Posts Tagged "high speed rail"
Florida’s high-speed rail loss is the Northeast’s gain
Secretary Ray LaHood is in a good mood this morning. The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced the recipients of $2 billion in high-speed rail funds, a total of 22 “carefully selected projects that will create jobs, boost manufacturing and spur development while laying the foundation for future economic competitiveness,” LaHood wrote on his blog. […]
New York Times: High-speed rail deserves continued support
Originally uploaded by pgengler to Flickr. The New York Times resolutely defended high-speed rail in an editorial this morning, characterizing the elimination of remaining funds for the program this fiscal year as “harebrained.” The budget deal reached by the White House and Congress zeroed-out the $1 billion allocated for high-speed rail in fiscal year 2011 […]
Government audit confirms that TIGER, rail grants followed merit-based process, despite GOP complaints
Although a Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Obama administration set and followed a merit based decision-making process for awarding high-speed rail and TIGER grants, several Republican lawmakers claimed the report revealed a lack of transparency and accountability for where the money went. “Although we can develop cost-effective high-speed rail transportation in this country, […]
Mad Men actors go to bat for high-speed rail in new video
Two lead actors from Mad Men, the 1960s era advertising agency show, appear in a Funnyordie.com video endorsing high-speed rail posted earlier today. Attacks on high-speed rail in both Congress and state capitals prompted U.S. PIRG to tap actors Vincent Kartheiser and Rich Sommer for the segment, which was can be viewed below the fold.
Vice President Biden makes the case for rail, cites T4 America co-chair’s hometown as an example
Vice President Joe Biden made an emphatic case for high-speed rail in Philadelphia today as the Obama administration kicks off series of events to highlight the need for infrastructure investment. The Vice President singled out Meridian, Mississippi mayor and T4 America campaign co-chair John Robert Smith, who served his hometown for four terms.
Proposed budget would gut transit spending, passenger rail funding
The budget proposal from the Republican Study Committee, which consists of 165 of the 242 GOP House members, released a week or so ago, calls for completely eliminating the main federal transit program, zeroes out Amtrak, cuts all funding for the metro system in the nation’s capital and slashes $2.5 billion in high-speed rail grants. Sign our petition objecting to this assault on public transportation funding.
California needs smart station planning to maximize high-speed rail’s benefits
High-speed rail investment has the potential to yield great economic and environmental rewards for California, but only if communities make smart decisions about land-use and growth at and around new stations. A new report prepared by the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association offers prescriptions for how communities can prepare for rail investments.
Could another new passenger rail line be facing the ax?
Potentially following in the footsteps of Wisconsin and Ohio, the Republicans in the state legislature are considering the possibility of killing Iowa’s portion of a planned higher speed passenger rail line from Chicago to Iowa City that would pass through the Quad Cities and the new Moline (Ill.) multimodal transportation hub funded by a TIGER grant.
President Obama hails high-speed rail as “the infrastructure of tomorrow”
Hearing President Obama call high-speed rail “the infrastructure of tomorrow” gave me great hope. Very rarely has transportation investment made the final cut in a presidential State of the Union address. The fact that it did make the cut this time really speaks to the president’s commitment to making high-speed rail a reality.
High speed rail grantees awarded, was your state included?
As you may have heard by now, President Obama is following up his favorable mention of high speed rail in last night’s State of the Union Last with a Tampa event in Tampa to announce the winners of federal grants for high speed rail service. (In case you missed our official statement about the announcement, read that here.) The President is due to make his announcement this afternoon but the list of awardees has already been released. So who were the big winners? Certainly Florida and California, who got the biggest grants, netting $1.25 and $2.3 billion respectively.
Tell Congress to make a historic investment in high speed rail
Congress is heading towards a decisive, historic moment on investing in high speed rail for America. But the outcome is far from certain. In the next few weeks, Congress will decide whether or not to give the Department of Transportation $1.2 billion or $4 billion on high speed rail for the next year. $8 billion was allocated for planning and implementing clean, efficient, high speed train travel in the economic stimulus earlier this year, and with another $4 billion, we’d be making a historic $12 billion investment in high speed rail.Tell Congress to keep $4 billion in the bill at www.fourbillion.com
States clamor for high-speed rail stimulus funds as applications pour into DC
When the stimulus passed in February, $8 billion for high-speed rail was added at the 25th hour, at the behest of the Obama administration. In the days since, states have scrambled to prepare their proposals to receive a share of the money, which will be distributed via a process of competitive grants. With states competing for their share of the $8 billion to start developing and building high-speed corridors, competition was sure to be tough. But did anyone expect this many applications for the funds?
File under: What other countries are doing
This video has made the rounds, but here’s what 357 mph looks like on a TGV train in France. From a 2007 speed test. Pay careful attention at about the 1:40 mark for a sense of perspective as it passes beneath an overpass. Via www.kottke.org
More on today’s high speed rail announcement
President Obama’s remarks from the press conference this morning have been posted on the White House blog. In his remarks, joined by Vice President Biden and Transportation Secretary LaHood, Obama appealed to our national pride and pointed to the benefits that high-speed rail would bring to all Americans: There’s no reason why we can’t do […]
A day of air travel over North America, and what it means for rail
From Wired Magazine via Aaron of Streetsblog comes this amazing map and video that shows a day of air travel over North America. Using data from the Federal Aviation Administration and a service called FlightView that tracks airline travel each day, Artist Aaron Koblin created this Google map that shows 24 hours of airline travel on August 12, 2008. What does this have to do with rail travel?
Transportation numbers emerge on the stimulus
UPDATE (2:00 p.m., 02/12/09): Talking Points Memo has acquired a summary of the new bill, which includes a comparison of each spending item to the House and Senate legislation. It looks like the final number for highways is $27.5 billion. The bill to come out of conference also includes $1.3 billion for Amtrak. — We […]
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