Obama administration vows not to give up on high-speed rail

Date: 7/12/2012

President Barack Obama's administration has vowed to press ahead with plans to build high-speed rail infrastructure in the US.

Ray LaHood, American Transportation Secretary, addressed the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on the matter and said that it was still very much on the agenda.

He said: "We're not giving up on high-speed rail. The president will include funding in his budget. I think we'll get there with public money, but in the absence of that we'll get there with private money."

The high-speed rail programme was launched with $8 billion (£5 billion) of economic stimulus funding, but work is yet to begin.

A high-speed link between San Francisco and Los Angeles is to be the first phase in the project, which will stretch for 520 miles,and is expected to take 15 years to complete at a projected cost of $68 billion.

In excess of 150 high-speed rail proposals have been granted funding with the majority of them linking metropolises on the two coasts and the Midwest.

Governors in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin all rejected federal funding for high-speed rail projects last year for fear that the state government would be left with the bill if this funding dried up.

Donna Edwards, Congresswoman for Maryland, said: "We need to get started. I know when the interstates were being built there were areas that didn't want them. Who doesn't want a highway now?"

The US currently has one high-speed rail route, running from Boston to Washington DC, but it shares its line with conventional trains.

These new plans would provide the country with its first dedicated high-speed network and instead of top speeds of 84 miles per hour, trains would be able to reach 220 miles per hour.

The time frame for high-speed rail in the US is long-term with the first phase unlikely to be completed before 2028 and a wider network not expected to come to fruition before 2040.

Posted by Nick Anderson

International Transport News and Sustainable Transport News