March 18, 2025 • 22 mins
Brett Weber joins us to discuss the effort to return passenger rail service to Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, connecting Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton to New York City. This initiative would revitalize a historic rail corridor while providing environmental benefits and economic opportunities for the region.
• All Aboard Lehigh Valley is working to reestablish passenger service along an existing freight rail corridor
• The route is part of Amtrak's "Connects US" plan and is considered one of the most valuable potential corridors in the country
• Passenger and freight trains can coexist through infrastructure improvements like additional tracks and longer sidings
• The project addresses environmental concerns by reducing car dependency and improving regional air quality
• Estimated cost of about $500 million represents a small portion of overall transportation spending
• Economic benefits include downtown revitalization and better connectivity to New York City
• The public can get involved through the Rail Passengers Association or by attending upcoming events
• A Lehigh Valley Rail Briefing is scheduled for March 20th at Lafayette College with key industry speakers
Join us at the Lehigh Valley Rail Briefing on Thursday, March 20th from 8am to 12pm at Williams Center for the Arts at Lafayette College. There's a networking breakfast from 7-8am, free parking, and free admission for students with valid ID. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit allaboardlehighvalley.org or search "Lehigh Valley Rail Briefing" on Eventbrite.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, my name is Sherry and welcome to my podcast,
silver Tea.
And this episode is about allaboard and we're going to talk
to Brett Weber, who is workingon a project that sounds so
interesting a passenger trainthat's going to.
They're trying to run throughthe Lehigh Valley, but I'm going
(00:20):
to let Brett tell you moreabout that.
So, brett, hi, thank you andwelcome to my podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thanks, sherry.
So I am an architect that's myday job and I'm involved in a
variety of nonprofit initiativesand I now live, I grew up, in
the Delaware River Valley but Imoved up to Easton, pennsylvania
, up at the forks of theDelaware where the Lehigh comes
(00:46):
in, and it's kind of aconvergence with another role
that I have where I serve aspresident of the Friends of the
Delaware Canal.
It's where the Delaware Canalstarts and runs from Easton all
the way down to Bristol, but upat that point also the kind of
headwaters of the beginning ofthe Industrial Revolution where
the canal started.
The rail historically was areally big thing, and so the
(01:09):
Lehigh Valley Railroad, thePennsylvania Railroad and the
Central New Jersey Railroadsconnected New York, new Jersey,
through Pennsylvania in theLehigh Valley and then
ultimately it became a reallybig steel hub and steel route
because of Bethlehem Steel andall of the other production up
there.
The group that I've come to beassociated with and that kind of
(01:31):
reformed and restarted back in2024 was All Aboard and we
changed the name to All AboardLehigh Valley, and so the
mission of our organization isto return passenger rail service
to the Lehigh Valley, and thisis an existing rail corridor
that extends from right now fromAllentown through Bethlehem,
(01:52):
through Easton, through NewJersey, into New York, and so
it's active as a freightcorridor but it's historically
was a really great connection ofa passenger rail system.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Okay, so this is something that is a feature that
you're projecting just tohappen in the future with this
passenger train, so can you tellus a little bit more about how
it's going to impact, I guess,people that are traveling from
there to New York and something?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
there.
Sure, it forms a part of whatAmtrak is, the national train
operator and Amtrak has the sortof national network of long
distance routes.
Amtrak has had this on theirmap of Amtrak connects US or
connects the United States as aplan for through 2030 or 2050.
(02:44):
And they have a national planfor all of this.
And Allentown to New York cityis one of the most valuable and
potentially productive corridorsin the country because there
are lots of other longerdistance.
This doesn't really qualify as along distance route but Amtrak
has has seen this as animportant corridor because of
(03:07):
the Allentown-Bethlehem-Eastonis referred to as the ABE metro
area and the population growthover the next 25 years is well
over 100,000 people,no-transcript, and it has
(03:34):
different potential connectionsthrough New Jersey and requires
the partnership of New JerseyTransit transit.
But it gets us a train systemthat would run from Allentown to
New York City and with somekind of a proposed daily
operation.
That makes it meaningful forcommuting but also for all the
other reasons why people travelAmtrak, which have changed a lot
(03:57):
in the last 10 or 20 years.
Not everybody is really usingit as kind of a daily commute
thing.
It's more pleasure andlifestyle travel.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Oh, okay.
So I know you talked about thefreight train.
Now how will this projectaddress potential conflicts with
the freight rail operations onthe Sherrod track, the William
track?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Sure, so right now it's exclusively freight and
it's a very busy freightcorridor.
