New York high-speed rail plans taking shape

Having been largely shut out of federal high-speed rail funding, New York transportation officials are turning their attention to a handful of rail projects that did win federal support - including the first tangible piece of the long-sought high-speed passenger rail corridor across upstate New York, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports.  

It matters not that the new
high-speed line will reach a mere 11 miles from the Monroe County town of Riga
to the middle of Byron, Genesee County, state officials say.

"We’re going to be taking
these incremental steps … until we cover the entire corridor from end to end.
This seemed to be a good first step in the process," said Ann Purdue, the
Department of Transportation’s high-speed intercity passenger rail manager.

Design work should begin
shortly on the $58-million test track, on which Amtrak passengers will be able
to experience speeds up to 110 mph – for a few moments, anyway.

Construction could start as
soon as this fall. Funding comes from a $151-million federal stimulus grant for
rail projects that New York was awarded last month. Sizable though the $151
million award may seem, it represented only three percent of the sum that New
York had sought from Washington – and the state’s failure to win a larger share
of the $8 billion made available by the Obama administration for high-speed
rail dealt a blow to New York’s rail program. Some federal officials, as well
as supporters in Congress, said after the fact that New York’s applications
were not up to snuff.

State officials now must
start almost from scratch to build a new case for federal rail aid to upgrade
the 330-mile corridor between Albany and Niagara Falls. Purdue said the best
thing New York can do is to use the resources it has wisely.

Most of New York’s $151
million will be devoted to two construction projects, including adding a new
track for Amtrak trains between Albany and Schenectady, an infamous bottleneck.
The other project starts at Attridge Road in Riga and runs to a spot near
Beaver Meadow Road in south-central Byron. Along this 11-mile stretch, the
state intends to build an entirely new track for the exclusive use of Amtrak
trains, parallel to a pair of existing CSX Transportation tracks now shared by
passenger trains and slower freights. Eventually, this third track is meant to
extend across the state to Albany.

The western New York
location was chosen, Purdue said, because it is relatively flat and straight
and thus fairly easy to build. Construction will take place on CSXT’s existing
right-of-way, and neither land acquisition nor an environmental impact
statement is needed. The state does not yet have an agreement with
Florida-based CSXT for use of its right-of-way, Purdue said, and it wasn’t
clear whether the state would have to pay the railroad for use of its land. She
was confident an agreement will be reached before Sept. 30, the deadline for
working out all details and signing the final federal grant papers.
Construction must be finished within two years of that date.

CSXT spokesman Bob
Sullivan, noting the railroad must maintain service to more than 1,000 upstate
freight customers as it helps improve passenger rail, said discussions with the
state are under way but it would be "premature to talk about what that
agreement might say."

As Purdue noted, though,
the railroad suggested the 11-mile stretch in the first place as the best
location to begin building the high-speed corridor.

The project will be a
template for the longer corridor, providing lessons in matters such as
smoothing out curves and building gradual connections from old tracks to new so
that trains can maintain higher speeds.

Because Amtrak’s
diesel-powered locomotives accelerate relatively slowly, the trains would be
able to travel at 110 mph for fewer than five minutes before having to slow
down again. That would shave only a couple of minutes off the Rochester-to-Buffalo
travel time, which typically is about 70 minutes.

About 85 trains a day now
use the CSXT tracks between the two cities, according to available federal
data. Eight are Amtrak passenger trains. There are 10 public road crossings
along the 11-mile stretch, including two in the village of Churchville and one
in the village of Bergen. All are now protected by gates, flashing lights and
signs.

Grade separation at
crossings – bridges or tunnels to keep cars and trains from intersecting – isn’t
required unless trains exceed 125 mph. Purdue said she was not sure to what
extent crossing protection would be upgraded. The busiest of those crossings,
South Main Street in Churchville, handles about 5,300 cars a day, federal data
show.

That village’s 2,000 or so
residents co-exist well with the trains, said Mayor Nancy Steedman.

"We’ve grown up with them
here. They’re not a problem," she said.

But she has heard nothing
from the state or CSXT about the high-speed track, and couldn’t comment on the
prospect of trains racing through the village at 110 mph.

State DOT spokeswoman
Jennifer Post said the agency was planning "public outreach" about the project.

More information, and more
planning, is on the state Transportation Department’s agenda, too.

After states such as
California and Florida were awarded far more federal rail money than New York,
various officials opined that New York’s applications had been inadequate and
their planning insufficient.

Purdue begged to differ.
New York submitted applications for 39 separate projects; only seven were
funded, but 38 of the applications were deemed complete. The one application
ruled incomplete was the big one – the request for $4.7 billion to build out
the entire high-speed corridor.

Saying it had been years
since New York invested significantly in its rail system, Purdue acknowledged
that the state had no track record to impress federal officials. And she said
that New York didn’t have an environmental impact statement and other planning
documents needed to win the big grant it sought.

With the $151 million it
did get, the state can start building that track record, she said. New York
also will spend more than $2 million to conduct an in-depth corridor study to
satisfy federal officials down the road. That effort likely won’t be done until
after the deadline later this year for an additional $2.5 billion in federal
aid.