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US government kick-starts $8 billion in high-speed rail projects

By Joe McKendrick | Jan 28, 2010 |

The US federal government is providing $8 billion in grants — coming from economic stimulus money — to get things moving on the nation’s first high-speed, intercity rail service between a number of major cities.

US Department of Transportation Proposed High-Speed Rail Network

US Department of Transportation Proposed High-Speed Rail Network

California will receive $2.25 billion, the largest amount for any state, in federal economic stimulus funds to develop a high-speed rail line running from Anaheim to San Francisco. Additional lines will also include a Midwest line from Chicago to St. Louis and one in Florida running from Tampa to Orlando. Trains will run up to 220 miles an hour.

According to a Los Angeles Times report, trains on the proposed Anaheim-to-San Francisco line, which is projected to ultimately cost about $42 billion, “would whisk passengers the 400 or so miles in no more than 2 hours, 40 minutes. The project would take a decade to complete, with extensions to San Diego and Sacramento planned.”

Florida will receive $1.25 billion to help build a high-speed rail system from Orlando to Tampa and, eventually, to Miami.

A $1.1 billion grant will fund a high-speed corridor between Chicago and St. Louis, and eventually to Kansas City.

An $823 million award to link Minneapolis to Milwaukee and Chicago.

New York state will receive $151 million for a high-speed rail line from Niagara Falls to New York City.

The California High-Speed Rail Blog has provided links to White House has info sheets on what each state received. Some highlights:

UPDATE:  For further reference, Wired magazine has just published a nice summary of who, what, when, where and why as it regards high-speed rail in the United States.

 
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    1

    MikeBytes@...

    01/29/10 | Report as spam

    RE: US government kick-starts $8 billion in high-speed rail projects

    Yippidee-do we have taken the model of the "bridge to nowhere" and extrapolated it into an expensive train to nowhere. I know look at the map there is a starting place and an ending place. I live in Washington State and we have a great local rail system that starts in downtown Seattle and takes you to the airport, almost. It stops at least a quarter mile from the airport. Interestingly the airport was there befor the rail system and the airport did not move. Boy, I am sure impressed-not!Three questions at least fog this idea:
    1. How do you get to the train?
    2. How do you get from the destination station to where you really want to go?
    3. And how much is it going to cost each passenger and maybe more importantly, how much is it going to cost each non-passenger to subsidise this?

    Oh yes where are these trains going to be built? Since Europe and Asia is so far in front of us in this I guess we will have to rely on them to build the trains and provide the jobs. Europe was also ahead of us with the SST, Supper Sonic Transport, but how many are flying now?

  •  
    2

    scott@...

    01/29/10 | Report as spam

    RE: US government kick-starts $8 billion in high-speed rail projects

    I'm glad to hear that we're finally doing something about the sorry state of our trains (not to mention the sorry state of flying). Isn't it sad in how many areas we're forced to admit that Europe and Asia (etc) are kicking our ass? I want to see us back on top in healthcare, education, standard of living, happiness, longevity, infant mortality, science, etc, etc.

  •  
    3

    ddferrari

    01/30/10 | Report as spam

    RE: US government kick-starts $8 billion in high-speed rail projects

    Sorry Scott, but building some fast, shiny new trains will do nothing to get us "back on top in healthcare, education, standard of living, happiness, longevity, infant mortality, science, etc, etc."

    Schools are cutting back on expenses, and in many cases closing; people are homeless and starving; even my local law enforcement laid off some officers because of a "lack" of funds...and the government is going to throw eight BILLION dollars at trains?? This is so unnecessary it's ridiculous.

    Aren't all these destinations already accessible by "regular" trains, buses and planes? How many different choices do we need? And sadly, a sizable percentage of Americans feel that they are "above" public transportation (other than flying) anyway.

    So now I'll be able to get from Minneapolis to Chicago in four hours instead of eight -whoopie!Or, I could just book the 45 minute flight for $99 r/t, which, after checking Amtrak's rates, was about the same.

    This is obviously about money, not what's best for this country. Looks like the lobbyists and Washington DC have raped us again.

    P.S. I completely agree with MikeBytes as well.

  •  
    4

    3dguru

    01/30/10 | Report as spam

    Supportable transportation

    Who will fund the maintenance of these pie-in-the-sky projects? More money down a rathole or will they be parked next to the Concordes? Interesting that these are all for people transportation because of the high value of time. But then, we have to get in our cars and wait two hours in traffic to get home from the train station. plain

  •  
    5

    acad2kman

    01/31/10 | Report as spam

    LOCAL TRANSPORTATION NEEDED !!!

    For a fraction of this cost, the BART system in the Bay Area
    could be finished, with links to Silicon Valley, Livermore, Tracy
    and the Central Valley. It was supposed to ring the Bay and
    extend up the Peninsula but Santa Clara and San Mateo
    counties opted out way back when.

    Alameda County and other counties where BART has been
    running from day one are paying a sales tax premium that
    brings our local sales tax up to 9.75% with NO END IN SIGHT!!!
    ALL residents that do business here subsidize this system that
    carries thousands of people daily to work . . . how much do you
    expect will be extorted to pay for this boondoggle and where
    will the money come from to maintain it??

    Put the money where it is MOST NEEDED, getting people from
    home to work everyday . . . this sure does NOT look anything
    like that!!!

  •  
    6

    wizoddg

    02/09/10 | Report as spam

    RE: US government kick-starts $8 billion in high-speed rail projects

    Gee..after killing the railroads by permitting the trucking industry to destroy the freeways whilst paying a token towards repairs--knowing full well that the only transport cheaper than rail is by water (perhaps zeppelins could compete, but on stupid accident caused by a company using ROCKET FUEL! to paint their lighter-than-air craft, pretty much destroyed the industry before it got started,) now the government is going to give taxpayer money away to revive an industry that the government destroyed in the first place!

    If commercial highway users paid their actual costs of using the roads, rail would never have died, and we'd have had high=-speed rail from coast to coast back in the late '60's.

    Seems that large industries are always profiting off of the taxpayers.

    Of course, spreading huge amounts of money around a large number of states is a great way to guarantee that the Congress approves it--whether it makes sense or not!

  •  
    7

    ajb2@...

    02/21/10 | Report as spam

    Interstates: Military roads

    Interstates are federally funded because they're intended for military transport. If it wasn't for that commitment they would never have happened.

    If the military made a similar commitment to rail, the problem would go away, virtually overnight.

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