But there are lots of examplesfrom around the country, one
particularly in Virginia, wherethere was a significant
partnership between VirginiaPassenger Rail, the freight rail
(04:39):
lines.
The FRA, the Federal RailroadAdministration, is the sort of
key player in all of this andthey basically provide a
requirement for meeting thestandards of, uh, what has to be
done for accommodating freight,which means additional tracks,
longer sidings to reach uh long,uh longer trains, um and so
(05:04):
it's a planning and designprocess, but there's a lot of
right-of-way and more than ampletrack dimension for us to be
able to achieve that.
That's something that happensor is fundamentally undertaken
during detailed design.
And just to give you a littlebackground, while this is
something that's been talkedabout a lot for the last 10 or
20 years, well, this issomething that's been talked
(05:25):
about a lot for the last 10 or20 years.
In the last year, penndot soPennsylvania Department of
Transportation with WSP, whichis an international engineering
and design planning firm, wspprepared a Lehigh Valley
passenger rail study and it'sthe initial phase which looked
at a lot of different options.
(05:48):
It looked at what does it meanif we connect to Reading.
What does it mean if we connectto Philadelphia?
What does it mean if we connectto New York?
And I think from our purposes,from our perspective as a
nonprofit and advocate group,we're looking at what's the sort
of biggest prize, what is thebiggest potential economic
impact driver, and that's reallyconnecting to New York, and the
idea being also that Amtrak hasa federal mandate and a
prioritization of access to rail.
(06:10):
So that means, like whenAmtrak's on the rail system and
in the routes, they haveprioritization for throughput,
which means their trains have togo through and freight has to
wait, and it's also a command onthe right ofway.
So it gives Amtrak a prioritywhich an independent rail
organization wouldn't have.
And there's precedent for thattoo, if you've ever ridden the
(06:33):
train from, say, harrisburg outto Pittsburgh not many people do
, but that ridership is growingand that's an important line
which is heavy freight andpassenger, and they've made
accommodations to accommodatethe freight.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Okay, so when you're talking about the right-of-ways,
that sounds I work inengineering too and that sounds
like that's a lot of work andyou have to try to get all those
right-of-ways in there.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I mean, what is the estimated cost of the project,
including the construction andthe annual expenses, I guess, to
try to get the right-of-ways inthere, well, so yeah, so one of
the things that's interestingis that the freight lines are
owned by the freight companiesnow, and so in some cases in
different parts of the state,for example, amtrak owns the
(07:23):
track, and in Virginia, thestate rail authority reacquired
right away and actual rail right.
In the case of Pennsylvaniarail in the Lehigh Valley,
connecting through to New Jerseyand to Penn Station in New York
, we're dealing with trackthat's controlled by New Jersey
(07:43):
Transit, so there's apartnership that would have to
occur there.
But the main thing is that therail routes and the existing
right-of-way.
So for anybody who doesn't knowwhat a right-of-way is,
essentially that there is landthat's owned, but there's an
existing path for the rail.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
If it's not fully built out, there's an
opportunity to build more, andso that's what's different than
looking at other lines orconnections, to say Philadelphia
, where there might be aright-of-way but there's not
even a track anymore.
In some cases there areencumbrances or things that have
been built into theright-of-way or challenge the
development of that railconnection.
(08:22):
So the New York connection is,it still will cost a significant
amount of money to do theimprovements to reach it.
But the thing that we're reallypursuing and it's one of the
things that the briefing isgoing to address is some new
data about cost and timeline,sort of updated, because Amtrak
has been doing much moreconstruction and management of
(08:43):
these projects in the last fiveto 10 years, and most recently
over the last five years.
Really that we'll get to someof those answers.
But the main thing is that theeconomic impact of the projects
is huge.
So there's a significantmultiplier for every dollar
that's spent on infrastructure.
There's a significant paybackto the economy, and so those
(09:06):
models will be completed.
But we're talking about a railcorridor that existed
historically in the early 20thcentury that connected all of
these cities and they hadstations, they had connections.
People understood and stillrecall that service.
There are many people stillliving that recall the service
(09:27):
and can see that happening again.
So it's not like building arailroad in a new landscape.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You talk about landscape, so what environment
considerations needed to beaddressed during the
construction and operation ofthis whole project?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Anything that exists on the books is something that
has to be addressed.
I think that, again, in thiscase it's not a question of new
rail where there isn't rail.
So a lot of the environmentalissues and other issues for
communities are going to bewhere does the development
happen around the corridor?
Because the rail exists, sowhere there's.
(10:08):
You know, right now the freightlines run right through the
middle of phillipsburg in newjersey, right through easton,
right through bethlehem andallentown.
It's.
