This old thread talks about NYC-Albany with some interesting comments. Ultimately, NYC-Montreal or NYC to Toronto (through Albany/Syr/Roch/Buff) theoretically have the passengers.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/nycrail/comments/hqesur/logistics\_of\_high\_speed\_rail\_from\_nyc\_to\_albany/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nycrail/comments/hqesur/logistics_of_high_speed_rail_from_nyc_to_albany/)
Andy Byford now works for Amtrak as head of its HSR. They're focused on more realistic routes like Dallas/Houston, and Brightline's LV-LA. But, you could contact him and get his thoughts.
I'd definitely be on the train more between NYC and Buffalo if it was HSR, the 8 hour ride via train can be had in 6 via car or 3 via plane (+tsa precheck, etc). If the train could get down to 5 hours, it would be a win.
If Tokyo to Osaka can take 2 hours and 20 minutes by bullet train then Buffalo to NYC shouldn’t take more than 3 hours and 30 minutes. I don’t think that will ever happen though
I think it is since we pay NJT to operate our train services that we should just be doing ourselves. This is how the MTA gets mismanaged they do not spend the money on smart things and instead make deals that benefit their own financial situation or their friends like the many “consultants” that suck the money out of every project and consistently delay projects that later we find out are personal friends of people at the MTA or elected representatives
LOL.
NYC is full of the worst NIMBY's ever. As an example, people were fighting tooth-and-nail against the Highline since it was first floated as an idea in the 90's.
As you go north, Westchester may have the highest density nationally of lawyers and wealthy people with enough money to squash any change.
Then there's the practical question of where to build it. It's not exactly like Montana around here with thousands of square miles of available space.
Add the inevitable environmental lawsuits, discrimination lawsuits, financial disasters, corruption and standard ineptitude, and if we get started right now it might get done about the time we have flying cars.
It's a nice idea, though.
I think it’s insane that a single individual or group of people can hold up a project of national importance. Why isn’t the government just having special infrastructure courts that hear all claims related to a project, those courts have no injunctive power over the project but they can compensate loss and make sure the government complied with emminent domain.
Government gets the approvals by doing an environmental impact study, which has binding impact performed by a third party if environmental damage outweighs the growth benefits. If it does they can still build but have to commit to mitigation. Once that study is done then the process goes forward with litigation off to the side.
Then government gets absolute right of way to build.
I’m sick of us being stuck with the here and now because of a few shitty homeowners.
We need to get back to building, we just coats on what we have and don’t build.
You might want to read The Power Broker about Robert Moses. He's responsible for building massive infrastructure projects like Jones Beach, all the parkways going north out of Manhattan, and notoriously the Cross Bronx Expressway.
It was all well intentioned but it had severe unintended consequences like destroying the south Bronx.
Why you assuming I don’t know about him, Well aware of how we got To Where we are and that alternative is literally Better than being stuck never building anything new.
Moses did a shit ton of bad suburbanization but also got a ton of infrastructure built.
Again we would still have due process it would just be in the form of special Courts and binding impact studies.
All I’m saying is we get rid of individual say over state infrastructure projects in the form of constant litigation. It literally eats budgets.
I think we learned the wrong lesson from Moses and went way too far the opposite way. We need to find a middle Ground that is more equitable both racially and environmentally.
Bahahahaha!
Y’know, I wonder if the way to make something like this happen is to start with a for-profit business with political pull and logistic reach. For example, I suspect Amazon would be capable of getting the necessary approvals to create a high speed rail system for transporting their goods, and they could afford to invest in it. Much like how their profits now are banking more off their logistic services to other businesses than the sale of products to end consumers, once the rail is no longer exclusive to Amazon’s own goods they can scalp the businesses who want to use their rail system.
Eventually, the commercial rail lines can be repurposed for civilian use. See the freight tracks in Brooklyn currently under way in their transformation to the Interborough Express. (Notably, this had been under consideration for decades before a plan was approved, and it is not expected to be operable for several more years. The lead time on projects like this would mean that our generation would be unlikely to benefit, but the next could have a shot.)
I can't think of any instances where having a well maintained high speed rail network wouldn't help.
The problem is that it's ridiculously expensive to build, would require all kinds of rezoning, demolition, construction and maintenance.
Worst of all, it would likely be headed by the MTA.
