ALBANY, N.Y. — For several days Governor Cuomo's offices has been rolling out various State of the State agenda items, political appetizers if you will.
Today the Governor's office announced that high-speed rail will be a focus of the 2020 State of the State agenda.
In a release sent to media outlets, the Governor says he wants to work with outside experts to examine the state's high-speed rail strategy. The plan involves a panel of engineers to look at past high-speed rail projects and "rethink every assumption and method."
"High-speed rail is transforming economies around the world. We've been told that bringing this technology to our state is too expensive, too difficult and would take too long - that's not an acceptable attitude for New York," Governor Cuomo said in the press release. "When we developed our plan to repair the L Train Tunnel, the team of experts we assembled questioned every assumption and brought new creativity to a seemingly intractable problem. We not only found a way to repair the tunnel without shutting down service, we are doing it ahead of schedule. This kind of outside-the-box thinking will help us determine how we could deliver high-speed rail for New York."
This isn't the first time the Governor's office set it sights on high-speed rail. In an announcement in 2011, New York was awarded $354.4 million in federal funds that were suppose to focus on high-speed rail projects.
At the time, it was announced that the $354.4 million would be broken down as follows:
- $295 million for "Northeast Corridor Congestion Relief" that would be largely spent by the MTA.
- $58 million for "New York Empire Corridor Capacity Improvements" which included a new train station in Schenectady.
- $1.4 million for the "Empire Corridor West" which was a preliminary environmental study for a new Rochester Intermodal Station.
The Governor's office says that the majority of the state's population lives near the Empire Corridor, a rail line that connects New York City, Albany, and Buffalo. The average speed of those lines are slightly above 50 miles per hour.
A 2004 study focusing on a high-speed rail line between New York City and Montreal along I-87 projected costs at $4 billion. In 2014, New York State published a lengthy draft of a high-speed rail system along the Empire Corridor. Depending on a variety of options offered in that review, a New York high-speed rail system could cost anywhere between $290 million and $14.6 billion.