It's really going to be a focus, I think, mostly on what are
the impacts for, uh, trainstation development and
development that's related tothat.
Each municipality will need tolook at the impacts and where
(10:32):
they guide development so thatit's a really positive and smart
thing.
And in the rail corridors thereare all sorts of safety
considerations to be concernedabout crossings and that sort of
stuff.
So I think those are thebiggest thing.
On the environmental front, thebig news is really that
passenger rail solves a lot ofthe environmental problems that
(10:52):
are pressing the Lehigh Valley.
If you Google air quality inthe Lehigh Valley, you'll see
how many days it sort of exceedsfederal standards, whatever
standards we have remaining ofair quality monitoring.
We need to get cars off theroad.
We need to reduce the sort ofdependence on vehicular
(11:13):
transportation and one of thethings that we're looking at in
Lehigh Valley is that there'sthe opportunity to connect the
rail directly to aninternational airport, so the
ABE, allentown, bethlehemEastern Area Airport.
There's a rail line there.
There's the potential ofconnecting that directly.
Those things start to reallysignificantly reduce rel and
(11:34):
we're using that longer distancetrain with Amtrak going to New
York City to also do inner citytraffic, which we were talking
about earlier you know gettingbeing able to hop on a train and
sort of use it like the oldelectric trolley lines that used
(11:57):
to exist between the cities.
Those were the old interurbans.
But you have this, you knowservice that is not a transit
system that provides theequivalent of that.
You know sort of a higher levelof quality in an Amtrak service
, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So I mean.
So.
For me that sounds like howwould you offset this cost?
How will it impact thecommunity?
Will like what would be theaffordability for all residents?
Will it be too expensive?
Would I want to get in my car?
Would I want to get on thistrain?
Because I can't afford to?
So it's.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
You know, pricing structure is one of the things
that Amtrak, as an operator,would need to tailor to make it
make sense for, say, inner citytravel.
But because all of these linesare state-sponsored rail lines,
because all of these lines arestate-sponsored rail lines, so
there's a level of federalfunding that sort of takes care
of the initial potentially, atleast in the existing system
(12:53):
there's sort of a kind ofinitial development period, and
the state-sponsored rail meansthat there's a contribution from
the state, government and staterevenues to ensure that the
rail service operates.
And so part of that fundingequation impacts how, or could
(13:17):
impact, the rate structure.
To say, we want rates to bemore meaningfully affordable
between the cities, let's say inPennsylvania, so we're only
hitting three cities, and thatyou know it's not necessarily
like a third of the fare to NewYork City, you know.
So there could be someaccommodation there.
But, as I mentioned before, youhave to figure out what's the
(13:37):
cost of an Uber, let's say, or arideshare costs from Allentown
to Bethlehem or to Easton, andif you can get a fare that's
less than that, it becomesreally attractive.
And it's different too, becauseit's supposed to be about
encouraging people to be able tobe in those downtown areas and
walk to a station and get on thetrain and walk off the train
(13:59):
and be where they want to be.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Okay, so for the community.
I mean, what type of communityinvolvement do you have?
Like?
Could they contribute orsupport this project?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Sure, so one of the things that I do is I serve as a
member of the Rail PassengersAssociation, which is a roughly
50,000-member strongorganization that advocates for
passenger rail.
So that's a national initiative, but it's open to the public to
become a member, and it's partof like any other advocacy group
, you get involved and you havean opportunity to get more
(14:33):
direct feedback on what'shappening in Washington, what's
happening at the state level,and, if you're really interested
that's one of the best ways tostay engaged with what's going
on will have a membership statusshortly, because we just
received an approval for ournonprofit fiscal sponsorship
through HSI, which is based inBethlehem.
(14:54):
They're a nonprofit fiscalsponsor, so they allow us to act
like a nonprofit and do all thethings a nonprofit can do to
raise money and to support ouradvocacy until we achieve our
own nonprofit status, so that'llbe coming up shortly.
One of the best things to do,though, is we'll be coming to
this, which is the Lehigh ValleyRail Briefing, which is coming
(15:17):
up this Thursday at LafayetteCollege, and it's a public forum
, but, importantly, it's got alot of key people from the rail
industry, so we haverepresentatives from Meredith
Richards, who's our chair fromRail Passengers Association.
She's going to be talking aboutVirginia as a really great case
(15:37):
study and precedent for whatPennsylvania could do.
Importantly because theydevelop their own rail authority
to help really guide more ofthe responsibility of developing
rail across the state forpassenger rail.
Jim Matthews, who's thepresident and CEO of Rail
Passengers, he's going to betalking about sort of national
trends and national examples.