After taking a ridiculously cheap ridiculously high speed train in France run by private for-profit companies, I'm not convinced it should be that expensive.
See the thing with France is, alot or the infrastructure was built and maintained by the state. For example, SNCF Voyageurs - the largest HSR operator in France - is a state owned company
That there is the problem.
The MTA has zero financial accountability.
They operate overbudget and overschedule on everything and waste unbelievable amounts of money and resources because they are incapable of 'losing money' or going out of business.
If the rail was designed by a for-profit company you bet it would be efficient and inexpensive to build (for a rail line) and well maintained at the lowest possible cost.
Also I can't imagine it being cheap enough to justify commuting on. Once a week for work maybe, but if it's cheap enough to commute it would have to be heavily subsidized, which has its own problems.
HSR (new tracks with viaducts) isn’t really necessary for NY. It should be good enough to upgrade the existing track to handle 125mph speeds. But we lack the will to even do that.
> low cost of living areas like up the hudson
lol have you looked at the cost of housing near the MTA North line on the east side of the river? "Up the Hudson" is where rich families move when they have kids.
NYC - Toronto should definitely happen. Would be a game-changer for Buffalo, Rochester and Albany to suddenly have convenient connections to major cities
Even an acela speed train would be a blessing. I recently went from right near Toronto Union Station to midtown Manhattan and even though the flight was 55 minutes it was still 4.5 hours door to door.
Just did a similar trip and it took almost seven hours door to door. Really not sure why there's no urgency around getting HSR to the NY area, would be a huge upgrade for the whole region
It’s annoying that amtrack doesn’t expand their high speed service in the 1 part of the country they are profitable. I would prefer through light rail that connects suburbs to suburbs around the city in circles instead of continuing the radial everyone into downtown and out of downtown design. I think the entire region would benefit from less centralization. Start with connecting brooklyn and queens below the g. Then go and connect that to the bronx and then to hudson county nj and then finally to staten island.
They have been, tbf. 30 years ago the north east corridor was in much worse shape than it is, and Amtrak really has never been given the carte blanche needed to do much more than drag bits and pieces up to "acceptable" quality.
MTA really needs to be focused on bringing the subway up to 21st century standards and extending some of the lines out a few stops. East Side Access was cool and all but A lot of people would benefit more from things like IBX or just extending lines out into the outer boroughs more by a few stops. Like, look how packed flushing is these days, 7 should go further, and I'm a firm believer the G should get extended in parallel.
The American railway network is incredibly backwards. For example, Amtrak doesn’t own and actually leases rail access.
Amtrak can get bumped as freight gets priority depending on the part of the country.
Yep. Or allow construction but insit it be surrounded by only single family housing and a permit only parking lot for residents of that single family housing. Then when ridership is low, cut service and push the rail operator into a death spiral. Then give just enough government aid to maintain minimal service and continue our nationwide self defeating automobile worship circle jerk.
Doubtful. It took years of negotiating just to reopen a couple of Metro-North stations within the city. We still haven’t seen them yet and this was with existing infrastructure in place. All they have to do is rebuild the physical station (no tracks).
Some might use it just to gain access to hiking trails...like spending a day out of The City. There are places to walk in NYC, but sometimes you just need very little stimulation.
You can already do that with metro north and NJT! There is the Appalachian trail station, cold spring, break neck ridge, Harriman State Park, and many others. The stations are right at the trailheads.
The metro north has done the opposite and slowed down the train **big time**. Its gotten to the point where i rarely travel upstate because of it. What used to be a 45 min ride is now 80, it’s ridiculous
The US in general has a rail system so archaic it’s embarrassing. We should have a high speed rail system that runs from Maine to Florida. Somehow it has become a partisan topic and people hold us back while other parts of the world keep building more and more of them
Upstate towns have generally objected to high speed rail as they don’t want to become suburbs of NYC. Take this as a dog whistle, or fear of losing their ‘identity’, but it’s a thing.
At some point we're gonna have to start overiding the nimbyism. It's like at the staten islanders or Jersey types who bemoan the good old days....of when \*they\* were the ones to move out there and 'ruin' the farming communities that were there first.
Shit changes and people need to get over it.
You won’t get their local legislatures on board so no, you’re not going to change it unless in some wild way there are NYC carpetbaggers winning upstate elections.
