For decades, NY dreamed of high-speed rail. Why Cuomo wants it to be different this time

Joseph Spector | New York State Team

Show Caption Hide Caption Amtrak introduces the Avelia Liberty Amtrak’s new fleet of Acela Express trains will debut in 2021. The company will introduce 28 new trainsets manufactured by Alstom, featuring more spacious seats and better Wi-Fi access.

ALBANY - Trains that go 125 mph and get you from Buffalo to Manhattan in 6 hours — slightly quicker than it now takes to drive the route.

Or how about a high-speed train from Binghamton to Scranton and then ending in New York City? Or fast rail service from Montreal to the city, or even from Albany to Penn Station — one of the busiest routes in the nation.

All of it has been talked about, proposed and even some funding secured for decades, but the plans have always ended up with various logistical hurdles and money woes.

So the trains still average a mere 51 mph across the Empire Corridor, which runs from Buffalo to New York City.

On Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pledged that 2020 would be different. It is time, he said, to revisit the decades-long dream of better connecting New York's cities through a high-speed rail system, which is commonplace in Europe and other parts of the world.

Cuomo vowed that in his State of the State address Jan. 8, he will announce a new panel of outside experts to reexamine why high-speed rail has repeatedly fallen off the tracks.

How can high-speed rail in New York be re-envisioned?

His panel of engineers will dust off the moribund studies, rethink how to create a high-speed rail system and create a plan that is faster, energy-efficient and more reliable than ones proposed in the past, the Democratic governor vowed.

"High-speed rail is transforming economies around the world," Cuomo said in a statement.

"We've been told that bringing this technology to our state is too expensive, too difficult and would take too long — that's not an acceptable attitude for New York."

Cuomo, entering his 10 year in office, has prided himself on trying to rebuild the state's infrastructure, whether it is the airports, the transit system or the $4 billion Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge in the Hudson Valley.

More: The new Mario M. Cuomo Bridge toll has been proposed. Here's what it would be.

He said the new focus on high-speed rail will take the same approach as the long-elusive goal of repairing the L Train Tunnel between Brooklyn to Manhattan that is now 6-months ahead of schedule and set to be finished in April.

"When we developed our plan to repair the L Train Tunnel, the team of experts we assembled questioned every assumption and brought new creativity to a seemingly intractable problem," Cuomo said.

"We not only found a way to repair the tunnel without shutting down service, we are doing it ahead of schedule. This kind of outside-the-box thinking will help us determine how we could deliver high-speed rail for New York."

More: High-speed rail service eyed for upstate

What high-speed rail could do for New York's economy

Cuomo noted that most of the state's population lives a short distance from the Empire Corridor, which is the 463-mile stretch that runs north and south between Albany and New York City, and east and west between Albany and Niagara Falls.

But with slow trains and numerous stops, driving is still much quicker and less expensive — albeit less comfortable that a care-free train ride, state officials have long contended.

Efforts for high-speed rail have long stalled, though, as costs became too prohibitive and the time it would take to build new rail lines became too daunting.

In fact, New York in 2012 auctioned off for $400,000 about 20 cars and locomotives it bought in the 1990s that were seen as the first step toward a system where trains could travel 125 mph between the cities.

But the system, among other issues, needs electrification, not turbine engines, and the trains were left to rot for a decade.

Cuomo came into office in 2011 with renewed hope for high-speed rail. New York in 2011 secured $354 million in federal funding as part of $8 billion for rail systems under American Recovery and Reinvestment Act approved by Congress and President Barack Obama.

New York even benefitted from additional money than initially expected after some states, including Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio, rejected Obama's money amid a political fight.

While some states have backed off high-speed rail plans, California has been most ambitious.

But even it has had to scale back its dreams: Gov. Gavin Newsom abandoned plans last February for a rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco as the cost ballooned to an untenable $77 billion.

The state is still moving ahead with the nation's first high-speed rail train in central California, but it is facing new obstacles after the Trump administration yanked $1 billion for the project in June.

More: Alstom, Amtrak ink deal

What will happen next with high-speed rail in New York?

In New York, the state Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration in 2014 released a preliminary review of high-speed rail.

The agency proposed five different options that ranged from $290 million for basic upgrades to $14.71 billion that would add an entirely new 247-mile rail corridor connecting Albany and Buffalo.

The proposal led to public hearings across the state, but the next step — a final environmental impact study — has not yet been released. The next target date is May, a year later than originally scheduled.

Cuomo said Thursday the various recommendations haven't really changed that much over the past two decades.

The process may simply need a new set of eyes that can incorporate all the work has been done and meld that with projects that have been completed around the world.

Cuomo enacted a $100 billion infrastructure plan when he took office and now is undertaking a second five-year, $150 billion infrastructure initiative.

But at the same time, New York faces its worst fiscal problems in a decade: a $6 billion deficit for the upcoming fiscal year that is estimated to balloon to $8.5 billion by 2023.

So any new funding for high-speed rail would need to be approved by the state Legislature during the budget process for the fiscal year that starts April 1 amid a difficult financial climate.

More: New York faces its largest budget crisis in a decade. This is the reason why.

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Joseph Spector is the New York state editor for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at JSPECTOR@Gannett.com or followed on Twitter: @GannettAlbany

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