If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But for Northeastern Pennsylvanians, the more fundamental problem is simply getting to New York City.

Driving to New York rarely is a joy ride due to congestion, coupled with the costs of bridge or tunnel tolls and parking.

Buses are a reliable option but travel times have increased in recent years due to congestion around and in New York City.

Trains are available, but only by first finding other means to get to stations in New Jersey or upstate New York.

Passenger rail from Scranton has not been available for about 45 years. And, about a quarter century’s worth of discussions, feasibility studies and political advocacy to revive it all have come to nothing, even though local development officials once targeted the restoration to 2007 — a decade ago.

Yet the idea lives. Larry Malski, the president of the Northeast Regional Railroad Authority who has shepherded the restoration of freight railroads in the region, insists that passenger rail is a real possibility. The authority plans a new study to update cost estimates for reconstruction of the needed rail lines through the Poconos into New Jersey, and for operation of the passenger service.

Malski is not alone in his optimism. U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Moosic, also is on board.

He is a newly appointed member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, the chairman of which is U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey Republican from the district on the opposite side of the Delaware River that includes the proposed rail route. Due partially to Frelinghuysen’s advocacy, restoration of 7.3 miles of track is under way.

Meanwhile, a consensus has emerged in Congress for increased transportation infrastructure spending. President-elect Donald Trump has advocated a $1 trillion program.

For Northeastern Pennsylvania, the issue is not simply convenient travel but economic development, the opportunity to use rail to better connect the region to booming New York City and northern New Jersey. Doing so would create job opportunities in those areas for local residents, and make Northeastern Pennsylvania more attractive to companies in those regions.

Reviving the passenger rail idea is a good step. Here’s hoping, at the dawn of a new year, that the renewed effort produces more than a study.

—The (Wilkes-Barre) Citizens’ Voice

It might be impossible to calculate how much the failure to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict has cost the United States in blood and treasure.

The ongoing conflict helps anti-American terrorists recruit and provides an excuse for hostile regimes in the region to justify their enmity of the United States.

For decades, the United States has favored and worked for a two-state solution to the impasse while maintaining support of Israel.

That posture is especially true of the Obama administration, which has advocated the two-state solution while committing to Israel a record $38 billion in military aid over 10 years.

In furtherance of the two-state policy, the Obama administration recently abstained on a United Nations resolution condemning settlement construction in the West Bank, rather than vetoing it.

That produced from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a cascade of belligerence that has characterized his relationship with President Barack Obama, despite the administration’s deep support for Israel.

As Secretary of State John Kerry put it in response to that belligerence, “if the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both, and it won’t ever really be at peace.”

That perpetual lack of peace is a matter of deep concern to the United States. Israelis are free to chart their course and choose their leaders, but blind acquiescence to Netanyahu’s belligerence is poor policy for the United States.

—The (Pottsville) Republican Herald