Efforts to protect water, habitat and other natural resources are often divorced from regional and local land use decision making and infrastructure investment.   Planners and conservation advocates are meeting this challenge by working across political jurisdictions to establish landscape conservation initiatives that protect watersheds, ecosystems and other landscape-scale processes by identifying and responding to the broader threats of regional land use and infrastructure investment decisions.

Last month, eleven northeastern states and Amtrak submitted a planning proposal to the Federal Railroad Administration.  The proposal seeks federal funding for an $18.8 million four-phased planning study.

The study will explore investments needed to meet travel demand in the Northeast Corridor, including both incremental improvements and investments in dedicated tracks for true high-speed service. This proposal, the result of collaboration among 11 states and Amtrak to plan for the future of the  nation's most congested intercity and commuter rail corridor, represents an historic collaboration and a necessary step to bring the Northeast's rail infrastructure into the 21st century.

The proposal strikes a needed balance between short term necessity and ambitious long term planning, and is worthy of support by anyone who cares about rail service in the Northeast. A decision by the FRA about whether to fund this three-year planning process is expect by the middle of July.

The complete proposal can be found here: www.njtransit.com/highspeedNEC

The Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility, a coalition of business and civic groups from Maine to Virginia, has been advocating for funding to increase the capacity, speed, and reliability of intercity and commuter rail service on the Northeast Corridor since 2006.

Amtrak and the Northeastern states are about to embark on a new round of ambitious planning for upgraded rail service in the corridor.  This PowerPoint presentation prepared by Regional Plan Association provides context for this process with a brief history of planning efforts on the corridor over the past four decades and a snapshot of where the corridor is today.

It can be downloaded and used a resource by Business Alliance members or other interested parties.

A University of Pennsylvania graduate planning studio released their final report this week, proposing investment in two new dedicated high-speed tracks connecting Boston to Washington. Traveling a new right-of-way in the north end of the Corridor, and involving station relocations and strategic improvements in the south end, the plan would cut travel times in half, achieving 90-minute service from New York to Washington, D.C. and 105 minute service from New York to Boston. The Executive Summary is now available for download. You can download the full report in chapters on the Penn students' website, or the full report as one file here (100MB).

The report was featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 9.

By Yoav Hagler. Reprinted from RPA's Spotlight on the Region.

My train pulled out of a shabby, non- descript rail terminal operating at capacity in a major world city. This particular train was designed for speeds of up to 140 miles per hour but regularly operates at only 125 mph. An hour and twenty minutes later, I arrived at my destination, a city of a couple of million people about 100 miles away. The railroad right-of-way recently underwent a major upgrade, including electrification and a new signaling system.

Sound familiar? Have you traveled between London and Birmingham on a Virgin Pendolino train recently too? Surprised I wasn't describing my recent trip to Philadelphia out of Penn station? There are great similarities. England is far away from the Northeast and its rail challenges, but the experience and choices made across the water have lessons for us.

On Sunday the Senate voted 57 to 32 to approve the omnibus spending bill, which included $2.5 billion for high-speed rail. The spending bill, which already passed the House, will go next to the President's desk for signature.

While the bill's $2.5 billion is less than the $4 billion for high-speed rail approved by the House in an earlier version of the spending bill this year, it exceeds the President's request for high-speed rail in his draft budget ($5 billion over 5 years). With this appropriation Congress has indicated their strong support for the nation's high-speed rail program.

The bill also included a small ray of hope for the Northeast Corridor, which has been excluded from applying for significant grants in the FRA's high-speed rail program because it lacks an up-to-date corridor-wide Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The spending bill includes $50 million for planning grants to states (with an 80/20 federal-state split). That $50 million is being eyed by states in the Northeast to fund their work on the Programmatic EIS in cooperation with the FRA and Amtrak in order to hasten the corridor's eligibility for funding in the FRA's High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail program. 

America 2050 Director Petra Todorovich discusses how the New York region may fare in a jobs bill being considered by President Obama and Congress and the importance of fully funding the New York MTA's five-year capital plan.

Reprinted from the Northeast-Midwest Institute
by Fritz Ohrenschall, Research Associate, Northeast-Midwest Institute

The Administration's "Stimulus Bill" - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - provides $8 billion for high speed rail.  Unfortunately, the Northeast Rail Corridor faces major hurdles in receiving any of this money because the Federal Railroad Administration has yet to document, as required by law, the environmental impacts of revamping the corridor.
 
Recovery Act rail funding is allocated in two tracks.  Track 1 funds individual projects on a rail line.  Track 2 funds corridor-wide projects that will reduce trip times on that line.  Construction of corridor-wide enhancement on the Northeast Corridor would fall under Track 2 and will require that the Federal Railroad Administration prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement documenting the effects of such enhancements in order to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.  This document must be very comprehensive and it remains to be seen whether it can be completed before the statutory deadline for Recovery Act monies to be spent.
 
Recognizing that Recovery Act funding is critical to the nation's busiest rail corridor, the states along the corridor, as well as the Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility have requested that FRA expedite the impact statement and have volunteered to help with it.  Currently it is unclear whether the FRA can meet this challenge.

Download "Challenges to Northeast Corridor ARRA Funding."