The $50 Billion proposal includes a 16 mile tunnel under Long Island Sound and new purpose-built tracks running from the tunnel landfall in New Milford up through Hartford and then across the Connecticut wilderness to Providence. I note that US taxpayers have already paid more than $50 Billion to fund the genocide in Gaza, so it’s not like we don’t have the money. Let’s do something for Americans for a change.
That’s a lot of money (an underestimate?) to save two hours of travel time. I would vote instead to use the money to build a storm barrier across the New York/New Jersey Bight.
If the top 10 richest Americans each chipped in $5 billion, none will have given more than 5% of their wealth. At average market returns, each would make that up in less than a year, and #10 would still be richer than #11.
Color me skeptical that the U.S. could build a ~220 mile HSR that follows that route (or anything close to it) and hit a budget of $50 billion. We’re very, very bad at building these types of projects with any kind of efficiency (and I recommend Alon Levy’s Pedestrian Observations for lots of insights why), and the things that make our projects super-expensive are present on steroids for this kind of proposal.
That’s not the point. I’m just trying to put big dollars into context.
The real question is: what would be the economic impact of such a project? Yes, there would be some good jobs for a while during construction, but that’s not a sufficient reason to go ahead with the project. What you really need to know is what economic activity such a rail line would encourage. Then you compare that increased activity to the cost of construction and decide if it is worth while.
I know nothing about this idea other than what has been posted here, so I have no answer to that question in this particular case.
Someone must have misunderstood. The $50B is for the STUDIES, not the actual construction. The studies are designed mostly as rewards for political patronage or pet projects/issues. California is doing it right now with their rail project, but they’re already about $10B into it. Obviously, if the Federal govt is willing to fund a lot of it, NY wants in on the action as well.
Hartford would be about a 50 min train ride to downtown Manhattan, greatly expanding the comfortable commuting distance to NYC.
I’ve always thought the way to get this done would be to identify 4 or 5 high speed rail alignments that make economic sense, then put up an award of $50 or $100 billion Federal dollars to the first jurisdiction that gets all it’s environmental impact statements, property acquisition, and building permits to begin construction without delay. You’d probably also have to declare the winner a "National Defense Strategic High-Speed Rail Network to cut the remaining red tape. That’s how Eisenhower get the Interstate Highway System built.
That’s pretty good.
The Acela train takes 3 hours and 50 minutes according to Amtrak schedule.
The North East Corridor is the only profitable Amtrak line. Such a line would add much more revenue for Amtrak.
The new line would kill off the air traffic between the two cities but that OK. The train is less polluting and it would open up spots for more international & longer distance national airline traffic at the 2 airports.
High speed rail also announced construction beginning on LA to Las Vegas connector to the CA high speed rail line. More in CA will be able to go to LV.
Yes. What’s nice about the Brightline Project is that it’s being built within the median of Interstate 15, so they don’t have any right-of-way or property acquisition problems.
One thing that’s interesting about the Brightline High-Speed Trains in Florida is that they’re running 125 mph trains through at-grade crossings. Over 100 people have been killed to date.
To quote the article, “But a lot has to happen before that’s a reality.” For one (big) thing, you must assume the California bullet train will be completed.
Yes, extension to SF will probably create much traffic. The link does connect to part under construction. That will give more people access to Brightline West.
