A lack of government investment in the north has led to Leeds train station being "at creaking point", according to Tracy Brabin.
The West Yorkshire mayor said the region's railway networks are still operating with "Victorian infrastructure" as she slammed the government's inadequate support for greater rail investment.
Leeds was gearing up for major improvements to its train station - the busiest in the north of England - and was due to undergo a major overhaul ahead of plans to bring HS2 services to the city.
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But in November last year, the government dramatically pulled the plug on plans to bring the eastern leg of the multi-billion pound project to Leeds. The decision was described by critics as "the great train robbery".
Not only did it deliver a massive blow to expansion plans, but it also means there will be a further strain on the station, which is already extremely busy. More than 30 million passengers a year use Leeds station and it is currently running at 101 per cent capacity.
Speaking in Leeds today, Ms Brabin told the House of Commons Transport Committee improvements must be made.
"We can’t continue as we are, irrespective of HS2," she said.
"Our station is at creaking point. We absolutely need that investment.
"Any delay can stop Leeds moving. Over the last few days when we've had flooding, all of that congestion just ground the whole network to a halt. We can’t buy in problems that we will not be able to able to unpick in decades to come."
After scrapping plans to bring HS2 to Yorkshire, the government has said it will spend £100 million on a study that will "look at the most effective way to run HS2 trains to Leeds".
The eastern leg of HS2 will now stop at East Midlands Parkway, with trains running up to Sheffield and beyond on an existing line.
The details were announced as part of the government's Integrated Rail Plan last year, but Ms Brabin said the shock decision to scrap the Leeds HS2 plans came as a big surprise.
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She told MPs: "We found out when everybody else found out.
"We are as perplexed as so many others, we don’t quite understand why – when the government has spent many millions of pounds investing in TFN and their expertise to develop a sequence of options, that the most sub-optimal option was chosen.
"It can only feel like they have run out of money because the added value is so huge and clearly with government targets on levelling up and on climate emergency, we can only assume it is cost.
"It is a disappointment that we are losing all those thousands of jobs, those thousands of homes that we were planning on.
"Every year HS2 isn’t built we lose £1.7 billion worth of growth across the region and it is impactful."
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Ms Brabin also told the Select Committee about the transport "horror stories" experienced by commuters in West Yorkshire.
She said: "A digital business can’t get the staff because people don’t want to commute across the Pennines, partners getting home from work at 10.45pm, a student at Leeds whose train from Liverpool takes over two hours, the same amount of time it took his dad in the 60s and his grandfather in the 30s.
"We can’t necessarily quantify the missed opportunity.
"It is a once in a generation opportunity to tackle the challenges of this Victorian infrastructure that we can’t continue to live with if we are going to level up, if we are going to reach our potential as a region."
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