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 […]

Cutting Train Budgets Could De-Rail Transamerican Routes

By Kathryn Reid Moore |
The idyllic cross-country train trips that many Americans still take could get derailed by today’s “slash and burn” federal budget policies. Meanwhile, fears for the safety of rail passengers in the post-bin Laden era are drumming up political support for costly security measures and raising, once again, questions about why the federal government funds rail […]

Could Rail be the Sleeper Issue in the Connecticut Senate Race?

By Elana Schor |
After Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) retirement propelled popular Attorney General Richard Blumenthal into Connecticut’s 2010 Senate race, ex-Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT) now faces a more difficult bid — one described by his own pollster as a "war of attrition." So it’s worth asking what role the state’s lengthy transportation to-do list will play in the […]