In This Update:

• America 2050 Presents: A Better Tomorrow
• PBS Airs Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City, Feb 8 at 10:00 EST
  
• High-Speed Rail Announcements Signal Dawn of New Era

America 2050 Presents: A Better Tomorrow With the reauthorization of the surface transportation bill seemingly stalled indefinitely in Congress, we've been thinking lately at America 2050 about what is needed to get Americans excited about transportation. Last week's announcement about high-speed rail was a start, but generally, the public dialogue about transportation tends to focus on the negative -- congestion, cost, and deterioration of our infrastructure. Given the tremendous need to invest in coming decades to accommodate America's projected population growth, wouldn't it be nice to focus on how a 21st century transportation system would benefit America?

To that end, America 2050 is pleased to present a new initiative called, A Better Tomorrow. A Better Tomorrow is a program to engage the public in creating a positive vision for the future of America built around investments in sustainable transportation and livable communities. America 2050 is creating and collecting visualizations of how communities, regions, and our transportation networks will be organized in the future and launching a competition in April 2010 to elicit your vision of how people will get around in 2050, and highlighting the most powerful videos visualizing these improvements.

To begin, we've produced our own visualization of a "day in the life" in the not too distant future in our video short, "Journey to Detroit." Produced in collaboration with PBS Blueprint America and WNET, this video can be viewed here on the America 2050 website and will be aired in excerpts on PBS this Monday as part of the documentary, Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City. (Read more about that below.) In the meantime, we hope you will share Journey to Detroit with your friends, colleagues and  social networks (our twitter feed is here for you to re-tweet), and participate in our Better Tomorrow Challenge, launching April 2010.

PBS Airs Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City, Feb 8 at 10:00 EST
America 2050 is pleased to have collaborated with PBS and WNET on their documentary film, Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City. The film examines how Detroit, a symbol of America's diminishing status in the world, may come to represent the future of transportation and progress in America. The film debuts nationally on PBS on February 8 at 10 pm (check local listings).

The film highlights many of America 2050's core themes, starting with America's long tradition of national planning, from the Gallatin plan of canals and roadways to the Transcontinental Railroad to the Interstate Highway System. This history of national planning is ably recounted in the film by historian Robert Fishman of University of Michigan, who helped shape our thinking with his paper, 1808-1908-2008: National Planning for America.

The film goes on to describe Detroit as the crucible in which the nation's ability to move toward a modern 21st century transportation infrastructure is put to the test. It discusses the promise and challenges of making a national commitment to public transit and high-speed rail, including excerpts of our video short, Journey to Detroit. 

High-Speed Rail Announcement Signals Dawn of New Era 
America 2050 applauded last week's announcement of federal investment in high-speed and intercity passenger rail projects around the country. In our statement released January 27, we wrote, "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" and offered the following principles for moving forward, drawn from our report, Where High-Speed Rail Works Best, to invest in corridors that:

1. Connect cities in large metropolitan regions and megaregions with high concentrations of population, employment and tourism, or fast-growing population centers with the same characteristics.
2. Connect to transit and walkable downtowns. To successfully attract passengers away from other modes, such as driving and flying, high-speed rail must connect places that concentrate activities and are accessible by foot or public transit. Otherwise, passengers will regret leaving their car at home.
3. Connect cities with demonstrated intercity passenger demand, indicated by auto congestion and point-to-point air travel.
4. Are up to 600 miles in length - the distance at which high-speed rail is highly competitive with auto and air travel.

The Administration's selected corridors emphasize a focus on project readiness, best illustrated in the selection of the Tampa-Orlando corridor, a project that offers relative low cost, feasibility, and ability to implement due to its flat topography and public right of way. We think the Administration is smart to focus on projects that can demonstrate early success, as well as build public support for a national program through incremental investments that will result in greater reliability, frequency, and competitive trip times, tapping into unmet demand for passenger rail services. For more on high-speed rail, see my commentary in the National Journal transportation blog, or my (raucous) debate with Stuart Varney on Fox Business News.

America 2050 is planning a Community Sourcing Competition to visualize the future of America's communities and transportation systems. A "Slidecast" of our concept is provided below with audio narration. You can also download this proposal (2 Mb) to learn more about the effort.  

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: 

"Transit is the key to equity..."

Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City examines how Detroit, a symbol of America's diminishing status in the world, may come to represent the future of transportation and progress in America. The film, which features clips developed in partnership with America 2050 debuts nationally on PBS on February 8 at 10 pm (check local listings).

The special includes clips of a Chicago to Detroit high-speed rail journey produced by America 2050 and WNET -- a  prototype of how travel may be experienced in the future with  new transportation, energy and civic infrastructure.

Also featured is a research paper commissioned by America 2050 from Professor Robert Fishman, 1808 - 1908 - 2008: National Planning for America, in which Fishman relates the history of national planning in America.

In This Update:

• Support America 2050 with a Year End Contribution
• Senate Passes Spending Bill: Includes $2.5 Billion for High-Speed Rail
• America 2050 Urges Principles for Jobs Bill
• Making the Case for High-Speed Rail on Fox Business News

• Bipartisan Collaboration in the Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion

• About America 2050

America 2050 Director Petra Todorovich discusses how the New York region may fare in a jobs bill being considered by President Obama and Congress and the importance of fully funding the New York MTA's five-year capital plan.

America 2050 signed a letter this week to leaders in Congress proposing principles for transportation and infrastructure spending that could shape a potential jobs bill -- a prospect currently being discussed and debated on Capitol Hill.

If we're going to fund infrastructure investments to put people back to work, it's imperative that we get the most out of our precious dollars -- and stay on track for passing the long-term transportation bill we so desperately need to get America moving again.

Any plan to create jobs through transportation spending should:

1. Create the greatest number of jobs in the quickest time possible by prioritizing rehabilitation and operation of existing infrastructure and target new workforce development opportunities for people most in need of employment. (i.e., "Fix-it-first.")
2. Chart a new 21st century direction in transportation policy.
3. Be limited to no more than a year and not replace the long term authorization of the transportation bill.

Click through the jump to read the full letter to the Speaker of the House.