WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Thursday outlined plans for a high-speed rail network he said would change the way Americans travel, drawing comparisons to the 1950s creation of the interstate highway system.
Obama was careful to point out that his $8 billion plan was only a down payment on an ambitious program that, if realized, could connect Chicago and St. Louis, Orlando and Miami, Portland and Seattle and dozens of other metropolitan areas across the country with high-speed trains.
There is no guarantee that the nation has the political will — Congress has often tried to reduce support for Amtrak — or the hundreds of billions of dollars and decades it would take to build a comprehensive fast rail system.
“This is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future,” Obama said during an event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is adjacent to the White House. “It is happening right now. It’s been happening for decades. The problem is, it’s been happening elsewhere, not here.”
The only U.S. rail service that meets the Federal Railroad Administration’s 110-mph threshold to qualify as high-speed rail is Amtrak’s 9-year-old Acela Express route, connecting Boston to Washington, D.C.
Initially, regional transportation offices will compete for the $8 billion included in the $787 billion economic stimulus spending package for high-speed rail, bolstered by the $1 billion a year for five years that’s been requested in the federal budget.
Obama said the first round of money would go to upgrading and increasing speeds on existing lines where people could quickly be put to work.
Any region could present a long-range plan, he said, although the stimulus money can go only to 10 major corridors. None is in Colorado.
