Quote:
Originally Posted by aquablue
I'd expect something more modern for that kinda outlay. Over 100 Billion and the time remains around 3 hours from Boston to NYC, and 2 hours 10 minutes from DC to NYC. That doesn't even match French trains from the 1970's. Very disappointing that they didn't go ahead with a dedicated HSR right of way. Pretty crappy that in 2040 the NEC will still have rather slow trains in comparison to California/Texas not to mention what Europe, China, India and Japan probably will be running. I actually hope they throw out this plan.
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Bears repeating: It's just a roadmap/baseline to get all stakeholders in-line regarding highlighted improvements.
It's like saying you want to build a bridge from a tree in your backyard to one in your neighbor's. You put aside $10 a month to come up with the money to have it complete in 10 years' time (which obviously means it'll cost more, in current dollars, than if you both funded it upfront). You need a framework to make sure any improvements you/your neighbor build in your respective yards line up and interface properly.
This is what NECFuture is...the media just has this bee in its bonnet that it's some "Federal Government HSR Plan;" it's not. It's why they've deliberated with local communities and have taken their time: if MBTA decides to undertake some improvement already studied here, they'll have quite fewer hurdles to jump through to get it done. That's the point here.
The FRA is just taking the reigns from stakeholders along the NEC to get some kind of concrete 'capital' program for necessary improvements and set attainable, minimum, targets for service reliability in anticipation of meeting anticipated growth.
25 years to reach state-of-good-repair is the main idea, the targets for service are more 'fungible' and depend more upon what demand/funding for those services will be than upon the infrastructure, itself.
Again, this plan isn't the obligatory manner in which all improvements will happen; rather, it highlights what improvements, at a minimum,
need to happen and how they all [should/will] relate to each other, regionally.