willing to drive to Buffalo or Rochester depots to catch a fast train to Albany or New York City.
All of which raises the question of how willing New Yorkers would be to use the high-speed rail. We upstaters love our cars. We're used to traveling on our own timetable to and from destinations of our own convenience. Would enough of us be willing to leave the car at the train station?
To make the rail system work, leaders have to make it convenient, user friendly, safe and cheap. Stations need to be easy to get to. The rail cars need amenities such as wireless Internet access. The trains need to run on time. There need to be connections so people can get where they're going after they get off the train.
And the trips need to be frequent enough to make traveling by rail appealing.
High-speed rail might be the future New York State needs to pursue at any cost. It's being done elsewhere. In January, Canada announced a multi-billion-dollar program to construct a high-speed rail line between Quebec City and Windsor, Ontario. Europeans rely heavily on high-speed rail for mass transit. Even China has a high-speed rail system. But New Yorkers are famous for dilly-dallying.
A plan to construct a second Peace Bridge has been bandied about since 1997 with no end - or should we say beginning? - in sight. If a high-speed rail is to become reality in New York State, someone with power and vision needs to persuade citizens it's worth the money, convince them to get behind the project and push. That train hasn't even pulled out of the station yet.
Buffalo News
Revive rail
New York State should act now to revive rail traffic as a step toward fast-tracking the future state economy. Today's economy and pressing public needs won't allow the major investment to transform the state's aging railroad infrastructure immediately, but incremental steps can be taken and planning should start.
Some investments already are being made, both in the safety of existing lines and in preparations for future high-speed rail traffic that could link easily to high-speed rail now in use on the East Coast and planned for the Quebec-Windsor corridor in Canada. Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer should consolidate those efforts in a broad-based high-speed rail task force, and Buffalo and other communities along the likely high-speed corridors should prioritize land-use and intermodal transportation center planning now.
Buffalo once was the third-largest rail hub in the nation, and New York was a center of railroad-driven economic activity. In past glory, there can be future hope.
The high-speed rail concept is gaining steam throughout the world. Eighteen countries now have high-speed rail lines, ranging from conventional high-speed routes -- current proposals call for ramping up cross-state service in New York to 70 to 80 mph now, and eventually to 120 to 150 mph -- to "bullet trains" that can top 200 mph and "mag lev" trains that float magnetically over trackbeds to reach higher friction-free speeds.
Currently, cross-state train travel is crippled by Amtrak's financial condition and by the national rail line's need to use tracks owned by freight railroads -- a condition that causes long delays as passenger trains wait for freights to pass.
High-speed trains can trim cross-state travel time significantly, knit the state's economy more closely together and boost even casual tourism such as quick trips from midstate to Bills and Sabres games. But the current worldwide surge stems from even more pressing needs -- gasoline prices, oil dependency, airlines delays, congested highways and, not insignificantly, a desire for fuel-efficient "green" travel. Eurostar high-speed rail system chief executive Richard Brown noted recently in Brussels that concerns about airline and auto pollution have changed both personal and business travel decisions enough to boost his line's passenger traffic by 30 percent over the past two years.
The call for high-speed rail here is not new. A commission some years ago studied the feasibility of using the Thruway corridor (curves were deemed too sharp for really high-speed rail, every overpass would need redesign and there were concerns about the effect on motorists suddenly being passed). And although President Bush's budget proposal includes a deep cut in Amtrak subsidies, there are rail-boosting efforts still under way:
• A State Senate High-Speed Rail Task Force, championed by Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, will oversee a $10 million investment in the Albany-New York City corridor that stems from settlement of a legal dispute between Amtrak and the state Department of Transportation;
• The Senate has committed $27 million to high-speed rail, and Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, is drafting an Assembly bill that calls for at least $50 million to be spent annually on intercity rail passenger service;
• Sen. Charles E. Schumer, in a recent meeting with freight railroad executives, won CSX agreement to spend nearly $46 million on upgrades and safety improvements in New York Ñ including a commitment to high-speed rail testing;
• The Empire Corridor Rail Task Force and Empire State Passengers Association are pushing for restoration of budget-trimmed Buffalo-Albany Amtrak routes and for double tracks near Schenectady to end the worst bottleneck on that route;
• A recent National Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission report called for expanded capital investments in passenger rail service through 2050, and for the development of federally-designated high-speed rail corridors.
Buffalo is a logical stop on such a corridor, which would have limited high-speed stations Ñ New York, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and here -- with bus and short-line train links feeding into it.
That's the future, but decisions on land and the multimodal stations New York's cities would need to create a seamless and mutually-enhancing transportation system -- instead of one that simply pits transportation modes against each other for market share -- must be made now. Boost the incremental investments, and the planning.
Elmira Star-Gazette
Put rail upgrades where they have the most promise: Task force focus on existing Amtrak routes make more sense than areas such as S. Tier.
