The transportation system in the tri-state New York Metropolitan Region has been the driving force for its economic growth throughout its history. This is no less true today. While our transit and highway systems were the finest when they were first built, they are aging and were not designed, in many cases, for changing travel demands.
The goals of RPA's mobility program is to present and advocate new ideas (and some old ones that maintain their relevance) that can transform the existing transportation systems for the 21st Century, that can help to knit together the many transportation systems across the three states planned operated by many agencies, that can support sustainable center-based land uses, and to explore opportunities for raising the needed resources to operate, maintain and expand our transportation systems.
The bill would prohibit the use of gasoline-tax revenue to support public transportation, a funding stream that has been in place for more than three decades. If the bill were to pass, it would introduce a level of uncertainty that will make planning for capital projects far more difficult and expensive.
New York and Montreal are only 330 miles apart, but their economic ties are limited. A corridor linking Montreal with New York City that combines energy transmission with high-speed rail and ultra-fast broadband would allow people and information as well as electrical current to make the journey from Montreal to Albany and then New York City.
In Europe and Asia, railroads, electric transmission and broadband corridors are commonly accommodated in the same shared right-of-way. The opportunity exists to do something similar in the U.S., strengthening the economic, energy and information links between Montreal, Albany and the New York area. Read more on the super-corridor's potential in Spotlight, RPA's newsletter, and see a report RPA prepared on the topic.
Over the past several years, Connecticut has bolstered investment in its intercity rail program with new service planned linking Hartford and New Haven and has approved funding to construct the state's first bus rapid transit system.
But Connecticut has significant repair costs ahead and future federal funding is uncertain. A significant gap exists to pay for maintenance projects and for improvements in transit and highway capacity. The state hasn't identified new sources of revenue to pay for these projects or prioritized these unfunded projects in a strategic plan.
Emil Frankel, director of transportation at the Bipartisan Policy Center, will keynote a forum in Hartford on January 20 exploring the state's transportation financing challenges.
Under the governor's proposal, everybody wins. The plan will create much-needed convention space for professional conferences and large trade events. It will generate revenue and jobs in New York through the creation of the largest economic-development project in the state, and it will provide new engines of growth for Queens and Manhattan's West Side. Read RPA's proposal on Javits, Unconventional.
Wondering what a feasible high-speed rail plan for the Northeast looks like? A proposal drafted by University of Pennsylvania's School of Design would connect Washington, D.C., and New York in 90 minutes and New York and Boston in 115 minutes, partly by traveling along a new rail corridor through Long Island and under the Long Island Sound. RPA's Petra Todorovich describes the proposal in a talk at the U.S. High Speed Rail Association conference in New York.
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