The Future of Intercity Transport

By Petra Todorovich, Director, America 2050

Folks ride the railroad, fly, drive, helicopter and even sail into New York, the country's biggest city and region and the center of so many things. Each person who comes from elsewhere brings money, ideas, creativity, and vitality, enhancing the region further as a center of commerce and business.

New York's airports and rail connections -- the two principal means of intercity travel -- are both limited by capacity, essentially capping the economic growth of the New York metropolitan region. Flights in and out of the New York region's airports were literally capped by the federal government in 2008 at EWR & JFK -- LGA has a perimeter rule that has essentially capped the number of operations since the 1960's -- to the outcry of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and many of the region's civic and business groups, including this one. The Northeast Corridor, owned and operated by Amtrak, is suffering from a backlog of delayed state-of-good repair improvements to the tune of $7.9 billion. It is limited by infrastructural, institutional, and financial difficulties, though the renewed federal interest in high-speed rail may signal the dawn of a more ambitious era for the Northeast Corridor.

If we had all the money in the world, the region could build more runways and obtain more land for expanding the Northeast Corridor right-of-way. And we may need to pursue those options regardless. But what are the innovative solutions in intercity transportation that can extract greater efficiencies and capacity from our physical systems through use of technology, institutional cooperation, and federal policy reform?

This question will form the basis of our panel at the Regional Assembly, "The Future of Intercity Transport," bringing together top administrators, elected officials, and representatives of the Port Authority, U.S. DOT, the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Connecticut Department of Transportation, and Continental Airlines.

Next Gen is sure to be on the agenda -- the modernization of the air traffic control system that will leverage GPS and digital communication technologies, will bring our outdated air traffic control system into the 21st century, promising greater safety, increased airspace capacity, and the ability to better respond to weather related events. And we will discuss other approaches under study by RPA in its Better Airports initiative such as better airport access to Stewart, pricing, auctioning of slots, and shifting short haul flights to high-speed rail.

We'll also focus on the Obama Administration and Congress's hearty endorsement on high-speed rail, signaled by the $10.5 billion in federal appropriations since early 2009 -- bringing U.S. passenger rail out of its long trek in the wilderness and into the bright light of mainstream transportation.

The intention in bringing together these two modes that serve intercity transport in one panel is to understand what synergies and efficiencies can be gained by planning for intercity rail and aviation comprehensively. How do airport benefit by seamlessly connecting to the Northeast Corridor rail network with stations at the terminals? Should federal policy and funding streams that support aviation and high-speed rail be brought together? How can we build and expand on innovations offered by Continental Airlines by code-sharing with Amtrak and allowing passengers to book a rail trip that begins in Wilmington and connects via Newark airport's Airtrain and on to Paris all on Continental.com?

These are some of the questions I'll be asking of my panelists this Friday and urging them to incorporate into their business and policy decisions. I hope you will join us for the discussion.