High-speed rail
High-Speed Rail Lobbying Campaign Revives the “$4B” Rallying Cry
The lobbying coalition that helped prod Congress into approving $2.5 billion for high-speed rail last year -- twice as much as the Senate had originally set aside -- today kicked off a new campaign urging lawmakers to approve $4 billion for bullet trains next year and $2.6 billion for Amtrak.
May 11, 2010
Expectations for High-Speed Rail Coming Down to Earth
Three months after the Obama administration announced the first winners of what it hopes will be the first of many federal grants to build U.S. high-speed rail networks, advocates and planners are settling in for a long battle to surmount the obstacles and unknowns that stand in the way of long-term bullet train development.
May 5, 2010
Long-Shot NY Congressional Candidate Runs Against High-Speed Rail
Over the years, veteran Rep. Louise Slaughter (D) has pushed so doggedly for construction of a new train line in her upstate New York district that one state legislator christened her "Mrs. High-Speed Rail."
April 30, 2010
Dem and GOP Senators Seek More Long-Term Rail Vision From Obama Aides
The senior Democratic and Republican senators in charge of setting annual transportation spending levels today urged the leader of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to develop a more comprehensive plan for using the White House's high-speed rail program to spur the development of viable U.S. train networks.
April 29, 2010
Planner Calls For ‘Fight’ Against High-Speed Rail Sharing Track With Freight
As federal and local officials plot out the future of U.S. high-speed rail, a prominent speaker at this week's American Planning Association conference is urging fellow urban planners to "fight" the prospect of high-speed rail sharing roadbed with freight lines -- a significant dilemma for Amtrak, which must split an estimated 70 percent of its track with freight.
April 12, 2010
Coming Soon to Popular Transport Stimulus Programs: Local Funding
Two of the most popular transportation programs in the Obama administration's stimulus law, the $1.5 billion in competitive grants known as TIGER and the $8 billion high-speed rail initiative, had an added feature that made them even more attractive to cities and states: the federal funding awards would not require a local match.
April 7, 2010
LaHood Faces Off With GOP Senator Over High-Speed Rail, Livability
When Cabinet secretaries appear in front of Congress' appropriations committees, which control the annual budgets for each federal agency, the proceedings tend to be dry affairs dominated by local concerns and arcane fiscal debates.
March 4, 2010
House Lawmakers Hail Transportation Stimulus — But Add Three Caveats
At a House transportation committee hearing today that marked the one-year anniversary of the Obama administration's economic recovery efforts, lawmakers offered praise for the stimulus law's impact on local infrastructure investments even as they hit upon three key areas of concern with its implementation.
February 23, 2010
Rail Expert Reutter: White House Misfired on High-Speed Rail Stimulus
Mark Reutter, author of the industrial tome Making Steel and a veteran editor of Railroad History, can safely be called an expert on the train industry. And in a new memo for the Progressive Policy Institute, he is issuing a warning to the Obama administration on its high-profile push for high-speed rail.
February 18, 2010
New Report Maps a High-Speed Rail Link For Every Major U.S. City
Now that the Obama administration has awarded $8 billion in high-speed rail grants to more than two dozen states, with $2.5 billion more coming soon, why not keep thinking big when it comes to bullet-train expansion?
February 9, 2010