Finally, somewhere where my niche special interest can be informative!! Heartily agree with OP, trains are bitchin.

Mostly every agency and politician in the northeast agrees in principle that rail service needs to be better. the disagreement is over how much to spend over it and where the efforts should be focused on. But the conversation is happening, and there is common ground over the need to do something. That's new, and we shouldn't take it for granted.

But like all the other proposals for a high speed line under the Sound that have come before this one, it misses the forest for the trees. There's a bigger issue of equity that a high speed rail proposal has to be able to address.

Starting with the obvious, Connecticut is ridiculously segregated on a town by town basis that also just so happens to coincide with economic wellbeing and racial identity. A town like Fairfield, literally one of the wealthiest in the country, is right next to Bridgeport, one of the most under-resourced. and Bridgeport just so happens to be one of the most diverse cities in the state! that's totally coincidental, right?

High speed rail, or at least the North Atlantic Rail proposal, primarily serves major population centers in CT (New Haven, Hartford, mainly). Yet, most of the inter-regional travelers who would use high speed service are going to be, more likely than not, affluent. They don't live in the places that high speed service would serve, but in the catchment around these places (ie, suburbs). In other words, most of the people who use these services will either commute in if they live nearby or move into CT's cities in order to take advantage of the service and to avail of lower living costs than that in the destinations the train would serve. That's a recipe for gentrification and the displacement of present residents, folks.

Well planned transportation shouldn't reinforce the bad spatial traits of the past century which already cause us so many problems, from traffic jams to car-centricity. If we're gonna spend 100 billion on high speed rail, we might as well transform the places the project impacts for the better as part of the process and do it right, right?

I think that what CTDOT is doing by focusing on the improvement of existing transport infrastructure and the reasonable expansion of services is really important as a prerequisite to larger projects like high speed rail, and a necessary part of equitably planning transportation, which is what a state agency working for the benefit of all state residents should do. Without that baseline of improved and reliable commuter rail service (or bus service!), you'd basically have a reverse white flight back into the cities because of the new utility that HSR would provide and because of present suburbia's ability to afford its usage. But by building out and improving existing services, CTDOT is ensuring that the state's most vulnerable and under-resourced aren't the sacrificial lamb for this century's sexy infrastructure projects in the same way that they were for the 20th century's interstate construction.

Take what has happened with rail in CT recently and what will happen in the near term starting with Lamont's Time for CT plan. It's not funded at present, but odds are that it will receive federal funding relatively soon thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that got passed and due to the New Haven Line being the busiest rail line in the western hemisphere. For between 6-8 billion, it will bring the New Haven line to a good state of repair while increasing travel times by 35 minutes. It's not high speed rail, but it's nothing to sneeze at, and would enable high speed rail to move forward sustainably. not bad for 6 to 8% of the high speed rail's proposed cost.

Similarly, you have the introduction of M8 electric locomotives on the Shore Line East which are reducing travel times and increasing service reliability. The line is also under study for extension to Westerly, RI and to Norwich, CT. Hopefully, all these improvements will encourage more people to use rail in eastern CT, and the more people who use rail, the more political pressure there is to make rail service better!

You also have the recently completed Hartford Line, which has exceeded ridership expectations even with the crappy refurbished diesel equipment it uses. CTDOT is currently working on a planning study for whether or not the line should be electrified. I'm not a betting man, but I would wager that it will indeed be electrified and have express tracks added, because electrification will all but ensure that whatever future high speed rail scheme occurs will travel between Hartford and New Haven, much to the state's benefit. The traffic and usage of the line will increase dramatically thanks to the greater frequency and reliability from electric trains, too, which in turn would allow for existing non-electric train equipment to be used on other rail lines. Electrification would also make 91 suck a whole lot less for the people who would continue to use it by causing a modal shift towards train travel within the corridor.

There are also CTDOT studies in progress around the feasibility of potential electrification of the Waterbury Branch of the New Haven Line. There was a study which recommended electronification of the Danbury branch under Malloy as well, but since it only would lead to a projected 5% increase in ridership I don't know how high on the priority list for the state that project is.

And how can you forget what the state is doing in terms of bus mobility and micro mobility? CT Fasttrak is quite literally the second highest rated Bus Rapid Transit system in the US next to Albuquerque's ART, and it's so successful that it's got a proposed expansion east to Storrs via i84's carpool lanes. Thanks to partnership with apps like Transit, CTTransit's buses are easier to track and use, and the routes and rolling stock are likely to be upgraded in the future following the current push to modernize stations. CTDOT is also trialing micromobility services (think like a on-demand minibus that comes and picks you up while serving the transport needs of others who have requested travel) that will give people the first reliable alternative to car ownership in a long, long time.

If we manage to bring our current railroads and buses to a state of good repair and do all these necessary upgrades we've been needing to do for half a century, then and only then can we start talking about regional high speed rail more seriously.

I for one can wait until we're able to do high speed rail to NYC right. The pizza's better here anyway.