Yesterday Ray LaHood, Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT), announced awards totaling $2 billion dollars for high speed rail infrastructure. In the press release from DOT, the money will go to the “Northeast Corridor, expand service in the Midwest, and provide new, state-of-the-art locomotives and rail cars.” 15 states and Amtrak were among those [...]
Posts Tagged ‘High Speed Rail’
$2 Billion in Funding for High Speed Rail Announced
May 10th, 2011 
Eric Wilson 
Posted in Eric Wilson, Green Economy, News, Transportation 
Tags: California, High Speed Rail, Los Angeles, Saint Louis Missouri, Washington DC 
No Comments »What Do We Stand for in This Country?
April 30th, 2011 Eric Wilson Sifting through the aftermath of the recent budget compromise, one finds cuts to high speed rail, land conservation, clean water, energy efficiency, and clean energy alternatives. According to NPR, “cuts were targeted at programs ranging from FEMA grants to first-responders and high-speed rail projects to assistance for low-income mothers and children and community AIDS initiatives.” [...]
Can You Compare High Speed Rail to the Interstate Highway System?
March 3rd, 2011 2nd Green Revolution Just over 50 years ago, the interstate system came into being. President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 on June 29th with the aim of improving travel across the country. According to the National Highway Administration, “President Eisenhower considered it one of the most important achievements of his two terms in office.” By looking [...]
Posted in 2nd Green, Eric Wilson, Justin Manger, Op-Ed, Policy, President Obama, Transportation Tags: High Speed Rail No Comments »$53 Billion Proposed for High Speed Rail. Cool? Yes. Pipe Dream? Probably.
February 10th, 2011 Justin Manger Given the national debt and the public’s aversion to much more spending I doubt the $53 billion proposal from Vice President Biden has much chance of ever being funded or implemented. America is not Japan or Europe where populations are much more densely packed, making High Speed Rail implementation and the economics of such a [...]
Posted in Business, Clean Technology, Featured Posts, Justin Manger, Policy, Transportation Tags: California, High Speed Rail, Trains No Comments »Five Friday Facts: Fascinating Chinese High Speed Rail
December 17th, 2010 Justin Manger The current 7,531km of track is more than the rest of the world put together Traveling from Wuhan to Guangzou, a distance of 1,068km used to take 10 hours. It now takes 3. A journey of similar distance from Washington D.C. to Chicago take 18 hours on Amtrak. Within 10 years, the government wants to [...]
Posted in China, Clean Technology, Justin Manger, Policy, Transportation Tags: High Speed Rail, Trains No Comments »Chinese Train Breaks High Speed Record
December 4th, 2010 Eric Wilson As high speed rail flounders in this country, China’s state news agency Xinhua News reports that test runs of a train connecting Zaozhuang City of Shandong Province and Bengbu City in eastern Anhui Province reached speeds in excess of 300 miles per hour (480 kilometers per hour). The tracks on which the train was traveling [...]
Posted in China, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Transportation Tags: High Speed Rail, Olympics, Trains Comments OffThe Fate of High Speed Rail in the US
November 15th, 2010 Eric Wilson NPR recently carried a story about the effect of the 2010 election on high speed rail development in Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio. According to the story, the governors-elect of the latter intend to return the funds allocated as part of the Recovery Act, while Florida’s governor-elect may join them. The following is from a comment [...]
Five Friday Facts: Some Sobering Stats on High-Speed Rail
November 12th, 2010 Justin Manger Robert J. Samuelson’s Newsweek article does its best to deflate the notion that high-speed commuter trains are the job creating, pollution and congestion solving answer to America’s transportation problems. The [Obama] administration has already committed $10.5 billion, and that’s just a token down payment. California wants about $19 billion for an 800-mile track from Anaheim to [...]
Posted in Five Friday Facts, Justin Manger, Transportation Tags: California, High Speed Rail, Los Angeles No Comments »
