The 2011 budget fight is gearing up, so in that spirit, let's talk about the federal budget and needs for that long time netroots favorite: the supertrain.
In short, $8 billion for high speed rail was allocated from last year's Recovery Act, with President Obama's budget for 2011 calling for another $1 billion. Meanwhile, the states have proposed $55 billion in high speed rail projects, and last year, the stalled House transportation bill would have included $50 billion for these projects. That puts the administration about $40 billion under what the states and the House wanted, and for a number of reasons, I'd have to side with the states and the House.
(No jokes about making the trains run on time. I asked Robert to write this for us back on Friday, before I had any idea how the focus of the weekend would unfold. Think instead of a multi-track strategy. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Last Thursday President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced the DOT's high speed rail strategic plan. You can find the full details of the plan at the USDOT website. The announcement has gotten a lot of attention around the blogs and in the traditional media, but what does it actually mean? What will this do for high speed rail in America, and what are some of the political obstacles that remain in place before we can use this tried-and-true system as a solution to our transportation, energy, environmental, and economic problems?
The short answer is that President Obama's plans have the potential to provide a major and long-overdue boost to the effort to build high speed trains across America. And he appears genuine in his desire to see this through, unlike the last Democratic president. But Obama is going to come up against some persistent and difficult obstacles, and he will have to show strong leadership and a willingness to make some people unhappy if he's to ensure that his presidency finally produces high speed trains for America.
(Okay folks! Weekend's almost over. Time to get back to work. Here's a useful look at where some of those stimulus dollars may be going to start moving us into a better future. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
The stimulus package has 8 billion dollars for high speed rail (HSR) grants. Someone asked me what was the likely construction speed-up time for certain routes (e.g. Seattle to Los Angeles, Chicago to New York, etc.). I said it depended on how far along the particular route was. In the extended entry I'll give a little more background on high speed rail in the U.S. and provide my guess as to which current HSR projects will receive some stimulus cash.
But what's really disturbing about this move is that it suggests the Sierra Club and the PCL have lost their focus - instead of looking at the big picture of high speed rail and emphasizing the game-changing environmental benefits it brings, they're focusing on a small non-issue instead. They've lost sight of the forest for the trees and instead of providing leadership on this issue they may instead cast their lot with the far right and leave Californians with no viable alternative to soaring fuel prices and a transportation system that is making our environmental problems far worse.
First, their criticisms as reported by E.J. Schulz:
But the environmentalists are still seething over the selection of relatively undeveloped Pacheco Pass as the route to connect the Central Valley to the Bay Area. They favor the more urban Altamont Pass to the north because they say it would induce less sprawl....
Environmentalists would rather see trains run farther north in the Valley before heading west so that more populated cities are served. They like the Altamont route because it would bring trains closer to Modesto, Dublin, Pleasanton and Livermore in the first phase.
By contrast, the Pacheco route -- roughly following Highway 152 -- is in a less populated area. Environmentalists worry that a planned station in Gilroy would induce sprawl in surrounding rural areas.
These worries are baseless. Gilroy and much of southern Santa Clara County have strict urban growth boundaries. If those places were going to sprawl they would have already done so given their proximity to the job center and hot housing market of Silicon Valley. HSR doesn't change that dynamic.
