Under NEPA, the No Action Alternative is sometimes referred to as the No Build condition. For the Tier 1 EIS, the FRA has defined the No Action Alternative as the condition of the Northeast region’s multi-modal transportation system in 2040. The FRA will use the No Action Alternative as a baseline against which the FRA will compare the effects of each of the Action Alternatives.
For this Tier 1 EIS, the No Action Alternative is not a “do nothing” alternative. Instead, it assumes that sufficient capital investment is available to keep the NEC’s systems and infrastructure functioning properly to support existing services levels. However, if continued capital investments are not implemented the NEC’s reliability, capacity, and services levels would decline. Forecasting the implications of insufficient funding on the performance of the eight commuter railroads and Amtrak would be difficult and would be somewhat subjective. This is due to the uncertainty of what improvements might or might not be funded and what their performance implications might be. Therefore, the FRA decided to evaluate a No Action Alternative separate from the discussion of historic or future funding trends and to qualitatively discuss the implications of insufficient funding (see Section 3.2, Disinvestment Scenario).
