A high-speed train that could take you from NYC to Boston in 100 minutes could actually happen
It’s still in the preliminary discussion phase, but it is certainly something worth getting excited about: A new super-high-speed train might be able to take you from New York City to Boston in less than 100 minutes.
RECOMMENDED: 13 subway stations are getting an upgrade this summer
Specifically, the new train could reach 200 miles per hour and transport passengers from Boston’s South Station to New York’s Penn Station in about an hour and forty minutes—less than half the time the trip currently requires. It would also travel the other way around: up Long Island, through a tunnel below the Sound, reaching New Haven, Hartford, Providence and then Boston.
Dubbed North Atlantic Rail, the initiative encompasses additional improvements as well: proposals include an east-west link between Boston, Springfield and Hartford and a slew of other services in the area, connections to MacArthur, Logan, JFK and LaGuardia airports, not to mention the creation of jobs, environmentally-friendly electrifications of currently-in-place railway systems, possible pollution reductions and more.
The budget for the high-speed rail would ideally be secured through President Joe Biden’s recently passed $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill, but none of the plans are near development stages just yet.
Gothamist reports reinvigorated support from influential transit planners and labor leaders may push it forward.
According to Mass Transit Magazine, New England lawmakers just recently “had a call with an urban planner who’s pitching” the project, one of the “many conversations happening now among members of the Northeast Congressional delegation about securing high-speed rail for the […] region.”
Before you get all excited, we should mention that, if accepted, the project would take 20 years to be completed and cost billions of dollars. Maybe we should just be happy we have the subway stations that we do.
New Yorkers can dream, though, can’t they?