The whining about who got what in the $787 billion economic stimulus bill is well underway, but you won't hear many complaints from high-speed rail advocates. They walked away with $8 billion.
That's an unprecedented sum considering the crumbs Amtrak has collected during the past 20 years, and rail boosters are gleefully predicting the money will lead to rail investment in almost every region of the country. Opponents of the funding, who at this point can do little but complain, say it's one large pig in a bill filled with pork, and will do little to help the economy, but that overlooks the fact it will, in the short-term, put people to work improving existing track and infrastructure.
Looking further ahead, the windfall will help finance "high speed rail corridors" capable of supporting trains traveling at speeds as great as 110 mph, creating the first-ever regional network of cities connected by fast rail for the first time.
The allocation makes good on Obama's campaign promise to show rail a little love, something Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood echoed when he said, "I think President Obama would like to be known as the high-speed rail president, and I think he can be."
Most of rail corridors proposed by the
Department of Transportation are no-brainers. Expanding the north-south routes of the East Coast will create a rail network stretching from Portand, Maine, to New Orleans and Houston. The Southeast Corridor linking Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C., with Atlanta acknowledges the growing economic importance of that region, and expanding service in California and the Pacific Northwest is equally smart.
Many cities will benefit if all goes as planned, but Chicago will be the biggest winner. The Midwest High Speed Rail Association has
long advocated a Chicago-centric high-speed rail network. The Windy City will be linked to most of the Midwest's population centers, including
Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. It's a good idea, but comes at the expense of service for the Mountain Region and the Southwest. Why not a high speed train connecting Denver with Salt Lake City and Omaha? Or Albuquerque and Arizona?
And for all of the Republican's talk of the "Sin City to
Tomorrowland" line connecting Las Vegas with Los Angeles, there is no high-speed service designated for Nevada. It's odd, because for a city so dependent on tourism, trains connecting Vegas with other major metro areas makes a lot of sense.
Some rail advocates question the widsom of distributing the money over 11 regions, arguing such a strategy hampers development of a true European-style high-speed rail system. "What are we trying to achieve," Joseph Vranich, a rail expert and author of several books on the topic, asked in a recent New York Times story. "If we really wanted to have high-speed rail in this country, and have it be a great success, then what we would do is concentrate the funds on the New York-Washington corridor, which is the top corridor in the country."
A fair point, but it overlooks the work underway in other states, such as California's plan to build a bullet train linking San Francisco with Los Angeles. And Ross B. Capon raises an excellent point when he says higher-speed rail lines like those proposed by the Department of Transportation are a logical place to start. Improving what we've got will lay the groundwork for a true high-speed system down the line, he told the Times.
"You've got to walk before you can run, and we've just been crawling up to now," he said.
Any way you look at it, the stimulus bill is a huge step forward for passenger rail. With President Obama asking for an additional $1 billion annually for the next five years, it could be just the beginning.
*Photo: Flickr / KaroliK *
Map: US Department of Transportation
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