Get Rail Service on Track

By Ben Gottfried

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has selected Daniel Gundersen to head up a new Empire State Development Corporation effort to look at some creative concepts for reviving Upstate's economic fortunes.

The use of the rail system to efficiently move people in an environmentally friendly manner to and through our economic centers has obvious appeal.

Rail travel across Upstate New York consists of Amtrak's "Empire Corridor" trains playing cat and mouse with the daily parade of CSX freight trains on their "Chicago Mainline" here in New York. The CSX route is among the nation's busiest freight corridors, funneling valuable freight traffic to Northeastern markets.

This freight traffic congestion makes existing Amtrak service along the route through Utica unreliable and expansion of service or faster trains impossible in the future.

At one time, the route was a mode-separated railroad with freight and passenger trains on separate tracks to allow for the faster running passenger trains such as the legendary New York to Chicago Twentieth Century Limited. The passenger-only tracks were removed around the time the New York State Thruway was opened, and passenger trains and freight trains have shared the same tracks ever since.

If the "Empire Corridor" is to serve as an effective passenger line, the dedicated passenger tracks will have to be put back. Fortunately the CSX right of way remains available for this option provided a funding mechanism and political will come together to invest in the rail passenger system as part of our economic development agenda.

Political players in Washington and now Albany are talking of the need to develop comprehensive public policies that are sensitive to the needs of our wounded planet. Recent announcements from the scientific community conference in Paris on global warming also highlighted the need for — and a new found willingness by — governments to take action on carbon emissions. Strategic rail projects (like the Empire Corridor) offer the opportunity to meet these environmental objectives and connect our snappy new Upstate economic centers (cities like Utica) with some snappy new rail service.

New federal legislation is once again moving forward to allow state-sponsored rail corridors to apply for funding with the federal government paying 80 percent of the cost of new capital projects. The realigned Congress appears much more likely to actually fund these corridors in view of increasing public sentiment to address our environmental agenda of hope.

Let's hope Gundersen and his group seize the opportunity to use the rail system as a connecting network for New Yorkers as part of their revitalization efforts. Should federal rail corridor legislation move forward in Washington with an 80 percent federal participation rate, expect to see an explosion of projects being proposed. Numerous states have already grasped the basic concept of the use of inter-city passenger trains in economic development plans; New York, to date, has not.

Ben Gottfried is the Susquehanna Region Coordinator for the Empire State Passengers Association, a New York based passenger rail advocacy group.