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Amtrak May Receive High-Speed Rail Money
by Armin Rosen on Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 1:15 PM


Florida might have rejected close to $2 billion for a high-speed rail
project. But the Wall Street Journal is reporting that $1.3 billion of it
could be allocated to Amtrak, which would mark the first time the national
rail carrier has received federal money specifically for high-speed rail
development. Unsurprisingly, the money would likely go towards increasing
the speed of trains on the heavily-trafficked passenger corridor between
Washington, DC and Boston. Improving Amtrak’s most popular line makes a lot
of sense: last year, 10 million passengers traveled on the Northeast
Corridor out of a total ridership of just under 30 million; the second and
third-most popular rail corridors, both in California, carried 2.6 and 1.5
million passengers, respectively.

An article from earlier this month in Railway Gazette goes into detail about
just how the Northeast Corridor can be primed for high speed rail, assuming
the Florida money is eventually awarded to Amtrak. An over 100 year-old
drawbridge over the Hackensack River, a “major bottleneck” because of a lack
of adequate track space and the fact that it sometimes has to open for
high-clearance ships, would have to be replaced, at the cost of around $720
million. And the state of New York is asking for $517 million to build a
bypass around a notoriously clogged rail interchange in Queens, a project
that would cut off travel time between Boston and New York. And both Amtrak
and the state still want money for the Moynihan Station project, the
proposed replacement for New York’s Penn Station that’s weathered a series
of delays and financial troubles.

The Railway Gazette article gives the impression that America’s premiere
rail corridor is need of some serious but affordable upgrading. But as a
route that accounts for over a third of all Amtrak ridership, it’s also one
corridor where there could be the political and economic conditions for
completing a real high-speed rail project. Florida might have rejected its
high-speed rail money—but it’s money that could still go towards essential
development for the country’s passenger rail infrastructure.
.

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Mike Muldoon
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
mmuldoon@rosemontseneca.co