Obama Seeks $53 Billion Over Six Years to Build High-Speed Rail Networks - Bloomberg
We are well overdue for the benefits of high speed rail - the fact that we don’t have any high speed coast to coast routes is a national shame. A couple of transcontinental right of ways created by congress could create a national power inter tie infrastructure as well as create routes for OC-128 fiber and next generation national network infrastructure.
During times of peace the Romans built roads, and so we should also focus on our national infrastructure. There are defense benefits as well: coast to coast high speed rail allows us to transit heavy forces one coast to the other quickly without relying on the Panama canal to ship them. Just studying the routes for a coast to coast right of way in Congress would boost the economy in many ways.
President Barack Obama will ask Congress next week to approve a six-year, $53 billion program for construction of a national high-speed and intercity rail network, Vice President Joe Biden said.
“There are key places where we cannot afford to sacrifice as a nation — one of which is infrastructure,” Biden said in a speech today at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. Obama submits his fiscal 2012 budget to Congress on Feb. 14.
Under the budget proposal, about $8 billion would be spent in the first year to develop or improve interconnected rail corridors that Biden said would form the backbone of a national high-speed rail system.
Such corridors would be divided into three categories: “core express” for trains achieving speeds of between 125 and 250 miles per hour or more; “regional” lines for trains traveling between 90 to 125 miles per hour and “emerging” rail lines for passenger trains traveling as much as 90 miles per hour.