A lot's been talked about the plan
elsewhere in the forums, albeit not nearly as much for the LI-specific contingencies. Service under a full-build scenario would basically have 3 levels of service; an equivalent of the NE Regional service today, the equivalent of Acela service today, and the super-express service a new spine is built to support. That's from Amtrak's Vision of the NEC (circa 2012), and the EIS the FRA released had more-or-less the same service plans, just with different words. So, basically the current NEC keeps all of its service (with bypassed sections becoming the secondary spine), and the new primary spine gets all 3 levels of service. From the get-go back to the Amtrak Gateway Project, it's never been to
replace service; it's to add a significant amount of capacity.
At any rate, I can't say I particularly
agree with what's being put forth in this EIS, as it does not seem to put cost effectiveness as a part of
any alternatives. The Kenyon bypass of Old Saybrook-Westerly is absurdly expensive through some of the worst terrain on the line... that's why the line follows the shore. And the way it's designed, every "step up" of the alternatives includes the options in the previous alternative, which means you get that or you get basically nothing. It doesn't particularly include the fixing-up of the Shore Line bridges because that's separate and already in the pipes; that's gonna happen regardless, and this bypassed stretch is still going to be operated even if that bypass is constructed. The Hudson River tubes are in a similar boat, as you need those no matter what happens... and with all the roadblocks that has faced and will face, it's definitely a good thing if those don't get bootstrapped to anything else,
particularly this.
I'd also debate about which is the more ludicrous proposition: taking the LI/Cross-Sound route, or blasting your way through every major mountain range/geological system east of Westchester County to Hartford. In both cases you have to deal with rich New Yorkers who aren't going to take to eminent domain very lightly. The Inland routing is tipped more in the scale of engineering difficulty/absurdity than the Cross-Sound route, which is tipped more towards land acquisition difficulty. And both of them still deal with their absurd routing choices east of Hartford to bypass the Shore Line, as neither of the two options in that case (routing to Worcester or routing to Providence) attempt to follow the physical topography at all, even when you have the old NH Midland Line or the owned land CT has in the canceled portions of what is now I-384.
I also really don't particularly accurate to just try and scapegoat this all on the President; the roots of this go far before he could realistically be exerting his executive power. It's much, much more complex than that, as it tends to be the case in political matters. These kinds of problems tend to originate from the ingrained
culture of an agency, because you can't just indiscriminately fire people. The Executive, be it at the State level or the Federal level, only has control as far as the Agency Administrator; and the Admin does not have truly totalitarian control of the rest of the bureaucracy below them. That being said, it doesn't mean the Executive or Agency Admin are completely impotent of power in the agency... just that it's not a black-and-white scenario, and it's hard to tell what's driving these particular bureaucratic machinations when we're external from the system.
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