American States in High Speed Rail Rush
Applications have been flooding in to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to get a slice of the 8 billion dollars set aside by the Obama administration for high speed rail investment. At present there have been 270 applications from 40 states with the total requests equaling over 105 billion dollars. Clearly 8 billion dollars cannot nearly cover demand. Obama has put forward a much needed proposal for the largest passenger rail expansion in 50 years but the US rail network been neglected for such a long time. With rising fuel prices and longer security queues at airports, passenger numbers are increasing but after years of underfunding, especially under the last administration, America’s public transport systems are in need of a cash injection.
America currently has 362 km of high speed track which is comparatively small in relation to Japan’s 1,285 km or France’s 1,872 km of track. However, Obama said that the first round of money would go to upgrading and increasing speeds on existing lines. The second and third phase would focus on high speed planning and construction of new corridors.
One state may be leading the race for high speed funds; California’s voters last November approved nearly 10 billion dollars in state bonds to be combined with federal money to build 800 miles of high speed track. The line will connect San Diego in Southern California to the capital Sacremento in the North. There have also been plans put in place to extend the line to Las Vegas which will reduce congestion on the Interstate-15 between Los Angeles and Vegas.
Final applications are due by 24th August and the FRA will start distributing funds in September. Although it will only cover a fraction of the cost of building the new network, it shows the public that the government is investing money wisely and creating tangible benefits. Obama hopes high speed rail will transform the transportation system in the US just as much as President Eisenhower’s interstate highway system did in the 1950’s.
