In a follow-up to President Obama’s heavy-on-the-economy State of the Union address tonight, he and Vice President Joe Biden will be off to Tampa, Fla., Thursday to announce what advocates expect will be a $2.5-$2.6 billion grant for the country’s first 150+ mph passenger train. Smaller grants totaling $8 billion for 13 high-speed rail corridors in other states will also be announced. Other awards for improving existing rail lines will also receive money. All told, 31 states will receive grants. The money is part of the $787 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed a year ago.
Not only are these the kind of projects that are long overdue in America, they also offer an opportunity for exactly the kind of messaging on government stimulus projects that the White House should be engaging in every week. Whatever one believes regarding actual numbers of created and saved jobs, the stimulus has been providing money for much-needed efforts that private capital has been unwilling or unable to fund. That truth ought to be trumpeted frequently. The President and Vice President have been doing a little of this, but more is needed. The "Yes. We Can" message of the campaign needs to be revived to counter the continuing drumbeat from the Party of No and its enablers, whose chief message is: "No how, no way."
The 85-mile Tampa-Orlando link is seen as the first phase of a network of bullet trains that would run as far south as Miami. In addition to the federal dollars, Florida HSR advocates are seeking $1 billion in private investment. How many new jobs will actually be generated by this rail line, slated for completion in 2014, or by the other high-speed routes affected by the grants, is anybody’s guess. The United States doesn’t have the kind of bullet trains found in Japan or Europe, and there are no domestic manufacturing companies in the field. So, much of the technology for these rail operations will have to be bought overseas. But, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said at a conference last year that 30 foreign and domestic companies have vowed to establish operations in the U.S. if they are chosen to build high-speed rail. Welcome news given the continual loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States. Making that happen is another investment in the future.
To make high-speed real a reality, however, Congress needs to come up with a good deal more than the few billions it’s allocated for such projects so far. The myopic approach says that now is not the right time to support, say, $250 billion for high-speed rail projects (together with electrifying existing rail with green power). The heavy deficit is seen as meaning that we should instead be cutting rather than adding. In fact, now is precisely the time to support such a visionary move, the kind that will pay dividends for decades to come. Thirty years ago, myopic thinking is what killed moves that, if implemented, might well have meant the United States would be today’s leader in solar and wind manufacturing with vast fleets of exportable electric automobiles and rail technology. It's late, but it's not too late to revive that dream.
Daily Kos diarist BruceMcF has been covering the issue intensively in an excellent, long-running series. Mark Reutter has written "Fast Track to the Future: A High-Speed Rail Agenda for America" for the Progressive Policy Institute. You can read about Florida’s plans here. See also Jovie131's diary.