Railroad agency won't decide on Scranton-to-NYC train this month

Borys Krawczeniuk, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
·2 min read
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May 3—Advocates of a Scranton-to-New York City passenger train won't learn until fall whether a federal agency will pick the project for further planning money.

The Federal Railroad Administration will announce the selection in September or October, spokesman William Wong said in an email. The same deadline appears on the agency's calendar of upcoming publications.

Wong said a May 13 deadline for reporting to Congress on selections for the agency's Corridor ID program is only for producing a "project pipeline report."

Two notices in the Federal Register, one in May 2022 and one in December, said the pipeline report would identify "intercity passenger rail corridors selected for development." The Federal Register is the federal government's centralized system for publishing notices of its work.

Wong pointed to an online agency calendar that shows the September-October timeline.

The state Department of Transportation applied in March for the project's inclusion in the Corridor ID program, which is meant to spend money in President Joe Biden's federal infrastructure bill to expand passenger rail service nationwide. The Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority and New Jersey Transit are co-applicants.

U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-8, Moosic, confirmed he thought the selections would take place sooner. Cartwright thinks the railroad agency realized it needed more time to review all the Corridor ID program applications.

"I've been working on this for 10 years. I am undaunted by a further four-month wait," he said.

Cartwright plans to spend the next few months talking to New Jersey transportation officials about formally committing money to the project. Pennsylvania has committed up to $125 million, but New Jersey hasn't. New Jersey is restoring tracks on part of the route and spent substantially to acquire the famed but trackless Lackawanna Cutoff right-of-way.

"It doesn't mean it's not going to happen, and it doesn't mean I'm going to stop working on getting that," Cartwright said.

Authority president Larry Malski said Monday the deadline may have "morphed" because the agency has other funding programs to worry about first.

"We've waited 30, 40 years. We can wait a few more months," Malski said. "So much energy went into this and now it's sit back and wait. Keeping our fingers crossed."

Contact the writer:

bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9147;

@BorysBlogTT on Twitter.