Though I applaud your next piece considering the value of the dormant right of ways. In “under-served” Brooklyn and Queens there are two enormously valuable dormant right of ways, the Rockaway Branch and the Bay Ridge Branch. It is important to put in place development policies that can utilize those spaces over the cold dead bodies of the NIMBY, BANANA and CAVE forces.

“I think in this country people are crying out for leadership.”

That is absolutely true. And this year, I believe we’re going to get it. I think Obama along with a Dem controlled congress (and potentially an all-Dem NYC delegation) will give us our best shot at transit policy in decades.

We need to be drawing up our dream plans and to be ready to forcefully advocate for them when the tide changes.

Build the Cross Harbor Freight Tunnel. Bury the Gowanus Expressway, with dedicated express BRT. Tie the PATH system in more closely with the MTA. True regional rail planning for NY,NJ & CT. A transit oriented Tappan Zee bridge. A Second Ave Subway that runs from the Bronx to Staten Island by way of Brooklyn. Rail connection to La Guardia.

And a true national high speed rail system.

But most importantly, ignore naysayers who bitch about everything and offer no solutions. We can accomplish all of these things. It will take time, but if we’ve got vision, we can make it happen.

But there is still some room for rights-of-way. For example, there are several ROWs that are currently used for rail-trails or freight-only, but could be revived for high-speed rail. In Connecticut and Massachussetts there’s the Air Line, which runs conveniently parallel to the Shore Line.

In Westchester and Putnam there’s the Old Put, that runs parallel to the Harlem and Hudson lines, and in Rockland there’s the West Shore Line. In New Jersey there’s the West Trenton Line. There are probably similar lines in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.

The suburbs of most of the big cities in Europe are pretty much as sprawly as the big Northeastern American cities. In Paris, the other TGV lines (Nord and Sud-Est) run on conventional tracks until they get outside the suburbs. The bypass tracks were created long before the TGV was invented.

European countries were able to do high speed rail because they actually have open land to put the ROWs in due to good land use practices over the past 60 yeats.

Here in America and particularly in our Northeast area, there would be WAY too much sprawl to cut through; never mind the lawyers fighting (a actual virtuous) use of eminent domain.

Sprawl has doomed us in more ways than most people think. Not only does it keep us dependent on cars, destroy valuable habitats and farmlands, degrade water resources but it also has “hamstrung” America from being able to do many of the transportation projects we will need in the 21st century.

Grammar, when you’re talking about Biden or two former governors like Carper and Castle, it’s a chicken-and-egg thing. If they were like Chuck Schumer or Al d’Amato, they’d probably have funneled money into widening Route 301 to Interstate standards. Instead they fought to have Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor funded to the point where it’s a good commute.

That’s not meant to diminish from the pro-transit message in this post, but to contextualize the First State’s all-Amtrak representatives.

And enough of the ridiculous free transit argument. Where in the world is it given away? It’s still cheaper to take transit than to rent a car or take a taxi…make it free and service would only be cut back.

If anything we need to raise fares and undo the damage in NYC done by our ridiculous City Council in getting rid of the two-fare zones. You ride further you pay more. Democracy in action.

One little known fact is that you can use frequent flyer miles from some airlines (I use Continental) in exchange for Amtrak miles. For short trips (Northeast Corridor from DC to the Canadian boarder I believe) the Amtrak trip will be about a quarter the number of miles (not to mention the time and cost savings resulting from not having to get to and from an airport.)

Notice that the train is moving quite fast between cities with hundreds of people, bicycles, strollers, and so on on board. The top speed of this train is 205 MPH and cruises at about 180 MPH.

Then, notice the limited-access freeway next to the train. The freight is moving unencumbered. The mobility of this system is very effective.

It also supports access at the destination. We arrived in the center of the city and we were off and about in a mid-size modern city with high levels of access. Should this be called access-supportive mobility?
ftp://ftp.trans.ci.portland.or.us/raisman/Indianapolis/Brussels%20to%20Cologne%20high%20speed%20train.AVI

Any chance we could trade their Senators for ours?

And it is nuts to be using airplanes to get from NYC to DC or Boston. Some improvements in the tracks would allow trains fast enough to get to Boston in 2-2.5 hours.

Well, Americans can’t all move to places with existing rail transit systems, find the time to ride buses, or build new rail systems overnight.

It would be great if someone like Obama were to call on Americans to work together for their mutual benefit and start carpooling on a large scale to bring down the cost of gasoline, or bicycle if they can. Not just to work, but to shop or to church.

It could be a great speech. “If Republicans can’t be bothered to work together to make things better, how about just Democrats? And if not all Democrats are willing to do it, how about just those who voted for me?”

Remember, they are running to be the leader of the country, not just the chief administrator of the federal government.