"Amtrak's new plan leaves you with a really good early-20th-century rail system," said Robert Yaro, one of two Penn professors who taught the students in the School of Design's department of city and regional planning. Yaro is also president of the Regional Plan Association, a New York-area research and policy group.
Amtrak's vision of the future, unlike the students', does not include true high-speed travel, with trains operating at least at 155 m.p.h. on dedicated tracks, free of conflicts with commuter or freight trains.
The Penn students aren't the only ones with higher hopes for fast trains in the Northeast Corridor.
Northeastern members of Congress, including Reps. Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), and Bill Pascrell (D., N.J.), introduced a bill in March to designate the Northeast Corridor a "high-speed corridor."
Ten other U.S. rail corridors have that designation (including the Keystone Corridor between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh), but not the Northeast Corridor, which has the nation's fastest trains.
"This lack of designation shuts states along the NEC out of competing for . . . grant money available to other rail lines, and has already resulted in the NEC missing out on adequate funding for badly needed infrastructure upgrades and rail-expansion projects," Castle, Sestak, Pascrell, and four other representatives said in a recent letter to House leaders. They asked for congressional hearings on high-speed rail development in the Northeast Corridor.
Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph C. Szabo said last week that a new national rail plan to be issued Sept. 15 would make clear the importance of the Northeast Corridor for high-speed rail. He said current distinctions between the designated "high-speed" corridors and the Northeast Corridor would be erased.
