Fortunately the Lackawanna Cutoff right of way remains intact.
In 1985, Conrail sold the trackless right-of-way for approximately $1 million to two land developers, one of whom, Gerard Turco of Kearny, New Jersey, proposed to use the Cut-Off as a massive source of construction fill, as well as to dump New York City garbage in the huge cuts. (The second developer, Burton Goldmeier, who purchased the short section of the line in Morris County, was rumored to want the right-of-way as an access road.) The Turco proposal, however, became a rallying point in preserving the Cut-Off and was a direct catalyst for a $40 million state bond issue for acquiring abandoned rail rights-of-way in New Jersey.
The bond issue was approved by the voters in November 1989, and the New Jersey Department of Transportation subsequently initiated condemnation proceedings against the corporations that Mr. Turco and Mr. Goldmeier had set up in New Jersey for the Cut-Off. (Mr. Turco established separate corporations for the sections of right-of-way in each municipality that the Cut-Off ran through — Knowlton, Blairstown and Frelinghuysen townships in Warren County; Green, Byram, and Andover townships and Stanhope and Andover boroughs in Sussex County; and Roxbury Township in Morris County. In addition, a separate corporation had been set up for the Paulinskill Viaduct in New Jersey, near the bridge to Pennsylvania.)
Somehow I think the Scranton Chamber of Commerce is overselling its inevitability, but maybe it will happen!