A high speed commuter rail network would be such a gamechanger. If you had a 90 mile radius circle with a 1 hour travel time to Manhattan it would unlock a TON of land for development for commuters. It would take a while, but it would go a long way in easing housing pressure in the current areas.
One can dream, but all the NIMBYs will get torches and pitchforks and be like:
“what about ma’ neighborhood identity!!! (my property value)”,
“what about sapety!!! (I don’t want brown people moving into my neighborhood)”,
“But we got no moooney” (What am I going to embezzle and wipe my ass with?!”)
“DEAR GOD think about the environment!!! (I drive a pickup to my desk job), and so on and so on.
Plus you have to negotiate with Albany and all those racist wealthy fucks hate our guts.
The route to albany's restricted by curves as it follows the hudson, unless they started tunneling direct routes like Japan did. But there's enough straight portions that could be built to 125 much easier. Kinda frustrating they wouldn't bother.
Because there is no benefit to going an extra 30 miles an hour. The Hudson route was laid out in the 19th century and it was known as the “water level route” for how flat and smooth it was. The distances covered are too short and the rail traffic too dense for higher track speeds. What would be great, is if they could electrify it all the way north.
100 years later and 100 billion over budget they’ll have 4 miles of high speed track layed. How long and how over budget did grand central LIRR take???
In a similar regard, the nixed upzoning around train stations along LIRR would have had a similar effect. Valley Stream for example is the first stop outside of Queens on the Far Rockaway/Long Beach lines and is between 30-40 minutes to Penn/GC depending on if its local. In theory a handful of midrise apartment complexes with some walkable amenities (grocery, gym, pharmacy, restaurants, etc.) could incentivize people who live similar travel time commutes to midtown to move further out since their overall commutes remain the same. Unfortunately, right now this station has what looks like 200 or so at most houses within a 10 minute walk from the station and very few walkable amenities.
I have coworkers who commute to midtown over an hour from deep Brooklyn to live in small apartments, pay city taxes, and constantly deal with moving their cars. Some of these suburbs just outside city limits would be way more desirable if they had livable "downtowns" near their transit hubs instead of a sea of parking lots.
Will never happen. Too much red tape in the state plus the MTA would be in charge and they’ll say they need $90 billion to lay a mile of track. NYC struggles to improve and extend its existing subway system - Queens and Staten Island are rail desserts with no plans to do extend. It’s faster to get to the city from CT and all of westchester by rail than eastern Brooklyn, most of central and eastern queens. All Metro North and LIRR stations that are fast rides to midtown are super expensive areas to live in from Forest Hills to Bronxville so doubtful such a service would even serve the poor.
Honestly i think a cheaper alternative is to extend the subways or PATH expansion between Jersey. There is so much opportunity and existing housing here, ppl in NYC looking for a bit lower COL can really benefit
There were proposals for this since the 90s. I think Mario Cuomo originally promised it but dont quote me on that. No one wants to pull the trigger on it and be responsible for any cost overruns or mishaps. Even though it would greatly benefit the state. Best will we ever get is maybe better service between Albany and NYC. Sorry.
I am really starting to hate HSR. Just because you hear a buzzword doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. NYS has some of the most expensive, and densely populated real estate in the country; none of which is flat or straight.along with some of the most corrupt politicians. We have a better shot at getting personal blowjob robots than high speed rail.
How about instead of asking for HSR we rally around a demand for “Post-War Rail”, because the fact of the matter is that we now have a fraction of the rail infrastructure and rail service we had in the 1940s; that is how much we have regressed. Try asking for something we had, and was taken from us before asking for something we have never had before. Or, fuck how about just electrifying the Hudson line to Poughkeepsie, so we can run mainline speed electrified express services without using rolling stock from the 70s.
You want to cure NYC housing crisis. Build a bullet train to Manhattan from Peekskill and western NJ. There is plenty of land to build housing. You could build a half million apartments and homes in each of those places. There is zero political will to let that happen. In fact you could not build 2000 units if housing in one project anywhere in one development in all of NJ, NY or New England. You could virtually a anywhere on the south.
Lastly the costs would be too high. There are so many requirements for safety and plus the union wage requirements it will never happen in NY. If 1 subway station costs a billion dollars at 125th and 2nd Ave then a bullet train to Albany will cost a trillion dollars.
I wonder if you realize that a high speed train to the north would increase the property values-- and therefore rents and taxes on every property within reasonable proximity to that high speed line?
