Mass transit blues

Syracuse is no stranger to mass transit. There is Ontrack the seldom used but often hyped low tech train that runs from Jamesville to Carousel Mall. It stops at Armory Square and at the bottom of 'heart attack hill' below the Dome. The system is almost 100%tax payer subsidized and never produced the jobs or riders that were promised. After the Madrid and London subway bombings who wants to ride a train anyways...Right? Wrong!!!

Everyone assumes that Americans don't want high speed rail. We want our cars, and our 1 1/2 hour commutes, and traffic jams and fender benders, and on and on. The fact is that the American people have never been shown a viable alternative. Well here it is:

Using existing state owned right of ways we build guideways for high speed maglev trains from Niagara Falls and Buffalo to Syracuse, Cortland, Binghamton, and finally New York City. Imagine getting on a maglev in Syracuse and 40 minutes later getting off at Grand Central Station or the Falls. Why should anyone care? Imagine needing a job in finance but unable to find work in your field in Syracuse. A quick maglev ride to NYC is just 40 minutes to thousands of finance job opportunities. Imagine wanting to see a Broadway show on a Friday evening and you live in Buffalo. An hour ride on the Maglev and a quick cab ride to Broadway and you will be there. Goods and people will be whisked at unheard of speeds across the Empire State. This vast state will be brought together in ways that no other state could even imagine. How much will it cost? How much does it cost to keep up the Thruway? Linking major cities and rural attractions like the Adirondacks and Wine Country will draw in tourists to our fair state. Cities will then need to build light rail, tramways, or yes, even gondolas to transit people from the main maglev lines to their citywide attractions. Imagine a gondola tacking you from the maglev center at Hancock airport to the fairgrounds or the Dome, or the malls....We need to be innovative and develop new high tech industry now. High speed rail is expensive to build, cheap to run and maintain and could prove to be just the boon we have been looking for.