Energy

Electrification of the Region’s Rail

One of those subtle aspects of life that serves to normalize auto transport as the only thing going is the way most maps are designed to barely include railroad tracks and stations, presumably so as to avoid interfering with roads and Interstates and their giant identification shields. But when we plug some fun data into Google mashup mapping, it is clear that the rail system serving the metropolitan area is extensive, probably more extensive than most people realize. This screenshot shows the location of stations served by New York City's four passenger railroads: Metro-North in blue, NJ Transit in green, the LIRR in red and Amtrak in purple.

By Aaron Donovan

11:57 AM EST on November 20, 2006

One of those subtle aspects of life that serves to normalize auto transport as the only thing going is the way most maps are designed to barely include railroad tracks and stations, presumably so as to avoid interfering with roads and Interstates and their giant identification shields. But when we plug some fun data into Google mashup mapping, it is clear that the rail system serving the metropolitan area is extensive, probably more extensive than most people realize. This screenshot shows the location of stations served by New York City’s four passenger railroads: Metro-North in blue, NJ Transit in green, the LIRR in red and Amtrak in purple.

Below those pushpins are the roads, where it is hard to imagine that in 30 or 40 years electric cars will not have advanced into everyday use. Electrification of the automobile fleet is rightly seen as a way to continue to enjoy the benefits of mobility while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring, to borrow a phrase from Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, that none of the money we send oversees to buy oil comes back to us in the form of terrorism. Electrification of the auto fleet is an important project that will take enormous investment if it is to succeed. Electrification of rail transport, on the other hand, was perfected more than a century ago. It has not yet been fully implemented in our area, though it ought to be. Below the fold is a map showing the portions of the New York City regional rail system that remain to be electrified.

Stations marked in green are served by electric trains, those in brown, diesel. There are clearly a lot of sections that remain to be electrified. Specifically, these are:

Long Island Rail Road

Montauk Branch
Oyster Bay Branch
Port Jefferson Branch east of Huntington
Ronkonkoma Branch east of Ronkonkoma

Metro-North Railroad

Hudson Line north of Croton-Harmon
Harlem Line north of Southeast
Danbury Branch
Waterbury Branch
Port Jervis Line
Pascack Valley Line

New Jersey Transit

Main Line
Raritan Valley Line
Bergen County Line
North Jersey Coast Line south of Long Branch
Boonton Line north of Montclair State University
Pascack Valley Line

Caveats Emptor: 1) Diesel-powered trains are orders of magnitude less polluting than automobiles when measured in terms of people moved per mile. 2) Electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. But not all of it.

Aaron Donovan

Before he began blogging about land use and transportation, Aaron Donovan wrote The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund's annual fundraising appeal for three years and earned a master's degree in urban planning from Columbia. Since then, he has worked for nonprofit organizations devoted to New York City economic development. He lives and works in the Financial District, and sees New York's pre-automobile built form as an asset that makes New York unique in the United States, and as a strategic advantage that should be capitalized upon.

Energy | Infrastructure | Out of Town | Transportation Policy

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