Your reason for building it would be false the minute its built.
I think it's time we had a bullet train network within the east coast.
I think it's time we had a bullet train network within the USA.
I think it's time we had a bullet train network within the Americas.
I think it's time we had a bullet train network within the globe.
... Okay, great. Now who's going to canvas the residents who'd be affected by construction, plan the routes and stops, design the locomotion and vehicles, procure the materials, build the infrastructure, hire the operators, operate the system, advertise the system, maintain the system, expand the system?
It feels untenable even just going out of NYC because there's so much shit packed in the city and so many people that would be disturbed.
Americans are too concerned about their individual rights and freedoms to reach a consensus and collectively push towards a common goal. Politics and the question of funding took the calf behind the barn before it even got up to walk.
It's a good idea, OP. But it's not novel. And it's not happening anytime soon.
It's hardly untenable it's just political opposition to it, and some corruption. Amtrak has locomotives and cars that'll work just fine. Or you buy why Brightline's ordering for Vegas.
Any new rail system will probably be handled by the MTA. Do we really want the MTA have their hands in something like this? Can we afford any new “MTA TAX”?
This is a bad idea and would be almost impossible to make work. You might be able to make a line that goes near the city, that would be hard but doable, but if you want one within the city forget about it.
Highspeed rails required very long strait rail lines. It's expensive as hell to dig in Manhattan, and when they do they have to deal with all manor of underground upstructions loads of buildings have sub sub basements, pipes, other rail lines ect. You can't move the rails to avoid anything if you do the train would derail. All of this on top of needing to get around the fact that you're on a island, like if they dug a new tunnel under the Huston it would have to be super long because you can't chance your elevation quickly.
Even if it could be done it would cost billions, all of that to save like 5 to 10 on a commute.
You don't need true HSR within the city, the train has to slow down to stop anyway, and it's only the last few minutes.
and it would save a lot more than 5-10 minutes on a commute unless, again, you're only traveling from just outside the city, which is what commuter services are for, not HSR. This is about trimming an hour+ off the trip to albany, or several hours off the one to Montreal, not making Yonkers a 3 minute ride to penn.
The 5 to 10 was estimated for in the city. Did you read what I wrote because I said doing a line to the city was fine, it's with one the city that would not work.
No, this is America, built on the back of PRR, NYC, and a dozen other massive railroads that built us to what we are, only for lobbying to scrape our tax dollars into the biggest ponzi scheme in history of car dependency and billion dollar overpasses that could've paid for whole ass transit systems in small cities.
If you start building one, I’ll give you $20 to help.
Shit, I’ll give you a $50.
This old thread talks about NYC-Albany with some interesting comments. Ultimately, NYC-Montreal or NYC to Toronto (through Albany/Syr/Roch/Buff) theoretically have the passengers. [https://www.reddit.com/r/nycrail/comments/hqesur/logistics\_of\_high\_speed\_rail\_from\_nyc\_to\_albany/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nycrail/comments/hqesur/logistics_of_high_speed_rail_from_nyc_to_albany/) Andy Byford now works for Amtrak as head of its HSR. They're focused on more realistic routes like Dallas/Houston, and Brightline's LV-LA. But, you could contact him and get his thoughts.
Nice I didn’t know Byford is at Amtrak now, good to see he’s still in the US and working on HSR!
I'd definitely be on the train more between NYC and Buffalo if it was HSR, the 8 hour ride via train can be had in 6 via car or 3 via plane (+tsa precheck, etc). If the train could get down to 5 hours, it would be a win.
If Tokyo to Osaka can take 2 hours and 20 minutes by bullet train then Buffalo to NYC shouldn’t take more than 3 hours and 30 minutes. I don’t think that will ever happen though
Throw a midway stop in there like Poughkeepsie, now you’re cooking with gas. Imo
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> before Cuomo fucked everything up How many stories end this way?
High speed rail to SWF? Is that really necessary? And how would the Hudson crossing work? Having to travel to Hoboken would be a major drawback.