Importantly, probably thekeynote speaker for us is really
(16:00):
Joseph Barr, who's director ofplanning for Network East and
Amtrak and he hasn't really donea public engagement piece.
This is more of a briefing,it's not a workshop.
But we also have Brian Licari,who's vice president at eConsult
Solutions, and they're economicimpact consultants that do
assessments and do reports andthey've done a lot of stuff in
(16:21):
the Philadelphia area andnationally, have a lot of
international expertise.
And we have a fellow comingfrom David Peter Allen, who's a
contributing editor for RailwayAge and so he's talking about.
He's ridden a million miles ofrail around the country and can
talk about the importance ofAmtrak and as a service really
(16:42):
to the country and as a serviceto connect people.
To answer your question aboutpublic engagement, the Delaware
Valley Planning Commission andDelaware Valley Transportation
Study the study is the projectof the Planning Commission and
(17:05):
the DVPC is the MPO, so they arethe regional planning authority
and they provide and are fundedto provide and and structure
the public engagement for review, and so there was a public
review and comment period andengagement workshops for the
initial passenger rail study andthere'll be another one as it
(17:27):
comes forward.
So we're looking forward toworking with them.
They're the official planningagency, if you will, and the
cities will also have their ownplanning departments and
planning agencies have publicinput about what's happening in
their respective cities.
But that stuff will happen asthe plan goes forward.
(17:48):
The key thing is really for usto all together, as a community,
determine that that's the routethat wants to be pursued, and
that may be something that hasto come out of a phase two study
or it is determined bylegislators and the commission
as something to pursue.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
And so what's the feedback so far from the
community?
I mean, what you getting backfrom that?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
So it's interesting.
I mean, I think that there's alot of fatigue, quite frankly,
about having talked about thisfor 10 or 20 years.
Yeah, and what's interesting,though, in terms of the last
administration's significantmulti-billion dollar investment
in rail nationally on thefederal level, that really was a
(18:35):
shot in the arm for Amtrak.
And so there are new cars andnew services that people are
going to experience around thecountry, and that's really key,
I think, for Americans toactually experience a really
great rail experience and thenunderstand that it's achievable.
In terms of our direct response.
I think there's a lot ofenthusiasm about stuff coming
(18:55):
back to life, and sometimes itjust takes a new person to come
into the conversation with a newobservation.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, Iwasn't born in the Lehigh Valley
, but I'm a resident there nowand I've I'm happy to be there
and really excited to be thereand want to be a part of helping
(19:17):
to move this, this forward witha can do attitude, and I think
that it's really a question ofwhat do we want to do, and it's,
you know, amtrak is a service.
It's treated as a business, butit's really a service.
Penndot agencies like PennDOThave enormous budgets in the
(19:37):
billions of dollars.
I think the current budgetrequest is around $12 billion,
more potentially with additionalfederal funds.
When you're looking at maybe a$500 million expenditure to do a
lot of the capital improvements, it's sort of a drop in the
bucket in the kind of overalltransportation landscape.
(19:59):
So right now we're looking atreally having counties and
cities and perhaps the statekick in the funds to fund
something that's roughly between$400,000 and $500,000 as a
phase two study to commit to thecorridor that we want to pursue
and then, once that's done,then you need to get into the
really detailed planning of whatdoes that corridor really cost.
(20:23):
Again, some of it will berelated to us in this briefing
by Amtrak, as here's what theupdated numbers are.
Here's what the updated look is.
Not too long ago, amtrak andothers were projecting that you
could have something in a threeto five year kind of timeframe.
It depends if the focus isreally on the New York route,
(20:44):
that may be a possibility.
Others will look to a 10 to 20year timeline, but that's the
nature of these things.
But it's really.
The point is that there has tobe a decision now for us to move
forward and for that to be areality.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
So, brett, I want to thank you for coming on the show
, and can you tell us one moretime when this briefing is going
to be?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yes, yes, and so it's Thursday, March 20th.
It's from 8 am to 12 noon.
There's a networking breakfast7 to 8.
It's Williams Center for theArts at Lafayette College, 317
Hamilton Street in Easton.
There's free parking and ifyou're a student with a valid ID
, it's free.
Also, I want to mention that weare planning a full Lehigh
(21:30):
Valley summit, a rail summit, inOctober of this year, also at
Lafayette College.
So save the date.
It'll be an importantopportunity and we can do
another conversation about that,and we're also hoping to launch
a series of workshops betweennow and then that will be held
(21:51):
in Easton, Bethlehem andAllentown, so that we're
actually reaching out to all ofthose communities.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Okay, so where can they find this information?
Can we post that?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Best question.
So that isallaboardlehighvalleyorg.
And our event is.
