Spain has made a multi-billion dollar commitment to a high-speed rail system that aims to unite the country. Learn about it in this short clip from Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City.

Clip courtesy of Blueprint America, produced by PBS and Thirteen. 

Sometime in the not too distant future, John wakes up in suburban Chicago on a Saturday morning and heads to a White Sox game...in Detroit. Join him on a 300 mile journey to Detroit's Comerica Park as he experiences the transportation options of the future: a neighborhood electric car share program, smart phone ticketing, high-speed rail, and connecting light rail. This clip is brought to you by America 2050 as part of its "A Better Tomorrow" project to visualize America's future communities and transportation systems.

The National Journal Transportation Experts Blog moderator Lisa Caruso asked this week, "Is Obama Spending the High-Speed Rail Money Wisely? Read America 2050 Director Petra Todorovich's response here, along with other responses from a panel of transportation policy analysts and professionals. 

America 2050 hailed this week's high-speed rail announcement as the first step toward a sustained federal commitment to build a national high-speed rail network. But the skeptics at Fox Business had another take. Watch the clip.

(New York, NY) President Obama's expected announcement in Tampa tomorrow of proposed high-speed rail investments is a critical step toward implementing the long-term infrastructure vision our nation needs to pull itself out of the Great Recession and position itself for long-term competitive growth. America has gone from zero to sixty on high-speed rail in less than a year, joining virtually every other industrialized nation in making high-speed rail the backbone of a national infrastructure system.  We applaud the Obama Administration's vision in supporting this energy efficient, modern form of transportation and look forward to learning which corridors will be selected.

No matter which corridors receive the preliminary federal grants tomorrow, we offer the following principles for consideration as the program moves forward and expands:

The Administration should demonstrate early success by focusing on corridors with strong ridership demand and the lowest barriers to implementation. Our research indicates that the corridors with the greatest prospects for ridership demand are those that: 

On Sunday the Senate voted 57 to 32 to approve the omnibus spending bill, which included $2.5 billion for high-speed rail. The spending bill, which already passed the House, will go next to the President's desk for signature.

While the bill's $2.5 billion is less than the $4 billion for high-speed rail approved by the House in an earlier version of the spending bill this year, it exceeds the President's request for high-speed rail in his draft budget ($5 billion over 5 years). With this appropriation Congress has indicated their strong support for the nation's high-speed rail program.

The bill also included a small ray of hope for the Northeast Corridor, which has been excluded from applying for significant grants in the FRA's high-speed rail program because it lacks an up-to-date corridor-wide Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The spending bill includes $50 million for planning grants to states (with an 80/20 federal-state split). That $50 million is being eyed by states in the Northeast to fund their work on the Programmatic EIS in cooperation with the FRA and Amtrak in order to hasten the corridor's eligibility for funding in the FRA's High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail program. 

Richard Little, Director of the USC Keston Institute and an America 2050 partner discussed high-speed rail this week with Brian Sullivan on Fox Business News. Little emphasized the need to invest strategically in corridors where there's demand for high-speed rail service.

Reprinted from the Northeast-Midwest Institute
by Fritz Ohrenschall, Research Associate, Northeast-Midwest Institute

The Administration's "Stimulus Bill" - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - provides $8 billion for high speed rail.  Unfortunately, the Northeast Rail Corridor faces major hurdles in receiving any of this money because the Federal Railroad Administration has yet to document, as required by law, the environmental impacts of revamping the corridor.
 
Recovery Act rail funding is allocated in two tracks.  Track 1 funds individual projects on a rail line.  Track 2 funds corridor-wide projects that will reduce trip times on that line.  Construction of corridor-wide enhancement on the Northeast Corridor would fall under Track 2 and will require that the Federal Railroad Administration prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement documenting the effects of such enhancements in order to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.  This document must be very comprehensive and it remains to be seen whether it can be completed before the statutory deadline for Recovery Act monies to be spent.
 
Recognizing that Recovery Act funding is critical to the nation's busiest rail corridor, the states along the corridor, as well as the Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility have requested that FRA expedite the impact statement and have volunteered to help with it.  Currently it is unclear whether the FRA can meet this challenge.

Download "Challenges to Northeast Corridor ARRA Funding."