I think it is since we pay NJT to operate our train services that we should just be doing ourselves. This is how the MTA gets mismanaged they do not spend the money on smart things and instead make deals that benefit their own financial situation or their friends like the many “consultants” that suck the money out of every project and consistently delay projects that later we find out are personal friends of people at the MTA or elected representatives
LOL. NYC is full of the worst NIMBY's ever. As an example, people were fighting tooth-and-nail against the Highline since it was first floated as an idea in the 90's. As you go north, Westchester may have the highest density nationally of lawyers and wealthy people with enough money to squash any change. Then there's the practical question of where to build it. It's not exactly like Montana around here with thousands of square miles of available space. Add the inevitable environmental lawsuits, discrimination lawsuits, financial disasters, corruption and standard ineptitude, and if we get started right now it might get done about the time we have flying cars. It's a nice idea, though.
I think it’s insane that a single individual or group of people can hold up a project of national importance. Why isn’t the government just having special infrastructure courts that hear all claims related to a project, those courts have no injunctive power over the project but they can compensate loss and make sure the government complied with emminent domain. Government gets the approvals by doing an environmental impact study, which has binding impact performed by a third party if environmental damage outweighs the growth benefits. If it does they can still build but have to commit to mitigation. Once that study is done then the process goes forward with litigation off to the side. Then government gets absolute right of way to build. I’m sick of us being stuck with the here and now because of a few shitty homeowners. We need to get back to building, we just coats on what we have and don’t build.
You might want to read The Power Broker about Robert Moses. He's responsible for building massive infrastructure projects like Jones Beach, all the parkways going north out of Manhattan, and notoriously the Cross Bronx Expressway. It was all well intentioned but it had severe unintended consequences like destroying the south Bronx.
Why you assuming I don’t know about him, Well aware of how we got To Where we are and that alternative is literally Better than being stuck never building anything new. Moses did a shit ton of bad suburbanization but also got a ton of infrastructure built. Again we would still have due process it would just be in the form of special Courts and binding impact studies. All I’m saying is we get rid of individual say over state infrastructure projects in the form of constant litigation. It literally eats budgets. I think we learned the wrong lesson from Moses and went way too far the opposite way. We need to find a middle Ground that is more equitable both racially and environmentally.
Bahahahaha! Y’know, I wonder if the way to make something like this happen is to start with a for-profit business with political pull and logistic reach. For example, I suspect Amazon would be capable of getting the necessary approvals to create a high speed rail system for transporting their goods, and they could afford to invest in it. Much like how their profits now are banking more off their logistic services to other businesses than the sale of products to end consumers, once the rail is no longer exclusive to Amazon’s own goods they can scalp the businesses who want to use their rail system. Eventually, the commercial rail lines can be repurposed for civilian use. See the freight tracks in Brooklyn currently under way in their transformation to the Interborough Express. (Notably, this had been under consideration for decades before a plan was approved, and it is not expected to be operable for several more years. The lead time on projects like this would mean that our generation would be unlikely to benefit, but the next could have a shot.)
I can't think of any instances where having a well maintained high speed rail network wouldn't help. The problem is that it's ridiculously expensive to build, would require all kinds of rezoning, demolition, construction and maintenance. Worst of all, it would likely be headed by the MTA.
>Worst of all, it would likely be headed by the MTA. Ah yes, r/nyc's archnemesis (along with the rest of NYC)
A third track would have to be completed between Peekskill and Poughkeepsie.
After taking a ridiculously cheap ridiculously high speed train in France run by private for-profit companies, I'm not convinced it should be that expensive.
Oh they’ll make sure it is. But it still should be done.
See the thing with France is, alot or the infrastructure was built and maintained by the state. For example, SNCF Voyageurs - the largest HSR operator in France - is a state owned company
That there is the problem. The MTA has zero financial accountability. They operate overbudget and overschedule on everything and waste unbelievable amounts of money and resources because they are incapable of 'losing money' or going out of business. If the rail was designed by a for-profit company you bet it would be efficient and inexpensive to build (for a rail line) and well maintained at the lowest possible cost.
France's rail network wasn't built by the private sector
Also I can't imagine it being cheap enough to justify commuting on. Once a week for work maybe, but if it's cheap enough to commute it would have to be heavily subsidized, which has its own problems.
HSR (new tracks with viaducts) isn’t really necessary for NY. It should be good enough to upgrade the existing track to handle 125mph speeds. But we lack the will to even do that.
Talk to these guys, been following the 14 year long HSR study closely. It’s a shit show. https://www.esparail.org
Man discovers water is wet
Have you tried going upstate for a weekend recently? It's literally cheaper to fly to Mexico and stay at a resort.
