NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — A massive spending plan for infrastructure proposed by President Joe Biden includes $80 billion investment to expand and improve Amtrak service.
The federally subsidized passenger rail service lost $800 million during its most recent fiscal year ending in September, half of which encompassed the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Congressman Brian Higgins (NY-26) and City of Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino believe using some of the federal funding to expand and improve the Amtrak route between Buffalo, Niagara Falls, New York and Toronto, Ontario is key in improving the post pandemic economy for Western New York and Southern Ontario.
Cross border passenger service was halted at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 and has yet to resume.
According to Higgins, the time is ripe to tackle long standing issues that make train travel from here to Toronto slow and inconvenient, starting with resolving why it take two hours to clear customs.
He also believes allowing passengers to board in Niagara Falls, Ontario and improvements to the tracks in Southern Ontario will be key to both regions.
However, those issues rest as much, if not more, with Canadian authorities than their U.S. counterparts.
"It would require a great deal of infrastructure improvements on the Canadian side," acknowledged Higgins, who believes the Canadian government can be convinced to join in making the improvements.
According to Higgins, a report issued by the Ontario Ministry of Finance in 2020, concluded that Ontario’s population is projected to increase by 31.5 percent, or almost 4.6 million, over the next 27 years, from an estimated 14.6 million on July 1, 2019 to almost 19.2 million by July 1, 2046.
"Obviously it wouldn't make a lot of sense unless we get some bi-national agreement on infrastructure," Higgins said. "It has to work for both of us. But, when but we extoll the virtues under normal times about our proximity to Ontario and the amount of potential trade involved there is a mutual benefit to the Ontario economy from Western New Yorkers going over there."
It also may require a great deal of persuasion among the traveling public.
At the same time that some have called for billions of dollars in improvements to the passenger rail system in upstate New York, there has also been a demonstrable lack of demand for it.
Even prior to the pandemic, a state department of transportation study showed that along Amtrak's Empire Corridor, which crosses upstate New York, 96 percent of travelers went to their destination by cars, and only one-half of one percent of all travelers took the train.
Thus, the $44 million train station in Niagara Falls resembles many of the Amtrak stations along the route, in that it is most often empty.
Prior to the pandemic, on an average day, only 90 passengers (including both those who arrived and departed) utilized the three trains per day that came through the station, a number which was halved by the pandemic.
On Monday afternoon when the Maple Leaf departed for New York, fewer than 10 passengers boarded in Niagara Falls.
However, Higgins insisted, "anything we can do to improve that would justify the investment in the building that over the longer term."