Skift Take
U of Penn’s route proposal would save Amtrak $51 billion off their original plans and includes financing ideas, an issue Amtrak has been wary to address in planning high-speed routes for the Northeast.
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As Amtrak studies how to bring bullet trains to its frantically busy Northeast Corridor, one design team is suggesting a radically new route requiring a roughly 18-mile-long tunnel beneath Long Island Sound.
Trains speeding from Washington to Boston would run through the heart of Long Island, cross into Connecticut through a tunnel emerging in Milford, head to Hartford and then race east toward Worcester on new tracks running alongside I-84.
Amtrak is focusing on its own “NextGen High-Speed Rail” map for the corridor, a proposal that would skip the Long Island section and cost an estimated $151 billion. But PennDesign’s plan isn’t off the table.