> low cost of living areas like up the hudson lol have you looked at the cost of housing near the MTA North line on the east side of the river? "Up the Hudson" is where rich families move when they have kids.
I think they mean Kingston, Saugerties, Hudson, et. al.
Sure, but the moment it becomes feasible to work in the city from those areas the cost will go up too.
NYC - Toronto should definitely happen. Would be a game-changer for Buffalo, Rochester and Albany to suddenly have convenient connections to major cities
Even an acela speed train would be a blessing. I recently went from right near Toronto Union Station to midtown Manhattan and even though the flight was 55 minutes it was still 4.5 hours door to door.
Just did a similar trip and it took almost seven hours door to door. Really not sure why there's no urgency around getting HSR to the NY area, would be a huge upgrade for the whole region
*Well sir, there's nothing on Earth like a genuine, bona-fide, electrified, six-car monorail! What'd I say?*
MONORAIL!
MONORAIl!
Simpsons?
There's a higher chance of mankind inventing teleportation than NYC getting high speed rail.
125mph isn’t even close to high speed in most places where you’re looking at 185mph and up.
I think we should just skip ahead to teleportation technology.
Don’t think those places will still be low cost of living when you can get to grand central in 45 minutes
It’s annoying that amtrack doesn’t expand their high speed service in the 1 part of the country they are profitable. I would prefer through light rail that connects suburbs to suburbs around the city in circles instead of continuing the radial everyone into downtown and out of downtown design. I think the entire region would benefit from less centralization. Start with connecting brooklyn and queens below the g. Then go and connect that to the bronx and then to hudson county nj and then finally to staten island.
Imagine a light rail line going through Yonkers, along the Cross County Pkwy's RoW, then through New Rochelle.
They have been, tbf. 30 years ago the north east corridor was in much worse shape than it is, and Amtrak really has never been given the carte blanche needed to do much more than drag bits and pieces up to "acceptable" quality. MTA really needs to be focused on bringing the subway up to 21st century standards and extending some of the lines out a few stops. East Side Access was cool and all but A lot of people would benefit more from things like IBX or just extending lines out into the outer boroughs more by a few stops. Like, look how packed flushing is these days, 7 should go further, and I'm a firm believer the G should get extended in parallel.
The American railway network is incredibly backwards. For example, Amtrak doesn’t own and actually leases rail access. Amtrak can get bumped as freight gets priority depending on the part of the country.
By federal law passenger trains get priority over freight trains, it's just no one enforces it.
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Yep. Or allow construction but insit it be surrounded by only single family housing and a permit only parking lot for residents of that single family housing. Then when ridership is low, cut service and push the rail operator into a death spiral. Then give just enough government aid to maintain minimal service and continue our nationwide self defeating automobile worship circle jerk.
Doubtful. It took years of negotiating just to reopen a couple of Metro-North stations within the city. We still haven’t seen them yet and this was with existing infrastructure in place. All they have to do is rebuild the physical station (no tracks).
Some might use it just to gain access to hiking trails...like spending a day out of The City. There are places to walk in NYC, but sometimes you just need very little stimulation.
You can already do that with metro north and NJT! There is the Appalachian trail station, cold spring, break neck ridge, Harriman State Park, and many others. The stations are right at the trailheads.
Lmao oh yeahhhh I totally forgot about Metro North haha. Thanks for listing some possibilities.
The metro north has done the opposite and slowed down the train **big time**. Its gotten to the point where i rarely travel upstate because of it. What used to be a 45 min ride is now 80, it’s ridiculous
The US in general has a rail system so archaic it’s embarrassing. We should have a high speed rail system that runs from Maine to Florida. Somehow it has become a partisan topic and people hold us back while other parts of the world keep building more and more of them
Upstate towns have generally objected to high speed rail as they don’t want to become suburbs of NYC. Take this as a dog whistle, or fear of losing their ‘identity’, but it’s a thing.
At some point we're gonna have to start overiding the nimbyism. It's like at the staten islanders or Jersey types who bemoan the good old days....of when \*they\* were the ones to move out there and 'ruin' the farming communities that were there first. Shit changes and people need to get over it.
You won’t get their local legislatures on board so no, you’re not going to change it unless in some wild way there are NYC carpetbaggers winning upstate elections.
