Albany Area Rising- need commuter rail

[Miker]

Bringing this topic back to life. Current opinions???

[juppiter]

Originally Posted by JiminCT

Hartford needs above ground ELECTRIC lines on that rail...and refurbished stations. THey still use diesel engines for the Amtrak line.

Albany...simply too small right now to warrant commuter rail

Do you realize that the metro populations of Albany and Hartford are actually comparable in size?

[JayCT]

Yes, Hartford and Albany are comparable in size but the rail line being proposed serves three metropolitan areas (Hartford, Springfield and New Haven) and connects to one of the busiest commuter rail lines in the world (Metro-North's New Haven line). So it would connect 2 million people to a system that serves another 5 million. a little better than the albany system. Jay

[jackson92186]

Guys we need to step into the 21st century. I understand why people like to drive--its faster! If you can provide something faster for people to go to work, they will take it regardless of gas prices. That's why I advocate maglev, its way faster, not that expensive to construct (under 20million a mile) and has an elevated design so it can be completely grade separated simply by building it over streets. And it also has way less maintenance costs, and uses less than 70 percent electricity than conventional electric rail. Lets drop the light rail discussion, or the old commuter train. You guys need to realize this is the future, we need to do something different and take a step forward while doing so. This type of system would be extremely profitable btw.

[jackson92186]

I want to say u guys are on the right track but the track you want is a maglev track, not conventional rail track. But from a figurative sense, u guys are on the right track.

[jackson92186]

check out the article in TU. Front page online, about this exact issue. But between u n me, they got it wrong. Light rail sucks. Maglev, son!!