The old rich folks in CT who don't want the NEC alignment don't care if it's in a tunnel (folks still came out to oppose the new alignment near Old Lyme even when the proposal changed to allow for a tunnel so they didn't have to see or hear the thing).
If there was true HS service on the NEC between Boston and NYC you'd easily get a far larger share of the BOS-NYC pax trips made. Estimates are about 15MM trips/yr with rail being about a third of that. Is getting an extra 5 million car trips off the road worth inconveniencing some of the most affluent communities in the US?
BOS NYC, driven is about 2 micromorts, the drive is about 140kg CO2. So, napkin math, if half the people traveling by car and plane switched to train, you save 5 lives per year and 500,000 tons of CO2 emission. That's a (shittily calculated, admittedly) estimate of the cost of inaction.
If there was true HS service on the NEC between Boston and NYC you'd easily get a far larger share of the BOS-NYC pax trips made. Estimates are about 15MM trips/yr with rail being about a third of that. Is getting an extra 5 million car trips off the road worth inconveniencing some of the most affluent communities in the US?
BOS NYC, driven is about 2 micromorts, the drive is about 140kg CO2. So, napkin math, if half the people traveling by car and plane switched to train, you save 5 lives per year and 500,000 tons of CO2 emission. That's a (shittily calculated, admittedly) estimate of the cost of inaction.