[matthewowen]

My understanding is that the problems of NYC -> Boston high speed rail are purely political, and basically come down to CT resistance to change

The current track alignment is not conducive to high speed travel, and CT as a state has no interest in supporting a new alignment that is conducive because they would likely get _negative_ value out of it: as it stands, Acela trains pretty much all stop in New Haven and Stamford: why wouldn't they?

If you go with a high speed link that aims to speed up Boston <> New York travel, it's more likely that you have trains that skip those stops, because additional stops are much more expensive for HSR from a speeding up and slowing down perspective, from a percentage of time added to trip perspective, and for an inefficient alignment perspective.

In my view this is kind of a microcosm of the political problems of the geographically small states of the north east: states like CT/RI/DE especially have very narrow and niche concerns but because of their geographical position have effective veto power over regionally important things like "how expensive are the tolls to drive between New York and DC?" and "can you have HSR between new york and boston?"

[ciabattabread]

It's not about skipping stops, it's about the amount of eminent domain you'd have to do to eliminate curves thru Connecticut's oldest and richest suburbs.

Which is why proposals to route it via Long Island and building a 16-mile tunnel under Long Island Sound get consideration.