Corridor Concerns

With the governors of Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida - three governors who, incidentally, could all be fighting for their political lives will before they're up for re-election in 2014 - having canceled high-speed rail projects in their states, Congress is likely to do the same for the nation at large. President Obama's attempt to make high-speed passenger rail accessible to 80 percent of all Americans by 2035 could be a casualty of the budget-cutting attempts on Capitol Hill. But - and this is an important "but" - that doesn't mean high-speed rail in America is about to be abandoned completely. And I'm not talking about Illinois's "high-speed" Chicago-St. Louis corridor, which will feature six train sets that travel at 110 miles an hour (you call that fast?) or California's bullet train project, with a projected cost off $100 billion that could be hard to sustain economically and politically.

I'm actually talking about the Northeast Corridor. (Yes, we in the Northeast have the Acela, but at 150 mph it hardly compares to the even faster trains enjoyed in France and Germany.) As a Florida Republican, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman John Mica hardly sounds like an ally of high-speed rail, given the fact that both his governor and his party have said no to it. But Mica not only supports high-speed rail, he thinks that the only way to ensure its success nationwide - even in increasingly crowded California - is to first build it where it's going to get the most use and be most appreciated. For Mica, that means the line between Boston and Washington by way of New York.

"While I want to give California every chance and opportunity to be successful," Mica told a conference of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association in New York on November 8, "I think we have to redirect our efforts to having at least one success in high-speed rail in the nation. And that high-speed rail success needs to be here in the Northeast Corridor."

Mica also reversed himself on privatizing Amtrak. Some Republicans have suggested that privatizing the national passenger railroad and making it susceptible to market forces would encourage high-speed rail to be developed faster. However, Mica, who once agreed with the idea, now rejects the idea, believing that Amtrak is now willing to work with Congress to make something happen.

Meanwhile, Congress is also ready to allocate $15 million as a down payment for engineering work on the proposed Gateway tunnel to connect Secaucus, New Jersey with Penn Station (someday to be named Moynihan Station, after the late U.S. Senator from New York) in Midtown Manhattan. The project looks to be less expensive than the proposed Access to the Region's Core tunnel that New Jersey governor Chris Christie canceled for being too costly, and it will allow thirteen extra New Jersey Transit trains and eight extra Amtrak trains into New York when it is completed in 2020 or 2021. Christie is more receptive to this plan.

As a passenger rail advocate, you take your victories where you can find them . . ..