Railroads don’t get much respect these days, at least if you go by how the federal Department of Transportation slices its funding. Rail receives about 3 percent in the 2009 federal budget. Most of the money — 60 percent — goes for highways, which should be no surprise. Air travel gets about 21 percent. For residents of the Twin Tiers, the priorities make sense.
Talk of restoring passenger service between Binghamton and the New York City area has kicked around for years but with no progress toward reality. The concept sounds great, but the expense of establishing such service when there are other spending priorities has prevented the concept from becoming little more than a dream. On top of that, the shrinking population in the Southern Tier limits the potential for a strong customer base to support the rail service.
But north of this area is a different story. There are established passenger lines from New York City along the path of the New York State Thruway all the way through Buffalo that offer a foot print for future high-speed rail service. In an era when gas prices seem destined never to dip back below $3 a gallon, mass transportation alternatives are important areas for the state to investigate, especially when they can compete against cars and planes.
New York already has committed $22 million toward upgrades that would fulfill high-speed rail initiatives outlined by the New York Senate’s High Speed Rail Task Force established in the spring of 2005 by Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. The task force made a number of recommendations, including creating high-speed rail routes in the state by the year 2020 and what it termed “a statewide integrated rail network” by 2025.
Statewide rail would be an expensive and impractical ticket for the Legislature to punch, especially in light of the ups and downs of New York’s budget each year. On Tuesday, for instance, the Assembly Democrats said that Spitzer’s budget projections overestimated revenue by about $600 million for next year.
Those are the kinds of struggles that are not uncommon in New York, making it hard to fund just the essentials let alone an expansion of passenger rail service beyond what already exists. In that context, state officials are better off sticking to the main passenger lines through the state that link New York City to Chicago, Toronto, Niagara Falls and Montreal with key stops along a corridor connecting through Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo. It is along that route where high-speed rail makes the most sense.
Figures from 2004 show that just two of the five Amtrak routes through New York state drew 1.1 million passengers, making it the fourth busiest rail corridor in the nation.
High-speed trains, according to the task force, would allow maximum speeds of at least 110 mph and could cut travel time between the heavily traveled Albany-New York City corridor to about 2 hours and 20 minutes. But that could not happen without upgrades to tracks and train equipment. It’s not cheap. One segment of track already targeted for an upgrade north of New York City will cost an estimated $4 million.
The task force report makes a strong case for the cost benefits of high-speed rail through the urban areas in the center of the state. Continued study of high-speed rail and upgrades where money is available are good objectives along the current Amtrak routes.
If New York is to spend for passenger rail, it makes more sense to put the dollars along existing corridors rather than into new ventures.
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
Improve rail: Building high-speed rail requires partners, not partisanship
Recently, Gov. Spitzer spoke eloquently about the federal government’s responsibility to help states such as New York pay for transportation. He invoked President Eisenhower’s support of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. The governor was right. Creating a transportation network requires the support and resources of government as well as private enterprise.
But more than a little vision is required, too. And that is lacking.
Amtrak’s finances have been crippled for years. States wanting to develop better rail on their own don’t have the fiscal capacity to move at anything but a snail’s pace. Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno has a task force looking primarily at the corridor between Albany and New York City. Spitzer wants to invest in Amtrak improvements upstate. But they’re not working together, and without that nothing much will get done.
What’s needed is for Congress and states with regions in economic crisis — such as upstate — to develop jointly an accelerated rail plan. High-speed rail must become a national priority, with an initial focus on regions with high economic need.
What’s the big deal? Add up how much you spend on gasoline a week, and you might become a believer in a rail system that supports commuters, encourages tourism and provides the sort of transportation links that prospective businesses want.
Europe has invested in high-speed rail; more than 3,000 miles are expected by 2020. Canada is talking about spending upwards of $20 billion to link major cities.
Where’s America. Far behind. President Bush’s proposed 2009 budget cuts Amtrak funding by 40 percent. Locally, efforts to build an Amtrak station in Lyons, led by Sen. Mike Nozzolio, lags, in part because the freight line CSX has not been a willing partner on track use.
Better rail will mean a better, more appealing upstate. Getting there will take an historic public-private partnership.
Schenectady Daily Gazette
High-speed rail cure for what ails upstate?
“The situation is urgent, the opportunities are ripe.” — from the New York State Senate High Speed Rail Task Force Action Program released in 2005.
The situation is urgent because the state’s rail system is a fossilized, fragmented mess, with outdated equipment, substandard tracks, slow speeds, lousy service and poor reliability. And despite various reports and announced initiatives on high-speed rail, nothing is really happening there.
An expenditure of $22 million engineered by Sen. Joe Bruno for improvements to infrastructure between Albany and New York City, and another $30 million proposed by Gov. Spitzer for various passenger rail improvements are nice — but, especially since they come with no continued commitment for the future, they’re not nearly enough.