You can purchase tickets fromthat website.
You can also search onEventbrite for Lehigh Valley
Rail Briefing and you'll find itthere.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Thank you, brett, for coming and giving us the
information.
I mean it was very, veryinsightful and informational.
If you're looking for theinformation, you know where to
go.
Go to all aboardlehighvalleyorg and go check out
the information and getinvolved.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Thank you.
So my listeners and my viewers,you know to always say early
detection is the best protection.
So get your annual mammogramsdone.
If you haven't gotten it done,what are you waiting for?
If you got it done, put it onyour calendar for next year and
until then, I'll see you on thenext episode.
Hi, my name is Sherry and welcome to my podcast,
silver Tea.
And this episode is about allaboard and we're going to talk
to Brett Weber, who is workingon a project that sounds so
interesting a passenger trainthat's going to.
They're trying to run throughthe Lehigh Valley, but I'm going
(00:20):
to let Brett tell you moreabout that.
So, brett, hi, thank you andwelcome to my podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thanks, sherry.
So I am an architect that's myday job and I'm involved in a
variety of nonprofit initiativesand I now live, I grew up, in
the Delaware River Valley but Imoved up to Easton, pennsylvania
, up at the forks of theDelaware where the Lehigh comes
(00:46):
in, and it's kind of aconvergence with another role
that I have where I serve aspresident of the Friends of the
Delaware Canal.
It's where the Delaware Canalstarts and runs from Easton all
the way down to Bristol, but upat that point also the kind of
headwaters of the beginning ofthe Industrial Revolution where
the canal started.
The rail historically was areally big thing, and so the
(01:09):
Lehigh Valley Railroad, thePennsylvania Railroad and the
Central New Jersey Railroadsconnected New York, new Jersey,
through Pennsylvania in theLehigh Valley and then
ultimately it became a reallybig steel hub and steel route
because of Bethlehem Steel andall of the other production up
there.
The group that I've come to beassociated with and that kind of
(01:31):
reformed and restarted back in2024 was All Aboard and we
changed the name to All AboardLehigh Valley, and so the
mission of our organization isto return passenger rail service
to the Lehigh Valley, and thisis an existing rail corridor
that extends from right now fromAllentown through Bethlehem,
(01:52):
through Easton, through NewJersey, into New York, and so
it's active as a freightcorridor but it's historically
was a really great connection ofa passenger rail system.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Okay, so this is something that is a feature that
you're projecting just tohappen in the future with this
passenger train, so can you tellus a little bit more about how
it's going to impact, I guess,people that are traveling from
there to New York and something?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
there.
Sure, it forms a part of whatAmtrak is, the national train
operator and Amtrak has the sortof national network of long
distance routes.
Amtrak has had this on theirmap of Amtrak connects US or
connects the United States as aplan for through 2030 or 2050.
(02:44):
And they have a national planfor all of this.
And Allentown to New York cityis one of the most valuable and
potentially productive corridorsin the country because there
are lots of other longerdistance.
This doesn't really qualify as along distance route but Amtrak
has has seen this as animportant corridor because of
(03:07):
the Allentown-Bethlehem-Eastonis referred to as the ABE metro
area and the population growthover the next 25 years is well
over 100,000 people,no-transcript, and it has
(03:34):
different potential connectionsthrough New Jersey and requires
the partnership of New JerseyTransit transit.
But it gets us a train systemthat would run from Allentown to
New York City and with somekind of a proposed daily
operation.
That makes it meaningful forcommuting but also for all the
other reasons why people travelAmtrak, which have changed a lot
(03:57):
in the last 10 or 20 years.
Not everybody is really usingit as kind of a daily commute
thing.
It's more pleasure andlifestyle travel.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Oh, okay.
So I know you talked about thefreight train.
Now how will this projectaddress potential conflicts with
the freight rail operations onthe Sherrod track, the William
track?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Sure, so right now it's exclusively freight and
it's a very busy freightcorridor.
But there are lots of examplesfrom around the country, one
particularly in Virginia, wherethere was a significant
partnership between VirginiaPassenger Rail, the freight rail
(04:39):
lines.
The FRA, the Federal RailroadAdministration, is the sort of
key player in all of this andthey basically provide a
requirement for meeting thestandards of, uh, what has to be
done for accommodating freight,which means additional tracks,
longer sidings to reach uh long,uh longer trains, um and so
(05:04):
it's a planning and designprocess, but there's a lot of
right-of-way and more than ampletrack dimension for us to be
able to achieve that.
That's something that happensor is fundamentally undertaken
during detailed design.
