Keep it simple

John Egan hit the scene last winter with a smash. The man known for putting Albany International Airport on the map --even though many whom use the terminals would dispute the use of the word international --talked a tough game about reconstructing the state’s flailing rail system.

High-speed mag-lev trains, travel nodes and a 25-year plan that would get it all done. Yes, John Egan talked a big game. And now he’s apparently talking big again, resurrecting the nearly decade-old plan to connect upstate’s once formidable city hubs with a light rail system.

As it did once before, New York’s rail system is a prime identifier of the state’s level of ingenuity and industry. Once a magnificent network that guided the Empire State to its moniker before the mass proliferation of the automobile, many years of neglect have today left it lacking in just about every regard; the calamity of trains that clatter through sparsely few area of the state are overpriced, under-conditioned and are more prone to getting stopped for long spells than they are of ever being on time.

Egan’s plan for this train wreck: keep it simple and don’t reinvent the wheel. The public must again be convinced of the potential contained in the few viable tracks that remain laid across the region. That’s exactly what he’s hoping to do with a light rail, which would connect Saratoga Springs to Schenectady, then take a B-line through Albany until coming stop at Hollywood Joe’s palatial station in Rensselaer.

The idea being to connect the so-called Tech Valley’s major nodes in the tri-city area to the rich homes of Saratoga County, creating a sustainable commuter network that could eventually fund future investments into the system. It’s a simple, but lofty notion at the same time.

As most will remember, a similar plan that Rep. Gerald Solomon spent his last dying days constructing was derailed posthumously by his handpicked successor. Lame duck Congressman John Sweeney --then a Republican heavy-hitter straight who had just helped President Bush to the White House --made it his business to divert any federal funding for an almost identical plan because the trains wouldn’t run through his district; the Northway did, and thus was the benefactor of the congressman’s favoritism in Washington.

Nevertheless, Sweeney is gone in just a few weeks and Egan’s most recent announcement is at the very least a baby step in the right direction. If it’s successful, the light rail system could become a connecting line to a high-speed line between Rensselaer and Manhattan, which would be akin to plugging the Capital Region into the charged socket of the Big Apple’s economy. A lofty expectation? Yes. But an impossible one? No. The wiring is all there; someone just needs to turn the breakers on.

Critics will say Egan’s vision is no different than a host of other plans that have either faced fierce resistance among stubborn legislators or have become the dumping ground for special interest funding to projects that go nowhere. Others will be quick to note the public’s love affair with the “freedom” that their vehicles provide them.

Yet as the spigot of fossil fuel reduces to a trickle, the failures of highway transportation could create a perfect storm to give wind to Egan’s vision. Who could knock having a few cocktails during a half-hour traffic-free trip to the Spa City from Albany at peak season? Better yet, who could knock a train that travels from New York City to Buffalo in under two hours. After all, that’s Egan’s endgame.