NEW YORK (AP) | Money designated for a now-canceled rail line in Florida was divvied up among nearly two dozen projects across the country Monday, heartening supporters but giving critics fuel to deride it as a diversion from President Obama’s high-speed-train ambitions or as a simple waste of money.
The bulk of the $2 billion is to go the congested Washington-New York-Boston corridor, where $795 million in improvements should allow trains to run at 160 mph on a stretch where they are currently limited to 135 mph. Another $404 million will go toward increasing speeds to 110 mph between Chicago and Detroit.
“These are tremendous transportation projects and investments that America cannot do without,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters at a news conference in New York’s Pennsylvania Station, the nation’s busiest train depot. He delivered a similar announcement later in the day in Detroit.
Only about $300 million will immediately go toward true high-speed railroads like those in Europe and Asia. That money is earmarked for a 220-mph link planned between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Speeding up trains significantly through the Northeast could prove difficult because the region is so congested, with different railroads often sharing the same tracks and stations. Some even doubt it can be done.
Matthew Konopka, a 30-year-old economist from Washington, travels to Boston a few times each month. Traveling by plane takes him about 3 1/2 hours, including check-in time and getting through security. Amtrak’s fast Acela trains take about seven hours.
“It’s too much of a waste of time,” he said of the trains. “I would be doubtful that they’d ever be able to get it fast enough.”
The projects being funded by the diverted money range from a train station in Ann Arbor, Mich., to elevated tracks in Washington state, platform improvements in Rhode Island and engineering studies in Texas.
“Once again, the administration has scattered funding to numerous slower-speed rail projects, and allowed Amtrak to hijack 21 of the 22 grants,” said Rep. John L. Mica, Florida Republican who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. His home state lost the money when Gov. Rick Scott canceled plans for a high-speed train between Orlando and Tampa.
Politicians in the Northeast enthusiastically lobbied for the money, hoping to improve their constituents’ travel times and lure more passengers away from the region’s gridlocked highways and congested airports. Delays at New York’s three main airports frequently snarl air travel across the United States.
“We must take our passengers off the short-run airplanes,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat. “No one in a properly functioning transportation environment should take a plane from New York to Washington, or for that matter from Boston to Washington.”
The improvements should benefit New York commuters by making the overhead electrical lines that New Jersey Transit shares more reliable. Another $295 million upgrade will benefit the Long Island Rail Road, the nation’s largest commuter railroad, by allowing Amtrak trains to bypass the Harold Interlocking, a busy junction in the New York City borough of Queens.
But none of the $2 billion announced Monday is earmarked for two of the most significant rail bottlenecks in the Northeast.
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