Today’s Headlines

By Elana Schor
Feb 11, 2010

How Florida’s congressional delegation helped make its high-speed rail award happen (HuffPost)

Michael Lindenberger responds to this week’s online back-and-forth over taxing gas v. VMT (Morn News)

Senate jobs bill — with a highway trust fund extension but no TIGER money — expected to be delayed for 10 more days (WSJ)

Chinese high-speed rail proving popular enough to scare airlines into fare cuts (Bloomberg)

Steven Pearlstein on what blizzards can teach us about local governance (WashPost)

Indiana transit planners propose a massive new public-private partnership including rail, buses, and new toll roads (Indy Star)

Vancouver Olympics officials bring in 99 new transit buses after California-based models couldn’t handle step mountain-grade travel (Van. Sun)

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Keeping CNN Honest: 10 Ways Anderson Cooper Got the Rail Story Wrong

By Tanya Snyder | Jan 31, 2013

Last Friday, CNN’s Anderson Cooper ran a segment about high-speed rail as part of his “Keeping Them Honest” series. Reporter Drew Griffin did an “exposé” of a Vermont rail project that spent .00006 percent of the federal stimulus money on needed track improvements and came in on time and under budget. Scandal! It amounts to […]

Americans Have Had It With the Hassles of Flying. Will They Take the Train?

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 17, 2014

Americans are getting more and more frustrated with air travel. The airline industry is getting worried. Will passenger rail get the spoils? A new survey by the U.S. Travel Association [PDF] found that 27 percent of respondents thought flying had become more of a hassle in the last year. They’re annoyed about delays, safety, and […]

“Amtrak Joe” Biden, in Philly, Announces a New Plan for High-Speed Rail

By Tanya Snyder | Feb 8, 2011

The Obama administration is taking its infrastructure push on the road. First stop: Philadelphia, to announce a $53 billion plan to invest in high-speed rail. To Vice President Joe Biden, high-speed rail isn’t just another administration initiative. He’s Mr. Amtrak. He gets it. Biden says he’s made 7,900 round trips between Wilmington and Washington on Amtrak. […]

APTA: How to Talk to a Detractor of High-Speed Rail

By Ben Goldman | Jan 12, 2012

Stop me if you’ve heard these before: “Most Americans don’t use railroads, they use cars.” “There’s no better example of excessive government spending than the $53 billion President Obama allocated for high-speed rail in his 2012 budget.” “Would you pay $1,000 so that someone — probably not you — can ride high-speed trains 58 miles […]

High-Speed Rail vs. Low-Cost Bus

By Tanya Snyder | Oct 6, 2010

Last week I mentioned I was about to take Amtrak from DC to New York. Well, it cost over $200 (and there was nothing particularly “high speed” about that rail experience). Next time, I might take the bus instead. For all the attention given to the potential expansion of high-speed rail, there’s also been a […]

High-Speed Rail: Do We Have the Will?

By Tanya Snyder | Sep 29, 2010

Tomorrow morning, I’m getting on a train from Washington, DC to New York. It’s going to take me almost three-and-a-half hours to get there. Sure, I could pay more for an Acela and get there in less than three hours. But why can’t it take 90 minutes? Yesterday, Amtrak unveiled a plan [PDF] to build […]