I am currently working in New Orleans, and it is nearly three years to the day that Katrina struck the city, with a storm forecast to hit us early next week. I can tell you that right now, there is a palpable sense of anxiety and fear among my colleagues who witnessed Katrina. Most people say they won't stay if another strong storm comes anywhere near to here (a smart idea), and some say they won't come back this time.
If an evacuation occurs again, it will take hours to get to the nearest "safe" city by car, and even for those lucky enough to get plane tickets, eventually the planes will be grounded. But imagine if we could pile high speed trains full of people and get them out of harms way within two or three hours. This may sound like a ringing endorsement of Joe Biden, but I think our future VP would fully support this idea.
How many lives could we have saved if we had such high speed trains from New Orleans or Gulfport or Biloxi or Houston or Miami to Austin, Little Rock, Memphis, or Atlanta? Imagine how many thousands of gallons of gas would have been saved rather than burned up on the lanes of I-10 out of New Orleans during Katrina, or Houston during Rita...
People would have had an easy way out, and the rescue effort would have cost less in both monetary and humanitarian terms. The superdome wouldn't have been packed with the downtrodden after Katrina. Fewer dead would have been floating en masse in the streets and in attics.
China is supposed to be an "emerging economy." We're supposedly a "developed nation." Yet China has high speed rail connecting its major cities. Why don't we?
That is not a rhetorical question. It's the fault of both Democrats and Republicans of the past. Not enough attention has been paid to our nation's infrastructure (Minneapolis bridge? New Orleans levees?). Congress has become too complacent in its ways, and they usually react to the warning signs by holding "hearings" and passing "resolutions" and never actually representing their constituents as they were elected to do.
The money goes to pork barrel projects--a bridge to nowhere (a.k.a. a war in Iraq)--not where it needs to go.
I know you are paying attention to the convention right now. But on the third anniversary of Katrina, it's not just New Orleans that needs your attention. It's the entire State of the Union. Thanks to capitulant Democrats and noun-verb-9/11 Republicans, we're in a bad spot. We need people like Joe Biden who will not only fight for transportation infrastructure upgrades but will win. We need Congress to act like it hasn't but should: to represent the People and our best interest.