In the months ahead the Department of Transportation will be begin awarding the $8 billion set aside under the federal stimulus program to those states presenting the most attractive plans for building high speed trains. Another $5 billion will be sought by the administration over the next five years. Not exactly chump change but for those counting, it's equivalent to the amount showered practically overnight to a single financial entity, the $12.9 billion paid out to Goldman Sachs through AIG's counterparty redemption of near worthless derivatives made possible by the government's infusion of cash into AIG.
Where once upon a time $8 billion plus the prospect of an additional $5 billion would have seemed like a munificent sum, given our recent conditioning of hundreds of billions being bandied about it seems insufficient to the task at hand and lacking in vision. And this for a program that would have an extraordinarily beneficial impact on our lives, on our economy, and on the environment. Quoting California's Governor Schwarzenegger, commenting on the proposed high speed link from the Bay Area to Southern California:
"On top of stimulating the California economy, Federal investment in California's rail systems will help lay a sustainable foundation for economic growth, help us meet our environmental goals and improve quality of life here in California."
Most glaring is the paucity of national commitment to what could be a major and positive overhaul to how we travel, weaning us away from decades of addiction to endless highway and road building, and the endless subsidies toward air and highway funding.
Given the success and public enthusiasm for high speed rail in Japan and China coupled with a deep sense of national pride, our efforts are long overdue in what is rapidly becoming the preferred mode of transport of the 21st century and beyond. This is especially so when both England and France are undertaking major expansions of their already highly successful high speed rail infrastructure.
To the enormously successful high speed rail service linking London to Paris, the British government is proposing expanding service from London to Edinburgh and Glasgow serving both Manchester and Birmingham as well. Current plans call for the link to become operative by 2030 with an expenditure of $55 billion dollars. (BBC "New High Speed Plan Unveiled" 08.26.09). Travel time between Glasgow and London will be reduced from 4 hours and 10 minutes to 2 hrs and 16 minutes.
France, with perhaps the most effective national high speed rail network in the world is looking to double its reach within France and extend service links to Italy and Spain and ameliorate service links to Germany. More than 2000 additional kilometers of track will be put down by 2020 at a cost of 98 billion dollars (Le Monde: "Lignes a Grande Vitesse: la France de Demain" 08.11.09). On a proportional basis relative to size and population that would be the equivalent of the United States committing at least $490 billion toward an analogous project.
It needs be added, in terms of what forward thinking governance can achieve, that the French rail system is powered almost exclusively by an electric grid that is generated in excess of 80 percent by nuclear power, with the French government gearing to reach 100 percent within the next few years.
On the issue of high speed rail service we are riding the caboose of history attached to a hundred car freight train. "Lignes a Grande Vitesse: la France de Demain," freely translated is "High Speed Rail Network: the France of the Future". What about our future? And when are we going to have a government that once again takes the future in hand with vision and meaningful purpose and action?
Raymond J. Learsy: Tom Friedman's Take On "Wimps" and "The Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys"
How are we going to compete in years to come as we go head-to-head with societies that are far better equipped to deal with the exigencies of the future?
you must know allot about depletion
you must know that texas peaked long ago and now produces much less oil then several decades ago
so..., why would you be apposed to HSR?
are you apposed to light rail within cities too?
gas?
diesel?
bad idea
I know, government builds the roads for cars to travel on (and they force me to buy license plates, driver's license, insurance, and they won't let me drive drunk or over the speed limit!) but I choose to ignore that. Don't confuse me with facts! :) /sarcasm
And yes, I think a high speed rail system would need to move freight as well as passengers to be successful.
Has anyone noticed that Al-Quida has made attacks that provide financial benefit to Saudi Arabia and the other oil nations?
They attacked public trains in Britain and Spain, and air travel in the US, pushing people in both nations to make more trips by car (which increases gas consumption). The also attacked cities with lower gas per citizen use than the US as a whole.
I am not saying that Al-Quida would attack US high speed rail, but if they did we should support it all the more...
They built the most modern subway system in the world, and then set up contracts to run it. GM undercut the contract and used busses so that other cities wouldn't replace their busses with subways.
What is amazing and telling of what lunatics Republicans are, is that when one states how right it is to invest our Taxes in high speed trains as Europeans have, Japanese have, Chinese have and are that the Republicans state this amazing non-sense:
US is larger than Europe so high speed train will not work here!
Doh! You do not take high speed train to go between New York and LA but you would take it to go between cities that are less than 1000 miles apart, which are 100s of cities in US. To put it another way for the mathematically challenged Republicans you take high speed train to go between San Francisco and LA, LA and Vegas, Charleston and Atalanta, Miami and Savanah, etc. etc.
which are the same distances apart as for example are Paris and Niece which are connected with high speed trains.
If you are familiar to all the great work The Brookings Institute did in this regard to prep this President it makes this even more disgraceful and regressive...
High speed rail would open up and bring huge increases of spending investment and even create an economic boom in many areas and regions of our nation...
It also pays for itself many time over in a number of years for every dollar spent...
People think Obama is about change...
He's about preserving the inequitable status quo...as much as possible...that's his real deal, we can believe in...!