Trains, Plans, and $13 Billion Bucks

President Obama is making good so far on his vision of the nation knit together by energy efficient, climate-conserving high-speed rail.  If this keeps up, Americans may soon be able to get around as fast, far, and comfortably as ... why, as the French and the Japanese have done for decades.

Today Mr. Obama released the administration's plan for creating high-speed rail in the US, and announced that he's asking for $5 billion over the next five years to make it happen.  These funds would be in addition to the $8 billion of federal stimulus spending  (a last-minute addition to the bill that stunned and delighted long-starved rail advocates) already targeted directly at building most promising new intra-city rail corridors around the country.

Flanked by Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Mr. Obama called high speed rail crucial to US prosperity and security:

Today, our aging system of highways and byways, air routes and rail lines is hindering that growth.  Our highways are clogged with traffic, costing us $80 billion a year in lost productivity and wasted fuel.  Our airports are choked with increased loads.  Some of you flew down here and you know what that was about.  We're at the mercy of fluctuating gas prices all too often; we pump too many greenhouse gases into the air.

What we need, then, is a smart transportation system equal to the needs of the 21st century.  A system that reduces travel times and increases mobility.  A system that reduces congestion and boosts productivity.  A system that reduces destructive emissions and creates jobs.

What we're talking about is a vision for high-speed rail in America. Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city.  No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes.  (Laughter.)  Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination.  Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild America.

Now, all of you know this is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future.  It is now. It is happening right now.  It's been happening for decades.  The problem is it's been happening elsewhere, not here.

According to The New York Times, the 10 inter-city corridors tapped for development are "a northern New England line; an Empire line running east to west in New York State; a Keystone corridor running laterally through Pennsylvania; a southeast network connecting the District of Columbia to Florida and the Gulf Coast; a Gulf Coast line extending from eastern Texas to western Alabama; a corridor in central and southern Florida; a Texas-to-Oklahoma line; a California corridor where voters have already approved a line that will allow travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two and a half hours; and a corridor in the Pacific Northwest."

Vice President Joe Biden, perhaps the nation's best known Amtrak rail commuter, drove home the environmental angles for getting the US riding high-speed rail:

With high-speed rail system, we're going to be able to pull people off the road, lowering our dependence on foreign oil, lowering the bill for our gas in our gas tanks.  We're going to loosen the congestion that also has great impact on productivity, I might add, the people sitting at stop lights right now in overcrowded streets and cities.  We're also going to deal with the suffocation that's taking place in our major metropolitan areas as a consequence of that congestion.  And we're going to significantly lessen the damage to our planet.  This is a giant environmental down payment.
All in all, we're going to make travel in this country leaner and a whole lot cleaner.

The US missed the train on advanced passenger rail in the last century -- while nations like France, Japan, and China left us in the dust.  Will we finally catch up with them in this one?