And just to give you a littlebackground, while this is
something that's been talkedabout a lot for the last 10 or
20 years, well, this issomething that's been talked
(05:25):
about a lot for the last 10 or20 years.
In the last year, penndot soPennsylvania Department of
Transportation with WSP, whichis an international engineering
and design planning firm, wspprepared a Lehigh Valley
passenger rail study and it'sthe initial phase which looked
at a lot of different options.
(05:48):
It looked at what does it meanif we connect to Reading.
What does it mean if we connectto Philadelphia?
What does it mean if we connectto New York?
And I think from our purposes,from our perspective as a
nonprofit and advocate group,we're looking at what's the sort
of biggest prize, what is thebiggest potential economic
impact driver, and that's reallyconnecting to New York, and the
idea being also that Amtrak hasa federal mandate and a
prioritization of access to rail.
(06:10):
So that means, like whenAmtrak's on the rail system and
in the routes, they haveprioritization for throughput,
which means their trains have togo through and freight has to
wait, and it's also a command onthe right ofway.
So it gives Amtrak a prioritywhich an independent rail
organization wouldn't have.
And there's precedent for thattoo, if you've ever ridden the
(06:33):
train from, say, harrisburg outto Pittsburgh not many people do
, but that ridership is growingand that's an important line
which is heavy freight andpassenger, and they've made
accommodations to accommodatethe freight.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Okay, so when you're talking about the right-of-ways,
that sounds I work inengineering too and that sounds
like that's a lot of work andyou have to try to get all those
right-of-ways in there.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I mean, what is the estimated cost of the project,
including the construction andthe annual expenses, I guess, to
try to get the right-of-ways inthere, well, so yeah, so one of
the things that's interestingis that the freight lines are
owned by the freight companiesnow, and so in some cases in
different parts of the state,for example, amtrak owns the
(07:23):
track, and in Virginia, thestate rail authority reacquired
right away and actual rail right.
In the case of Pennsylvaniarail in the Lehigh Valley,
connecting through to New Jerseyand to Penn Station in New York
, we're dealing with trackthat's controlled by New Jersey
(07:43):
Transit, so there's apartnership that would have to
occur there.
But the main thing is that therail routes and the existing
right-of-way.
So for anybody who doesn't knowwhat a right-of-way is,
essentially that there is landthat's owned, but there's an
existing path for the rail.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
If it's not fully built out, there's an
opportunity to build more, andso that's what's different than
looking at other lines orconnections, to say Philadelphia
, where there might be aright-of-way but there's not
even a track anymore.
In some cases there areencumbrances or things that have
been built into theright-of-way or challenge the
development of that railconnection.
(08:22):
So the New York connection is,it still will cost a significant
amount of money to do theimprovements to reach it.
But the thing that we're reallypursuing and it's one of the
things that the briefing isgoing to address is some new
data about cost and timeline,sort of updated, because Amtrak
has been doing much moreconstruction and management of
(08:43):
these projects in the last fiveto 10 years, and most recently
over the last five years.
Really that we'll get to someof those answers.
But the main thing is that theeconomic impact of the projects
is huge.
So there's a significantmultiplier for every dollar
that's spent on infrastructure.
There's a significant paybackto the economy, and so those
(09:06):
models will be completed.
But we're talking about a railcorridor that existed
historically in the early 20thcentury that connected all of
these cities and they hadstations, they had connections.
People understood and stillrecall that service.
There are many people stillliving that recall the service
(09:27):
and can see that happening again.
So it's not like building arailroad in a new landscape.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You talk about landscape, so what environment
considerations needed to beaddressed during the
construction and operation ofthis whole project?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Anything that exists on the books is something that
has to be addressed.
I think that, again, in thiscase it's not a question of new
rail where there isn't rail.
So a lot of the environmentalissues and other issues for
communities are going to bewhere does the development
happen around the corridor?
Because the rail exists, sowhere there's.
(10:08):
You know, right now the freightlines run right through the
middle of phillipsburg in newjersey, right through easton,
right through bethlehem andallentown.
It's.
It's really going to be a focus, I think, mostly on what are
the impacts for, uh, trainstation development and
development that's related tothat.
Each municipality will need tolook at the impacts and where
(10:32):
they guide development so thatit's a really positive and smart
thing.
And in the rail corridors thereare all sorts of safety
considerations to be concernedabout crossings and that sort of
stuff.
So I think those are thebiggest thing.
On the environmental front, thebig news is really that
passenger rail solves a lot ofthe environmental problems that
(10:52):
are pressing the Lehigh Valley.
If you Google air quality inthe Lehigh Valley, you'll see
how many days it sort of exceedsfederal standards, whatever
standards we have remaining ofair quality monitoring.
