While i believe i country is in need of high speed rail, all of the projects listed above were created in piecemeal over decades, mainly as legacy projects…with really no input from the general public and created to satisfy the desires of politicians to do something. The reason why these projects have never gone off the ground really has nothing to do with the need for high speed rail, because most of these projects were created before high speed rail was a reality. Trying to link all of these projects is not feasible….who pushes projects on the public without a plan that allows them to work cohesively? Moynihan Station was supposed to be a NJ transit hub, then came the ARC and the Macy’s basement station. Neither of these plans were thought out from the standpoint of their practicality or their ability to serve the public. All they knew is that they wanted to build a train hall in the Farley Post Office, not caring if it was NJ transit or Amtrak. Amtrak did not want to build the facility and backed out, then NJ transit came in and backed out. Then Sen. Schumer, who wrote the legislation dedicating the Amtrak facilities in Moynihans honor, begged Amtrak to get on board. Without any plans or studies..they just want to build it…damn the cost and the practicality. A train hall inside a landmark is not a infrastructure upgrade for high speed rail, and the billions they want to spend is not practicle without spending those billions on what matters first…the rail lines, miles tracks and bridges and new rail cars, upgraded switching facilities and modernizing the carriers ability to provide trains that are safe, fast, and on time. Once this is completed, once the modernization has taken place…then the subject of spending billions of dollars on Moynihan’s train hall should be taken up…but not until then.

I find it to be a appalling scam that the project was split into two phases in order to force the complete construction of the Moynihan Station, with the intent of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the first phase in order to force the construction of the second phase, which will cost NY billions we do not have…that could pay the salaries of the teachers they want to fire, and the pensions they want to steal. Like when ARC was canceled..they whined that we have already spent this much money its to late to stop now.

Its never too late to stop :) Build high speed rail lines…then if we have the billions to spend and the need is there expand Penn Station into the Farley Post Office. To force the construction of this station on an unwilling public is grossly irresponsible, and representative of the generation that conceived this scam. Fortunately Sen. Moynihan is not responsible for the turn this project has taken, it was not his idea and the station is named in his honor because he was the original projects biggest supporter…not the mess its turned into.

That is the same Richard Stowe who testified in Hartford last week that we should re-route the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield higher-speed rail line into New Britain (regardless of the corridor that would have to be clear-cut through good, working-class neighborhoods) and run trains through the corridor ar 180mph while still making stops at CCSU, Newington and WeElmwood? Those thoughts are almost as funny and tongue-in-cheek as his link to The Onion’s story. Or were you serious, Richard?

@ “No Transfer Needed” – yes, my post and link to the Onion story above was meant to be “tongue-in-cheek” and a poke at transit advocates, who with apparent religious zeal appear to very anxious to give away a rail right-of-way for a highway (albeit a “bus only” highway.)

Yes, I spoke at the CGA Transportation Committee hearing and “NTN” I am pleased that you had an opportunity to hear my testimony.

However let me clarify what I actually said.

What I was saying about NHHS is that between Hartford and Kensington NHHS should be split into two corridors with at a minimum of 3 tracks (with a possibility to design it with 4 tracks.)

The western corridor (the one with one or two tracks) would be designed as a local corridor. The local stops would be Elmwood (West Hartford); Newington, CCSU, Downtown New Britain and Berlin (Kensington – which is currently a stop on the Amtrak Corridor).

Downtown New Britain would require acquisition of the Price-Rite Shopping Center to build a station and a junction between the Newington Secondary and the Berlin Secondary.

The speeds on this local rail line would be commuter rail speeds (not 180 mph) similar to or possibly slightly faster than the Metro-North Railroad New Haven Line local trains (are you familiar with that local service between Stamford and GCT.) In other words, it would be faster than the proposed “busway”, but slower than a train that runs express from Stamford to 125th Street.

What I propose for the two-track eastern corridor (the current DOT design has local stations sited at Elmwood, Newington and Berlin) is to have zero stations on the 18 mile stretch between Hartford and Meriden. It is the eastern corridor, where I suggested that DOT ramp up to HSR speeds (150 or greater – it takes 16 miles of tangent track to reach 200 mph). The eastern corridor right-of-way is 9/10th of a mile shorter (than the western corridor through New Britain), has fewer curves, has lower densities (more forest and wetlands adjacent to the right-of-way) and there are only two at-grade crossings to eliminate between the at-grade crossings in Hartford and Meriden.

Why have dual corridors?
1) People traveling from Hartford (and points north of Hartford) to New York want to spend as little time on the train as possible. The eastern corridor with no stops between Hartford and Meriden can fulfill that need.
2) The local corridor serves the greater population densities. In CT New Britain’s density is only surpassed by Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven. The demographics of universities generate train ridership; so the location of CCSU (third largest university in CT) on this Western NHHS Corridor is a huge plus. This will allow CCSU students to travel past Hartford to Springfield (and ideally to Northampton – 5 college area) and to New Haven & New York City (with no transfer needed.)
3) The western corridor sets up the possibility of direct train service via the Newington Secondary between Bristol and Hartford (or Waterbury and Hartford)

Two final design considerations are whether
1) the western corridor should be designed with one or two tracks (two tracks is how it was originally laid out between New Britain and Hartford. If you go with one track, then you will need to strategically place sidings along the corridor.
2) determine if there is enough room for a bike trail on the western side of the western corridor. if there is you could then mimic the busway design with 11 or 12 entry-exit points to the bike trail. A reasonably fit bicyclist could likely ride the entire 9.4 mile trail from New Britain to Hartford in 45 or 50 minutes. Its a commute that could be attractive to a number of Central CT bicyclists.

A couple of other thoughts: with regard to your comment about the impacts of providing train service “through good, working-class neighborhoods” – the busway will adversely affect those neighborhoods to a much greater degree than commuter rail service – because of the aggregate noise and light pollution (evening, or early morning service) of so many buses driving up and down the busway + snowplow trucks in the winter (and the impacts of the 7 additional busway stops). Commuter trains have much greater capacity than buses so don’t need to run trains as often.
Before railroad tracks were taken off the Brooklyn Bridge 450,000 people used to cross the bridge everyday; today without rail 170,000 people use the Brooklyn Bridge.

I like your handle “No Transfer Needed” because a transfer is exactly what you will need if the busway is the built and you are traveling from New York City, Stamford, Norwalk, Bridgeport, New Haven, Wallingford, Meriden, Berlin (Kensington) to CCSU. But if a dual corridor NHHS rail is built, no transfer will be needed to get to CCSU.