Yes, over the long term it will provide a significant boost to the economies of both cities.

Whatever they are telling you for the cost estimate needs to be doubled or tripled.

No chance in hell it will ever be paid for through ticket sales. This will; require permanent taxpayer subsidies just as the original AMTRACK still does decades after it was projected to be self-funding.

I think this is a great idea!

Yes, this is the beginning of progress and the future
Loretha

Thanks for keeping us informed!

Not if the funding comes from the tax-payers. Amtrak is another example of bad governmnet. Look at Amtrak now - it gets our tax dollars to subsidize the cost and in a lot of cases it is still cheaper to fly. Amtrak is a bust.

I know that if becomes true, it will be a bonanza for those of us who live close to Market East and the regional rail lines in Philly since a commute to Manhattan in an hour would make Philly the hottest real estate market in America . . . if you can wait 30 years.

No. Even if 151 million people end up using it, the effective price tag will be $1000 per ride -- in addition to whatever Amtrak's fares end up being.

Trains may be the darling of the green movement, but they are simply not worth the cost.

Absolutely! This would be great for both the business traveler as well as the rest of those who travel for just a day trip or a week end get away at either city and/or surrounding areas.

High speed rail has been one of the nicest travel experiences I have had and would definitely make use of this service. I would like to see one go from Philly to Pittsburgh too!

Absolutely! A boon for Philadelphia as NYC commuters could take advantage of lower-cost housing in Philly. Subsidies for air and road travel (ie airport, air traffic control, highway construction) are exponentially higher than rail. So those of you talking about 'subsidies' remember that all travel is subsidized and rail is so at a much lower cost than air and road.

The alternative to a strong rail system is continuation of our gas dominated culture and world. It is one that is heavily subsidized by governments and, for those fiscal conservatives out there, by taxpayers. If you love big, highway loving government, high taxes, and global warming, then you're against this project.

The project is a sort of 21st century version of the WPA and a win-win for all. I think the U-S is finally realizing that Europe does some things better than we do (rail and health care).

If populations continue to grow along the NE corridor there will be too many cars on the road-constant gridlock with the accompanying wasted fuel, raging air pollution, and increasing human fury and conflict. There will be too many planes in the air, resulting in wasted fuel, circling airports, flying to the wrong places, and ugly dangers of inter-air crashes.
The trains can carry huge numbers of people on dedicated tracks with no cross traffic, no stoppage because of big rainstorms or overheated gasoline motors.

Note that AMTRAK was designed to fail, to assuage the greed of auto and gasoline profiteers. Cars drive on completely subsidized roads, airplanes land on airports subsidized by both Federal and Miunicipal entities; the Fed Gov't pays and maintains services for air traffic controllers. Meanwhile, AMTRAK and other RRs have to maintain their own tracks, stations, communications systems, etc. this was intentional, to destroy rail and promote cars and their roads and their fossils fuels.

By the way, the feds gave priority to freight over passengers on the heavily traveled lines, so that business interests could be subsidized, and the heck with the interests of human passengers. Hence the lovely trains to New Orleans and Chicago often run6+ hours late, because they had to give way to some huge fright train carrying Chinese goods from the CA ports to the eastern seaboard. " Up with commerce from abroad, to heck with people!"

Check out this recent video about Amtrak the subsidies and the truth about just how green it really is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fODAP8EbcSg

Air travel is subsidized about 1 cent/mile where Amtrak gets about 27 cents/mile.

Some one claimed that Europe got it right. Britain privatized the railroad (with a subsidy still) and Japan also privatized the railroad - they both are making a profit.

The trains use diesel locomotives and are slightly "greener" than cars. Cars are getting more fuel efficient and the buses use 1/3 less energy and produce less pollution than the train.

Governmnet took over Amtrak and prices rose. They let freight rail alone and once the got rid of some regulations the cost for freight went down.

If you want to build this rail than get the governmnet out of it.

This is a great idea! I can't stand being on the current Amtrak for another 53 minutes and on Boltbus for another 83!

It's not just Philly->NYC- the goal is to upgrade the entire NEC to true high speed rail. Think about this: the only reason that Amtrak can run Acela- strictly mid-speed rail in a global sense- on the NEC is that the Pennsylvania Railroad did a systems upgrade... in the 1930s. That tells you 2 things: first, that the Pennsy did an incredible job; second, that the US desperately needs to upgrade its rail network.

After traveling all over Europe by train, it astounds me that complete lack of options we have to do something like that in the US. This is more a cultural shift rather than a financial question.

Over the long term? If we thought about the long term we would be investing in children's education and not treating it like it is overhead. $151 billion is about 5 times the annual cost of education in Pennsylvania. I know a lot of people in Harrisburg education is giving money to lazy people but it is actually providing for the future.

The question makes it sound as if the new line from Philadelphia to New York would cost $151 billion, whereas that cost covers the whole route between Boston and Washington. The savings in time, money and pollution will more than pay for the requested capital investment. Such a quick and efficient rail system up and down the corridor will attract as many riders as it can handle, saving a huge amount of energy, reducing automobile and airport congestion. Think how much less time the train trip from Philadelphia to Washington will take than traveling by plane or car. We can be in Washington already before an airplane passenger will even have taken off, and before a car driver will have reached Maryland House.

The YouTube critique by the rightwing Cato Institute ignores the crucial difference between the Northeast Corridor, which runs entirely on electric power and is already heavily used, and the rest of the Amtrak system, where Amtrak is totally at the mercy of the freight lines which own the track. It also overlooks the tremendous benefits which trains provide to people who fly and drive free of the train passengers' competition for seats and highway space.

A more useful commuter upgrade might be service along the Rt. 422 corridor.

I'd like to see them do one from Portland to Miami, covering the whole east coast, and another from Seattle to San Diego. Make high speed rail really worthwhile. It's a huge investment, but it would be worth it.

I'd rather they improve the time from here to Pittsburgh. 8 hours, the current time, is absolutely ridiculous! you could drive there and back in that amount of time.

The high speed rail push is all about UN AGENDA 21 and population being corralled into high density inner city housing....and loss of private property rights....it's like having people cluelessly digging their own graves. What they are selling, you don't want. http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/2011/Aug/usda-epa_partnership.html

Facts are facts. Opinions are just that.

PS The CATO Institute is a Libertarian think tank - hardly right wing. Both men in the video are also Libertarian.

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/07/agenda-21-micro-apartment-scheme-being.html

this is what is coming