We need to get cars off theroad.
We need to reduce the sort ofdependence on vehicular
(11:13):
transportation and one of thethings that we're looking at in
Lehigh Valley is that there'sthe opportunity to connect the
rail directly to aninternational airport, so the
ABE, allentown, bethlehemEastern Area Airport.
There's a rail line there.
There's the potential ofconnecting that directly.
Those things start to reallysignificantly reduce rel and
(11:34):
we're using that longer distancetrain with Amtrak going to New
York City to also do inner citytraffic, which we were talking
about earlier you know gettingbeing able to hop on a train and
sort of use it like the oldelectric trolley lines that used
(11:57):
to exist between the cities.
Those were the old interurbans.
But you have this, you knowservice that is not a transit
system that provides theequivalent of that.
You know sort of a higher levelof quality in an Amtrak service
, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So I mean.
So.
For me that sounds like howwould you offset this cost?
How will it impact thecommunity?
Will like what would be theaffordability for all residents?
Will it be too expensive?
Would I want to get in my car?
Would I want to get on thistrain?
Because I can't afford to?
So it's.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
You know, pricing structure is one of the things
that Amtrak, as an operator,would need to tailor to make it
make sense for, say, inner citytravel.
But because all of these linesare state-sponsored rail lines,
because all of these lines arestate-sponsored rail lines, so
there's a level of federalfunding that sort of takes care
of the initial potentially, atleast in the existing system
(12:53):
there's sort of a kind ofinitial development period, and
the state-sponsored rail meansthat there's a contribution from
the state, government and staterevenues to ensure that the
rail service operates.
And so part of that fundingequation impacts how, or could
(13:17):
impact, the rate structure.
To say, we want rates to bemore meaningfully affordable
between the cities, let's say inPennsylvania, so we're only
hitting three cities, and thatyou know it's not necessarily
like a third of the fare to NewYork City, you know.
So there could be someaccommodation there.
But, as I mentioned before, youhave to figure out what's the
(13:37):
cost of an Uber, let's say, or arideshare costs from Allentown
to Bethlehem or to Easton, andif you can get a fare that's
less than that, it becomesreally attractive.
And it's different too, becauseit's supposed to be about
encouraging people to be able tobe in those downtown areas and
walk to a station and get on thetrain and walk off the train
(13:59):
and be where they want to be.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Okay, so for the community.
I mean, what type of communityinvolvement do you have?
Like?
Could they contribute orsupport this project?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Sure, so one of the things that I do is I serve as a
member of the Rail PassengersAssociation, which is a roughly
50,000-member strongorganization that advocates for
passenger rail.
So that's a national initiative, but it's open to the public to
become a member, and it's partof like any other advocacy group
, you get involved and you havean opportunity to get more
(14:33):
direct feedback on what'shappening in Washington, what's
happening at the state level,and, if you're really interested
that's one of the best ways tostay engaged with what's going
on will have a membership statusshortly, because we just
received an approval for ournonprofit fiscal sponsorship
through HSI, which is based inBethlehem.
(14:54):
They're a nonprofit fiscalsponsor, so they allow us to act
like a nonprofit and do all thethings a nonprofit can do to
raise money and to support ouradvocacy until we achieve our
own nonprofit status, so that'llbe coming up shortly.
One of the best things to do,though, is we'll be coming to
this, which is the Lehigh ValleyRail Briefing, which is coming
(15:17):
up this Thursday at LafayetteCollege, and it's a public forum
, but, importantly, it's got alot of key people from the rail
industry, so we haverepresentatives from Meredith
Richards, who's our chair fromRail Passengers Association.
She's going to be talking aboutVirginia as a really great case
(15:37):
study and precedent for whatPennsylvania could do.
Importantly because theydevelop their own rail authority
to help really guide more ofthe responsibility of developing
rail across the state forpassenger rail.
Jim Matthews, who's thepresident and CEO of Rail
Passengers, he's going to betalking about sort of national
trends and national examples.
Importantly, probably thekeynote speaker for us is really
(16:00):
Joseph Barr, who's director ofplanning for Network East and
Amtrak and he hasn't really donea public engagement piece.
This is more of a briefing,it's not a workshop.
But we also have Brian Licari,who's vice president at eConsult
Solutions, and they're economicimpact consultants that do
assessments and do reports andthey've done a lot of stuff in
(16:21):
the Philadelphia area andnationally, have a lot of
international expertise.
And we have a fellow comingfrom David Peter Allen, who's a
contributing editor for RailwayAge and so he's talking about.
He's ridden a million miles ofrail around the country and can
talk about the importance ofAmtrak and as a service really
(16:42):
to the country and as a serviceto connect people.
