Obama's High-Speed Light Rail Plan

Photo: Istock

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What do you do with $8 billion dollars and a need for (fuel-efficient) speed?

You build high-speed light rail lines.

At least, that is President Obama's plan, which he outlined in broad strokes today. The economic stimulus package passed earlier this year by Congress makes available $8 billion for the kind of high-speed rail that zips people across Europe, Japan and elsewhere, but which has never caught on in the car-happy U.S.A.

But with oil prices going nowhere but up, and the need to move people and goods efficiently across vast spaces, 200 mph trains sound pretty good. They're fast and more efficient than their equivalents on wheels or wings.

Obama's announcement today amounts to a promise to choose quickly where that money will be spent. What we know today is that the money will go to projects in as many as 10 regions:

1. Northern New England line
2. Empire line running across New York State (east to west)
3. Keystone corridor through Pennsylvania (east to west)
4. Southeast network connecting the District of Columbia to Florida and the Gulf Coast
5. Gulf Coast line extending from eastern Texas to western Alabama
6. A corridor in central and southern Florida
7. A Texas-to-Oklahoma line
8. A California corridor from San Francisco to Los Angeles
9. A corridor in the Pacific Northwest
10. the Northeast corridor between Washington and Boston (already operational)

A Vision for High Speed Rail from White House on Vimeo.

Map courtesy of The White House Blog

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