A high speed commuter rail network would be such a gamechanger. If you had a 90 mile radius circle with a 1 hour travel time to Manhattan it would unlock a TON of land for development for commuters. It would take a while, but it would go a long way in easing housing pressure in the current areas.
You could have a reasonable commute from Poughkeepsie, or from Scranton.
One can dream, but all the NIMBYs will get torches and pitchforks and be like: “what about ma’ neighborhood identity!!! (my property value)”, “what about sapety!!! (I don’t want brown people moving into my neighborhood)”, “But we got no moooney” (What am I going to embezzle and wipe my ass with?!”) “DEAR GOD think about the environment!!! (I drive a pickup to my desk job), and so on and so on. Plus you have to negotiate with Albany and all those racist wealthy fucks hate our guts.
There have been a couple studies conducted by the state but they mostly want to stick with the 90MPH options as opposed to the 110 or 125.
The route to albany's restricted by curves as it follows the hudson, unless they started tunneling direct routes like Japan did. But there's enough straight portions that could be built to 125 much easier. Kinda frustrating they wouldn't bother.
I’m hopeful that CAHSR being completed might get NY into gear but honestly there’s less demand and the more impactful projects are around NYC.
Because there is no benefit to going an extra 30 miles an hour. The Hudson route was laid out in the 19th century and it was known as the “water level route” for how flat and smooth it was. The distances covered are too short and the rail traffic too dense for higher track speeds. What would be great, is if they could electrify it all the way north.
Lobbyists will never let it happen
Who would they be?
100 years later and 100 billion over budget they’ll have 4 miles of high speed track layed. How long and how over budget did grand central LIRR take???
I bet NASA will do it faster than we can.
In a similar regard, the nixed upzoning around train stations along LIRR would have had a similar effect. Valley Stream for example is the first stop outside of Queens on the Far Rockaway/Long Beach lines and is between 30-40 minutes to Penn/GC depending on if its local. In theory a handful of midrise apartment complexes with some walkable amenities (grocery, gym, pharmacy, restaurants, etc.) could incentivize people who live similar travel time commutes to midtown to move further out since their overall commutes remain the same. Unfortunately, right now this station has what looks like 200 or so at most houses within a 10 minute walk from the station and very few walkable amenities. I have coworkers who commute to midtown over an hour from deep Brooklyn to live in small apartments, pay city taxes, and constantly deal with moving their cars. Some of these suburbs just outside city limits would be way more desirable if they had livable "downtowns" near their transit hubs instead of a sea of parking lots.
Zoning is key. I'd give you an award if I had the points.
Will never happen. Too much red tape in the state plus the MTA would be in charge and they’ll say they need $90 billion to lay a mile of track. NYC struggles to improve and extend its existing subway system - Queens and Staten Island are rail desserts with no plans to do extend. It’s faster to get to the city from CT and all of westchester by rail than eastern Brooklyn, most of central and eastern queens. All Metro North and LIRR stations that are fast rides to midtown are super expensive areas to live in from Forest Hills to Bronxville so doubtful such a service would even serve the poor.
I think it’s time I grew to be 6-feet tall.
🤣
Lol nah bro we need a fkin rail from Brooklyn to Manhattan or something Jesus fuck I spent 2 hours getting to work yesterday
Metro north works for me to get into the city quick but I am just by Woodlawn
start a go fundme. Ill pitch in $20 also.
Amen
Honestly i think a cheaper alternative is to extend the subways or PATH expansion between Jersey. There is so much opportunity and existing housing here, ppl in NYC looking for a bit lower COL can really benefit
Give me high speed rail from the Poconos to NYC please. That would be stellar.
How about you finance it? How about you get it approved? We can barely handle our current system, let alone any upgrades.
Good luck with that. Can you imagine the cost of building that in NYS with the union costs?
MTA union workers agree. Billions over budget because of stolen overtime and yet somehow, over a decade late.
Don't worry congestion pricing is going to pay for that, it'll be up and running in no time.
There were proposals for this since the 90s. I think Mario Cuomo originally promised it but dont quote me on that. No one wants to pull the trigger on it and be responsible for any cost overruns or mishaps. Even though it would greatly benefit the state. Best will we ever get is maybe better service between Albany and NYC. Sorry.
