Today’s Headlines

  • LaHood stops in Seattle today to tout stimulus-funded light rail — but will he celebrate a second city’s streetcars while he’s at it? (SeattlePI.com)
  • Harry Reid (D-NV) makes his choice known in the battle between two high-speed rail links between Vegas and California: No mag-lev for the Senate majority leader (LV Sun, LA Times)
  • The editorial board of Rep. Pete DeFazio’s (D-OR) home state paper backs his challenge to the Obama administration’s transpo policy (Oregonian)
  • Harvard econ professor Edward Glaeser accuses elected officials of over-infatuation with high-speed rail (Globe)

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Yesterday afternoon, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, announced that Frank Lautenberg would return as chair of the committee’s Surface Transportation, & Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, & Security Subcommittee. This afternoon at 2:00 p.m., Lautenberg issued a statement that “improving passenger and high-speed rail service in America and on the Northeast Corridor is […]

Expectations for High-Speed Rail Coming Down to Earth

By Elana Schor |
Three months after the Obama administration announced the first winners of what it hopes will be the first of many federal grants to build U.S. high-speed rail networks, advocates and planners are settling in for a long battle to surmount the obstacles and unknowns that stand in the way of long-term bullet train development. If […]