Is the Northeast Corridor an officially designated high-speed corridor?
No. Linking Boston, New York, Washington, and intermediate cities, Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) main line is America’s most highly-developed high-speed rail corridor, having benefited from over $4 billion in direct Federal funding under the Northeast Corridor Improvement Project that had its roots in the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 and the railroad restructuring legislation of the mid-1970s. In addition, investments in NEC development are part of Amtrak’s annual capital program, and often include participation by the commuter rail authorities that make use of NEC infrastructure for many of their extensive operations. The NEC main line is not a “designated high-speed rail corridor” for purposes of 23 U.S.C. Section 104(d)(2) (“Railway-highway crossing hazard elimination in high-speed rail corridors”) nor for programs that depend upon that Section, such as the high-speed rail corridor development program in Section 501(d) of PRIIA (49 U.S.C. 26106). Will FRA designa