Despite all the problems, people continue to ride the train, and the freight business is booming. This shows there is real demand, which can only be expected to increase as the costs of auto and truck transportation (fuel, congestion, and perhaps congestion pricing) grow, along with awareness of the environmental consequences (greenhouse gases, pollution and sprawl). You can only build so many highway lanes, or pack so many people into airplanes — which are also fuel-guzzling and polluting, and, unlike trains, arrive outside the city and require an additional trip.
That is why the state is ripe for high-speed rail.
And there is a perfectly good plan, presented in the Senate High Speed Rail Task Force report quoted from at the top. The report recommends going about it incrementally, starting with changes to improve speed, service, frequency and on-time performance — first in the heavily traveled Albany-to-New York City corridor, then along the less-traveled western route to Buffalo.
In the second stage, new routes would be added, including to Toronto, and multi-modal connections made to local communities. The last stage, from 2015 to 2025, calls for a dedicated route along the New York State Thruway from New York City to Buffalo with a truly high-speed train using Maglev (magnetically levitating) or other technology that can achieve the kind of speeds now seen with bullet trains in Europe and Japan.
The estimated cost for the whole plan would be $12 billion to $14 billion, with most of that coming in the last stage. But the report says federal assistance would be available for much of the capital costs, and the operating costs could be reduced and eventually covered through increased ridership and fare revenues.
There would also be significant economic benefits from the investment in rail, including construction jobs, manufacturing jobs, reduced costs for shippers, and economic development in communities all along the route and surrounding areas. If Gov. Spitzer really wants to revitalize upstate New York, a major campaign promise, high-speed rail would be a good way.
Spitzer hasn’t focused on this issue yet, but it is time to.
Encouragingly, some of his key appointees at the state Department of Transportation, including commissioner Astrid Glynn, are knowledgeable about and sympathetic to rail; and one, Deputy Commissioner Karen Rae, is an expert on high-speed rail.
The state’s difficult fiscal situation shouldn’t be used as an excuse, especially if things are done incrementally. A penny or two increase in the gas tax would raise enough money. A bond issue is another possibility, because this system would truly be an investment in the future and fare revenues could help repay the borrowed money. It would be helpful if the federal government finally stopped underfunding Amtrak and made a real commitment to rail. But New York state shouldn’t wait. It needs to make such a commitment now.
Syracuse Post-Standard
High-Speed Slowdown: Fast rail service has been a good idea — for too many years
Legislative hearings in Albany convened to examine whether to go for high-speed rail service across New York — with trains speeding at up to 200 mph — or to explore the more futuristic concept of magnetic levitation, with trains suspended above a guideway roaring along at 350 mph. That was back in 1991.
The state’s lieutenant governor traveled to Washington to press for federal leadership in developing a national high-speed rail network. "Shouldn’t America be developing our own efficient, non-polluting ground transportation system?" he asked. That was in 1992.
An Empire Corridor Task Force formed to examine the potential of high-speed rail service across New York state — in 1997. A year later, then-Gov. George Pataki announced $185 million to fund a high-speed rail project. The project sputtered on for several years, then stalled.
Today, high-speed rail service is a reality in 18 countries around the world, including Japan and across Europe. Spain is expected to run high-speed trains over 4,350 miles of track by 2010. More service is planned in Argentina, Iran, Israel, Vietnam, Morocco and elsewhere.
But the project never got off the ground in New York — or any state. In California, a $9 billion bond referendum in November could spur its development. But looming budget deficits have clouded that prospect.
New York state faces its down $4 billion-plus budget deficit this year. That hasn’t stopped state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno from pressing on with that chamber’s High-Speed Rail Task Force, which champions an upgrade currently under way on the Albany-New York rail corridor. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, meanwhile, last month announced a federal-state study for a high-speed rail link between Binghamton and New York City. Which leaves the Upstate corridor between Buffalo and Albany — where? The same place it’s been since at least 1991.
One reason high-speed rail hasn’t gotten off the ground in New York or elsewhere is cost. The aging rail infrastructure is costly to upgrade. But there are offsetting factors, growing more compelling every year. Air service between major cities in New York may be fast — but getting to and from some airports is another matter, and air travel in the post-9/11 era isn’t the breeze it used to be, with time-consuming security checks, schedule delays and late arrivals. Consider, too, that a plane traveling from Buffalo to Albany emits four times as much greenhouse gases as a train — which can carry many more passengers.
Cars are the ultimate in convenience — unless you consider the risk of accidents, particularly in bad weather. Cars also are twice as polluting as trains per passenger mile.
Train technology is advancing on other fronts. A study in Great Britain cited the pollution-reducing potential of low-sulphur fuel and biomass-diesel to power trains, and "regenerative brakes" that can transform 20 percent of the energy used to stop a train into electricity.
Syracuse, with its central location and intermodal transportation center already in operation, would be an obvious beneficiary from high-speed rail service linking Upstate cities and compressing travel time. The technology is proven, the rationale is strengthening. All that remains is summoning the political will to make it happen.
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