(The following article by Cathy Woodruff was posted on the Albany Times-Union website on January 5.)
ALBANY — A report slated for release today by Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno is expected to lay out a streamlined plan for cutting the train trip to New York City to two hours within the next two years.
The report, which caps a three-month study by Bruno’s High Speed Rail Task Force and a team of consultants, also is expected to recommend potential longer-range strategies for putting super high-speed trains on track throughout upstate New York over the next two decades.
Such high-speed trains could slice travel time to Buffalo to three hours or less and would likely require billions of dollars of investment in trains, technology and infrastructure over many years.
The proposals for improving rail service between the Capital Region and New York City, however, are expected to focus on less-expensive and less technically complex changes, such as adding express trains and improving tracks.
Many rail experts and passenger advocates have long insisted that the state could most easily improve passenger satisfaction and boost railroad ridership by emphasizing steps to reduce delays and increase train frequency. If trains are more reliably on time, take less time to reach their destinations and leave more times each day, they note, the actual speed of the locomotive is secondary.
Bruno announced his intentions to jump-start the state’s stalled high-speed rail ambitions in March. In June, he named former Albany International Airport CEO John Egan to head a Senate Task Force to investigate the issue and chart a plan for action.
In late September, engineering experts with Parsons Brinckerhoff were named to lead the team of consultants that worked with the task force under a $1.2 million contract to produce the report Bruno plans to release today.
In his public discussions of the initiative, for which the Senate set aside $5 million in this year’s state budget, Bruno has complained that New York is “in the Dark Ages” with its train service.
He also has suggested that a new public authority could be necessary to take charge of financing, construction and other tactics for speeding passenger rail service in New York.
The state’s most recent high-speed rail effort, Gov. George Pataki’s plan to recondition a fleet of 1970s-vintage Turboliners to travel between New York City and Rensselaer, collapsed amid bickering between Amtrak and the state Department of Transportation.