The Road to Rail

Today is a good day for fans of trains. Back during the construction of the stimulus package, the Obama administration successfully pushed to have $8 billion included for the development of high-speed rail systems, and he gave his transportation secretary two months to figure out what to do with it. Today, we have our answer. Money will be allocated via two rounds of applications. The first will direct funds toward projects with short turnaround times and good job creation metrics. The second round will focus on efforts to lay the groundwork for longer term projects. Eleven major corridors are eligible; the route from Los Angeles to Las Vegas is not among them.

Transportation experts are hailing the proposal as a good step forward, but cautioning that building high-speed rail on the same scale as the interstate highway system is going to require a little more than $8 billion. Presumably, this is a down payment on more significant funding to come. I also think it's a pretty useful heads up to the American public. "Get yourself ready to contemplate rail travel in America, because it's on the way," or some such thing.

Some will cry boondoggle; certainly GOP leaders attempted to do so in (falsely) claiming that the $8 billion was destined for Harry Reid's Mag-Lev line. This is a little silly. Rail in the northeastern corridor demonstrates that transit can become a crucial, even indispensable, part of the the infrastructure powering a regional economy. And most of the initial investments will be more about building a basic, functional passenger system, as opposed to bullet trains. Upgrades will involve getting trains to speeds around 120 miles per hour, improving reliability, increasing frequency, and so on. In a country where intercity highway and air travel have become burdensome, expensive, and plagued by congestion and delays, and where reduced carbon emissions is a priority, these are the minimum acceptable steps for the rail system.

And as was the case with highway construction, improved rail service will create its own demand. Faster, more reliable trains will attract riders and drive investment. New investment will attract new riders, and so on. The result will be a more balanced, reliable, redundant transportation system, that also happens to be more convenient and greener.

So feel good about this, taxpayers. It's money well spent.