Binghamton NY - New York City NYC Passenger Rail Discussion

Dutch,
My endless pit of facts comes mainly from the Cutoff EA. Other than that, I get information from NJT's public schedules, public information about ARC and a little from a copy of the Stewart Airport rail link feasibility study (which is where my comment about curve realignments in rural areas comes from, which I admit, is a bit of speculation). My calculations come from my calculator on my computer. If you actually read what I said, going to NYP requires a transfer at Newark-Broad Street. I speculate, yes, but I use mostly facts. (Usually when I speculate, I precede it with "I'd imagine," "I think," "I doubt," etc. I rarely assert my speculations to be true, although I do forget sometimes).

dutch..read the EA please before posting sarcastic information

You can read all you want, but planning started in 1979 and were not one mile closer to actually laying track, so forget Binghamton.
proposals in transportation are like fairytales, they make you sleep well.

There's a difference between a feasibility study and Environmental Assessment. An Environmental Assessment (or an EIS) is a requirement for federal funding. This is part of the process of getting a project done not a general study to find if a project should be done. There is a huge difference between 1979 and 2007. Passenger rail was on the downturn until relatively recently. People who keep on whining "we've been waiting 20+ years, its not going to happen" completely ignore the difference in development and traffic congestion in the intervening years. If they did it 20 years ago, there would be hardly any demand to justify service because of lack of development and the relatively low cost of congestion. That is certainly not true today.

rght, maybe after I retire , I will come to see the first train on the cutoff but L doubt I will see it however.

DutchRailnut wrote:rght, maybe after I retire , I will come to see the first train on the cutoff but L doubt I will see it however.

Well then I hope to still see you on the forum at that point. We'll see over the next year or so and see where the EA goes.

I'm sure the EA and all of the other studies will be in the hands of the big wigs for several years until they forget about it or realize that the idea really isnt all that good. NJT's padded schedules and slow trains will make people realize that the train really isnt any faster or cheaper than driving. They will then resort to their cars. I will guarantee you that NJT is not going to be raising speeds on the M&E any time in the near or distant future to make this idea work.

You must realize that the only ideas that actually come to fruition are paid for by the Port Authority or some other agency... NJT's ideas float up in the air for a while and then are forgotten about when it comes to adding service to new towns.

The Feds are broke, NJT is broke, NJ is upto its ears in debt for THE Tunnel, forget about the CutOFF and Binghamton.

The other option is we can have another 10% fare increase to pay for the Lackawanna cutoff! That means that all commuters would pay more money to subsidize the building of track for the 18 or so people a day that will travel from Scranton.

Yeah, but the sad part is the subsequent fare increases at NJT will probably go towards paying for more 10,20 & 30 year feasibility studies for other candidate projects and other lines.

With regards to the Cutoff, I don't care how close it is to becoming federally funded... Once NJT sends the EA to the feds (probably years from now) it will just be piled up under a bunch of other, probably more important transportation documents from other states. Face it folks, the Cutoff is a long way from getting the $550 million from the feds!!

SecaucusJunction wrote:I'm sure the EA and all of the other studies will be in the hands of the big wigs for several years until they forget about it or realize that the idea really isnt all that good. NJT's padded schedules and slow trains will make people realize that the train really isnt any faster or cheaper than driving. They will then resort to their cars. I will guarantee you that NJT is not going to be raising speeds on the M&E any time in the near or distant future to make this idea work.

You must realize that the only ideas that actually come to fruition are paid for by the Port Authority or some other agency... NJT's ideas float up in the air for a while and then are forgotten about when it comes to adding service to new towns.

You completely ignored my point about the differences in rail over the years. As to not serving new towns, ask the people who live in North Bergen, Union City, Wehawkin, Bayonne, Burlington, Camden, etc.

DutchRailnut wrote:The Feds are broke, NJT is broke, NJ is upto its ears in debt for THE Tunnel, forget about the CutOFF and Binghamton.

Dutch,
You are very knowledgable when it comes to regulations and rail equiptment but not so much here. NJT is not up to its ears in debt because of THE tunnel because NJT is not paying for it. $1 billion is coming from the highway swap and $3 billion is coming from the port authority. The rest is supposed to come from the feds. I don't know of any evidence to show that the feds will not pay for it because they are "broke" ($4 billion dollars over the course of the 9 years the project is supposed to take is nothing considering the size of the federal budget). Anyhow its generally a mistake to say that NJT "pays" for any of its capital projects. If you read the capital budget, it is all paid for by various funding sources (primarilly the TTF), none of which come from the farebox.

Insofar as Binghamton is concerned, I really don't know if it would ever happen. Maybe it would, maybe it would not. It's really in its embryonic stages so time will tell. The Cutoff, on the other hand, has real market potential (from the Gap, Poconos) and is an actual project undergoing the required steps. It also has millions of dollars already earmarked for it in congress.

SecaucusJunction wrote:The other option is we can have another 10% fare increase to pay for the Lackawanna cutoff! That means that all commuters would pay more money to subsidize the building of track for the 18 or so people a day that will travel from Scranton.

You know as well as I do (at least I hope) that fares don't pay for the capital budget.

lvrr325 wrote:The bus is great, until you hit wall to wall traffic jams for 10 straight miles because one lane is blocked for construction or because of an accident, anywhere in Jersey or Eastern PA on I-80. I suppose you could take a bus that goes I-86, instead.

But I would think after about 10 minutes of sitting in traffic with a busload of people, the train's going to look pretty attractive even if there is no time savings.

And personally, I'd drive myself before I took a bus.


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Nice idea, about taking the family car. I am sure you forgot that parking costs in Manhattan is astronomical. The 2 hour and 53 minute bus ride (express) from Downtown Binghamton to the Port Authority Bus Terminal is not bad. But, your very valid point is the delays, and lets add the weather, as I81 is an unsafe road from PA line to Scranton and the bottleneck from the Poconos to the Delaware Gap on I80. This weekend was classic. And....I drive a bus, and was in NYCity when the storms hit. Auburn to New York via Binghamton and Scranton. Road conditions were bad enough to warrant the return trip via Route I87 to Albany and onto I90.

The bus company I work for has 14 large charter buses, 11 were in NY. Is there a demand? Probably. Costs 50 people $40. each to round trip to NY City. A train ride would need to be cheaper, so to offset the extra cost of the rider to stay overnight in NY versus the ride out to NJ to cheaper hotels, sometimes $100 + a night cheaper.

Passenger Rail transportation is a need. But has to be feasible, in the big picture for it to have ridership, otherwise it would be like Rochesters Fast Ferry.

Lets see, 2 hr 53 minutes on bus or 5+ hours on a train including a transfer. Not too many people like trains as much as I do and I wouldnt even go for that one. Round Trip peak fares at Port Jervis are $33 so I doubt that Binghamton would even come close to a $40 fare... off peak to PJ is $25.

So more money, more time and the hassle of transferring will cause absolutely no one to take the train from Binghamton to NYC. It just doesnt make any sense.

oh stop it secaucus junction. Look at amtrak on the water level route. You can take the train from syracuse, utica or albany to NYC or drive as well. Using your demented logic noone would ever take THAT service either, since its faster using the NYS Thruway..but people do and lots will continue to take those amtrak trains.

Yeah but you cant get around the fact that its 2 hours faster to take the bus... and probably quite a bit cheaper. People are also used to taking the bus so it would be very difficult to change their behavior. Unfortunately, the only people who would probably ride a train from Binghamton to NYC would be wearing "I LUV NORFOLK SOUTHERN" hats.