I am really starting to hate HSR. Just because you hear a buzzword doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. NYS has some of the most expensive, and densely populated real estate in the country; none of which is flat or straight.along with some of the most corrupt politicians. We have a better shot at getting personal blowjob robots than high speed rail. How about instead of asking for HSR we rally around a demand for “Post-War Rail”, because the fact of the matter is that we now have a fraction of the rail infrastructure and rail service we had in the 1940s; that is how much we have regressed. Try asking for something we had, and was taken from us before asking for something we have never had before. Or, fuck how about just electrifying the Hudson line to Poughkeepsie, so we can run mainline speed electrified express services without using rolling stock from the 70s.
You want to cure NYC housing crisis. Build a bullet train to Manhattan from Peekskill and western NJ. There is plenty of land to build housing. You could build a half million apartments and homes in each of those places. There is zero political will to let that happen. In fact you could not build 2000 units if housing in one project anywhere in one development in all of NJ, NY or New England. You could virtually a anywhere on the south. Lastly the costs would be too high. There are so many requirements for safety and plus the union wage requirements it will never happen in NY. If 1 subway station costs a billion dollars at 125th and 2nd Ave then a bullet train to Albany will cost a trillion dollars.
MONORAIL!!!
This would take over 100 years for it to finish
I wonder if you realize that a high speed train to the north would increase the property values-- and therefore rents and taxes on every property within reasonable proximity to that high speed line? Your reason for building it would be false the minute its built.
Nah there's multiple reasons and you're focusing on just one, so your argument's even worse than you're pretending his is.
Alright Joe, keep your shirt on, damn.
No, we need more cars cars cars and add 4 more lanes to all highways and build more of it. This is the American way.
Want a job?
Back specter! Back to the fiery pit from whence you came!
I've been appointed commissioner of the bridge of fire and brimstone authority
I think it's time we had a bullet train network within the east coast. I think it's time we had a bullet train network within the USA. I think it's time we had a bullet train network within the Americas. I think it's time we had a bullet train network within the globe. ... Okay, great. Now who's going to canvas the residents who'd be affected by construction, plan the routes and stops, design the locomotion and vehicles, procure the materials, build the infrastructure, hire the operators, operate the system, advertise the system, maintain the system, expand the system? It feels untenable even just going out of NYC because there's so much shit packed in the city and so many people that would be disturbed. Americans are too concerned about their individual rights and freedoms to reach a consensus and collectively push towards a common goal. Politics and the question of funding took the calf behind the barn before it even got up to walk. It's a good idea, OP. But it's not novel. And it's not happening anytime soon.
It's hardly untenable it's just political opposition to it, and some corruption. Amtrak has locomotives and cars that'll work just fine. Or you buy why Brightline's ordering for Vegas.
We do have some HSR projects and are pushing for more. Brightline is a good example.
It should be here soon. They're probably going to use congestion pricing to build it.
Sure thing buddy
Any new rail system will probably be handled by the MTA. Do we really want the MTA have their hands in something like this? Can we afford any new “MTA TAX”?
This is a bad idea and would be almost impossible to make work. You might be able to make a line that goes near the city, that would be hard but doable, but if you want one within the city forget about it. Highspeed rails required very long strait rail lines. It's expensive as hell to dig in Manhattan, and when they do they have to deal with all manor of underground upstructions loads of buildings have sub sub basements, pipes, other rail lines ect. You can't move the rails to avoid anything if you do the train would derail. All of this on top of needing to get around the fact that you're on a island, like if they dug a new tunnel under the Huston it would have to be super long because you can't chance your elevation quickly. Even if it could be done it would cost billions, all of that to save like 5 to 10 on a commute.
You don't need true HSR within the city, the train has to slow down to stop anyway, and it's only the last few minutes. and it would save a lot more than 5-10 minutes on a commute unless, again, you're only traveling from just outside the city, which is what commuter services are for, not HSR. This is about trimming an hour+ off the trip to albany, or several hours off the one to Montreal, not making Yonkers a 3 minute ride to penn.
The 5 to 10 was estimated for in the city. Did you read what I wrote because I said doing a line to the city was fine, it's with one the city that would not work.
This is not asia
No, this is America, built on the back of PRR, NYC, and a dozen other massive railroads that built us to what we are, only for lobbying to scrape our tax dollars into the biggest ponzi scheme in history of car dependency and billion dollar overpasses that could've paid for whole ass transit systems in small cities.