Amtrak has unveiled a $117 billion, 30-year vision for a high-speed rail line through Connecticut that would drastically reduce travel times along the congested East Coast corridor using trains traveling up to 220 miles per hour, The Associated Press reports.
The proposal, which would require building a new set of tracks from Boston to Washington, D.C., is at the concept stage and there’s no funding plan in place, Amtrak President Joseph Boardman said at a Tuesday news conference at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station.
The project would likely use some combination of public and private investment and hopefully be phased in starting in 2015, he said.
Although the route has not been set and is still in the early stages of discussion, one alignment being discussed would start in New York City and trace a route through New Rochelle and the airport in White Plains, N.Y., Danbury, Waterbury and Hartford in Connecticut, Woonsocket, a station at Route 28 near Boston and then Boston, the Providence Journal reports.
The Next-Gen High Speed Rail line would have hubs in Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington and would cut travel times in half or better. It would reduce the travel time between Washington and New York from 162 minutes to 96 minutes, according to Amtrak. The travel time between New York and Boston would go from 215 minutes to 84 minutes.
About 12 million riders a year use Amtrak along the northeast corridor.
Under the high-speed system envisioned, the trains would be able to accommodate about 33.7 million passengers by 2040. Amtrak officials estimated the high-speed system would generate an $900 million more a year with the added ridership.
High-speed rail would not only help reduce congestion on the rails, but also in the skies, since it would be more enticing to passengers making shorter trips, according to Amtrak officials and others.
