The Providence Journal
Plan to overhaul rail service in New England carries $105B price tag
The latest plan to speed up and expand passenger rail in New England thinks big. Very big.
It would change how rail projects in the region are funded, planned and executed.
And instead of focusing on ether high-speed intercity trains or overhauling regional commuter rail systems, North Atlantic Rail, as the group is known, would do both, all for what they hope would be $105 billion.
This month, 24 Democratic U.S. House members, including Rhode Island's Jim Langevin and David Cicilline, signed a letter calling for Congress to authorize the North Atlantic Rail Corporation.
The corporation would be the funding and political vehicle to support rail projects in seven states (and potentially even to Canada some day.)
"The reality is we have been underinvesting in rail for the last 30-40 years. We have a climate emergency and a competition with China emergency and a racial and economic justice emergency. Doing a little bit here and little bit there doesn't fix these problems." said North Atlantic Rail's Robert Yaro, a former member of New York's Regional Plan Association and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania.
North Atlantic Rail looks to capitalize on President Joe Biden's calls for up to $2 trillion in federal infrastructure spending and his "Amtrak Joe" affinity for trains.
The most attention-grabbing aspect of the $105 billion North Atlantic Rail program is a call for a new central high-speed rail spine — including a tunnel beneath Long Island Sound — to replace most of the current Northeast Corridor.
But first the group, which counts GrowSmart RI among its partners, would look to complete several of its member states' top priority rail projects.
Closest to home, this includes the conversion of the MBTA's Providence Line to faster, higher-frequency electrified service to Boston. The MBTA is already working on a pilot program to move to faster electric trains on the Providence Line.
Also among the $23.4 billion worth of of "early action" projects, is commuter rail service between Boston and Springfield, upgrading the New Haven Line to New York, upgrading the Hartford commuter rail line through Connecticut (to Springfield) and new service to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and Brattleboro. Vermont. (House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal represents Western Massachusetts.)
Channeling funds to key state priorities is likely to generate political support and it will need it, given the huge price tag and history of local opposition to large infrastructure project, including the last attempt to overhaul the Northeast Corridor.
That plan, from the Federal Railroad Administration and called NEC Future, would have rebuilt large sections of the Northeast Corridor all the way to Washington, but ran into trouble in Connecticut, particularly the wealthy suburbs along the Connecticut River.
The NEC Future kept most of the existing NorthEast Corridor alignment, but proposed a 50-mile bypass — mostly along Route 95 — from Old Saybrook, Connecticut, to Kenyon village in Rhode Island. It didn't go through Hartford, a sore spot for most of Connecticut's top political leaders.
After the initial opposition in eastern Connecticut, residents along the route in southwestern Rhode Island turned out against the plan and the federal government abandoned it.
The North Atlantic Rail plan avoids the Connecticut neighborhoods that killed the NEC Future, and includes Hartford, but in building an almost entirely new rail corridor is certain to find its own "Not In My Backyard" opponents.
And for the high speed rail portion of the project to come in at $60 billion as proponents hope, they will need to find a way to do it more cheaply than other American rail projects, which are almost always more expensive than similar projects in other countries.
The Gateway East River proposed tunnel project between New York and New Jersey is estimated to cost $30 billion. The under-construction East Side Access project at Grand Central Station is estimated to cost $15 billion.
Yaro said North Atlantic Rail can lower costs through expedited permitting, design-build procurement and potentially public-private partnerships.
The North Atlantic Rail route goes from New York to Port Jefferson on Long Island, where it crosses Long Island Sound to Milford, Connecticut, then up to Hartford and across the Providence, where it would rejoin the existing Northeast Corridor.
Critics on Twitter have joked about underwater connections to Block Island, Provincetown and Bar Harbor.
Aside from the costs, no right of way has been identified between Hartford and Providence.
With all this new construction, North Atlantic Rail proponents say by achieving speeds of more than 200 mph for much of the route and bring the length of a trip from New York to Boston down from the current three-plus hours down to 100 minutes. NEC Future estimated New-York-Boston travel time of around 2 hours and 45 minutes.
John Flaherty of GrowSmart RI says that Rhode Island should note that the North Atlantic Rail route goes through Providence, something that might not be the case if Massachusetts and Connecticut keep investing in rail between Hartford and Springfield.
panderson@providencejournal.com
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On Twitter: @PatrickAnderso_