New York's rail stimulus still far from shovel-ready

The Obama and Cuomo administrations have, rightly, directed a considerable amount of federal stimulus dollars into eliminating bottlenecks and otherwise improving rail service. But, as this article from last week's Times Union points out, none of those projects has started in New York because of disputes between the state Department of Transportation and the CSX freight railroad about speed limits and other safety issues.

Scrolling down to the end: "New York state has received more than half a billion dollars in federal high-speed rail money for various projects, ranging from a second track to alleviate a bottleneck between Albany and Schenectady to a fourth track for the Rensselaer Amtrak station and new signals south of Rensselaer. But talks between CSX and the state DOT to allow these projects to proceed have apparently been deadlocked."

Deadlock does not put people to work or make the trains run on time. It would be useful for politicians to notice.

Comments

[Johannah]

Well, safety issues are important. There's an area where compromise isn't appropriate. You want it done right. The discussions between CSX and DOT should be conducted in public or at least regularly and accurately reported to the public.