To answer your question aboutpublic engagement, the Delaware
Valley Planning Commission andDelaware Valley Transportation
Study the study is the projectof the Planning Commission and
(17:05):
the DVPC is the MPO, so they arethe regional planning authority
and they provide and are fundedto provide and and structure
the public engagement for review, and so there was a public
review and comment period andengagement workshops for the
initial passenger rail study andthere'll be another one as it
(17:27):
comes forward.
So we're looking forward toworking with them.
They're the official planningagency, if you will, and the
cities will also have their ownplanning departments and
planning agencies have publicinput about what's happening in
their respective cities.
But that stuff will happen asthe plan goes forward.
(17:48):
The key thing is really for usto all together, as a community,
determine that that's the routethat wants to be pursued, and
that may be something that hasto come out of a phase two study
or it is determined bylegislators and the commission
as something to pursue.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
And so what's the feedback so far from the
community?
I mean, what you getting backfrom that?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
So it's interesting.
I mean, I think that there's alot of fatigue, quite frankly,
about having talked about thisfor 10 or 20 years.
Yeah, and what's interesting,though, in terms of the last
administration's significantmulti-billion dollar investment
in rail nationally on thefederal level, that really was a
(18:35):
shot in the arm for Amtrak.
And so there are new cars andnew services that people are
going to experience around thecountry, and that's really key,
I think, for Americans toactually experience a really
great rail experience and thenunderstand that it's achievable.
In terms of our direct response.
I think there's a lot ofenthusiasm about stuff coming
(18:55):
back to life, and sometimes itjust takes a new person to come
into the conversation with a newobservation.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, Iwasn't born in the Lehigh Valley
, but I'm a resident there nowand I've I'm happy to be there
and really excited to be thereand want to be a part of helping
(19:17):
to move this, this forward witha can do attitude, and I think
that it's really a question ofwhat do we want to do, and it's,
you know, amtrak is a service.
It's treated as a business, butit's really a service.
Penndot agencies like PennDOThave enormous budgets in the
(19:37):
billions of dollars.
I think the current budgetrequest is around $12 billion,
more potentially with additionalfederal funds.
When you're looking at maybe a$500 million expenditure to do a
lot of the capital improvements, it's sort of a drop in the
bucket in the kind of overalltransportation landscape.
(19:59):
So right now we're looking atreally having counties and
cities and perhaps the statekick in the funds to fund
something that's roughly between$400,000 and $500,000 as a
phase two study to commit to thecorridor that we want to pursue
and then, once that's done,then you need to get into the
really detailed planning of whatdoes that corridor really cost.
(20:23):
Again, some of it will berelated to us in this briefing
by Amtrak, as here's what theupdated numbers are.
Here's what the updated look is.
Not too long ago, amtrak andothers were projecting that you
could have something in a threeto five year kind of timeframe.
It depends if the focus isreally on the New York route,
(20:44):
that may be a possibility.
Others will look to a 10 to 20year timeline, but that's the
nature of these things.
But it's really.
The point is that there has tobe a decision now for us to move
forward and for that to be areality.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
So, brett, I want to thank you for coming on the show
, and can you tell us one moretime when this briefing is going
to be?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yes, yes, and so it's Thursday, March 20th.
It's from 8 am to 12 noon.
There's a networking breakfast7 to 8.
It's Williams Center for theArts at Lafayette College, 317
Hamilton Street in Easton.
There's free parking and ifyou're a student with a valid ID
, it's free.
Also, I want to mention that weare planning a full Lehigh
(21:30):
Valley summit, a rail summit, inOctober of this year, also at
Lafayette College.
So save the date.
It'll be an importantopportunity and we can do
another conversation about that,and we're also hoping to launch
a series of workshops betweennow and then that will be held
(21:51):
in Easton, Bethlehem andAllentown, so that we're
actually reaching out to all ofthose communities.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Okay, so where can they find this information?
Can we post that?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Best question.
So that isallaboardlehighvalleyorg.
And our event is.
You can purchase tickets fromthat website.
You can also search onEventbrite for Lehigh Valley
Rail Briefing and you'll find itthere.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Thank you, brett, for coming and giving us the
information.
I mean it was very, veryinsightful and informational.
If you're looking for theinformation, you know where to
go.
Go to all aboardlehighvalleyorg and go check out
the information and getinvolved.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Thank you.
So my listeners and my viewers,you know to always say early
detection is the best protection.
So get your annual mammogramsdone.
If you haven't gotten it done,what are you waiting for?
If you got it done, put it onyour calendar for next year and
until then, I'll see you on thenext episode.
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