Money will pay for new Amtrak platforms, pedestrian bridge and expanded parking at Regional Transportation Center.
View full sizePeople waiting for the eastbound train at the Transportation Center in Syracuse in this photof from March 9,2009. Washington -- Syracuse today won an $18 million federal grant to expand the city’s passenger rail station and improve tracks and signals for a planned high-speed rail line across Upstate New York.
The grant also will pay for a $6.35 million project to relieve congestion where freight and passenger rail lines meet at the CSX DeWitt yards.
But most of the money will be spent expanding the William F. Walsh Regional Transportation Center off Park Street to accommodate high-speed trains for Amtrak’s passenger rail service, according to Central New York’s congressional delegation.
The Syracuse train station will receive a new low-level and high-level platform, elevator and pedestrian bridge. The work would eventually allow freight trains to bypass the station on a separate track, freeing Amtrak trains to move without congestion.
Upstate New York is among 11 federally-designated corridors in the nation for the development of high-speed passenger rail lines.
So far, the state has received more than $150 million in federal stimulus money to begin implementig the plan along a 285-mile route from Buffalo to Albany. The goal is to increase train speeds from 79 mph to 110 mph in the short term, and eventually to 150 mph.
The grant was announced by U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei, who worked with U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and U.S. Rep, Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, to help secure the money.
Contact Washington correspondent Mark Weiner at mweiner@syracuse.com or 571-970-3751.