Last month the nation learned that 31 states will receive one-time high-speed rail stimulus grants totaling $8 billion.
But what happens next?
The last time our country sought to achieve a national infrastructure vision was in the 1950s. Roadways between cities at the time were haphazard and largely mud or gravel. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had seen the future in the German autobahn and set out to construct a national network of limited-access highways connecting major American cities. It took over three decades of sustained investment to complete that vision. The result was "the greatest public works project in history," according to the Federal Highway Administration.
Constructing high-speed rail will take no less of a commitment.
In a new report released today, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group is calling for another great public works project - one that will connect, by high-speed bullet trains, all of America's major cities which are between 100 to 500 miles from each other.
A high-speed rail network that competes with intercity commuter air travel would have huge benefits for our economic, energy, and environmental problems. It will create up to 1.6 million construction jobs, provide thousands with jobs related to the new lines, cut our energy consumption, improve travel and assist in the resurgence of American manufacturing. Replacing short-haul airplane flights will also free up precious air space at our crowded airports, and let airlines concentrate on the cross-country trips where they make sense.
The first step in building the network is to set a national goal with an ambitious time frame, just like we did for the Interstate Highway System or getting to the moon. We can link all our major cities by 2050, if we set our minds to it.
Ten other principles should guide state, national and local leaders as they roll up their sleeves to get the job done:
We know that Americans will increasingly use high-speed rail to commute between cities, if it exists. But we won't get there if Congress treats these stimulus grants as the final destination rather than the first leg of the journey.
We can't let that happen. We need a new, great public works project that is in the public interest. We need to make sure high-speed rail is not left at the station.
Click here to read an executive summary of the report, and to download the entire PDF.
Follow Phineas Baxandall on Twitter: www.twitter.com/uspirg
The fact is that Ike was not the nation's first big road-builder. Woodrow Wilson was. His 1916 Federal Aid Highway Act appropriated $75 million to be shared 50/50 with the states on a program to create paved highways. Between 1919 and 1953 this federal-state partnership built 3.5 million miles of paved intercity highways. Ike's Interstate program was a response to the safety and congestion problems that had developed on the successful 2-lane highway system, not an effort to overcome primitive road-construction methods.
In 1952, six months before Ike was elected, I traveled with my family from Wisconsin to Florida by automobile, and we never saw a dirt road anywhere. We followed U.S. 41 all the way, deviating occasionally over excellent state highways to visit en route attractions. Mr. Baxandall would be a more credible spokesman for America's transportation future if he had a better grasp of its transportation past.
If it wasn't, the government wouldn't be getting involved.
The Unexpected Traveller
This will turn into another Amtrak scenario - or just as bad, end up being like the airlines where trillions in tax dollars go for airports, security, traffic control etc - with the airlines being heavily subsidized by all that and still losing money.
And nowhere have I seen the biggest problem mentioned about high speed rail - the trillions it will cost to get right-of-ways and fight thousands of lawsuits against the NIMBY folks.
Sometimes I fly from SF to Orange County, sometimes to Burbank or Ontario, others to LA itself. It works very well, and isn't terribly expensive ... and pretty cheap if planned ahead of time...which I rarely can do. A train is likely to go fast from SJ to LA...and then it will be pretty slow getting to Burbank from there.
We might save more oil by improving the highway system to reduce gridlock (all those idling cars) at least until more cars are electric, hybrid or have start-stop modes.
It would be faster and smell better than petroleum disel.
Here's a short film we just completed on the HSR plan to run from San Francisco to LA.
The piece includes experts from international urban design to tunneling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVz7YQ_Zto4
Dan g - GG Films