High-speed rail

The U.S. DOT announced this morning that it’s allocating almost $1.6 billion for repairs to roads and bridges that were damaged in recent floods and storms. If House Republicans had gotten their way, this money would have come out of high-speed rail funds.

Intercity rail dreams in the Midwest have certainly seen their share of  setbacks -- with federal funds being returned in Ohio, Wisconsin and, more recently, Michigan. But all is far from lost.

Match the quotation to its Speaker (hint, hint!):

Yesterday, for the second time in as many weeks, the House T&I committee held a hearing on the benefit-versus-boondoggle high-speed rail debate. Last time, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was asked to defend the peppering of high-speed rail grants to projects outside the Northeast Corridor. Yesterday, the topic narrowed to focus just on California's high-speed rail project, whose recently-drafted business plan [PDF] has revised its total construction cost to $98.5 billion through 2033—up from $43 billion though 2020 just a few short years ago.

It's Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's birthday, and he's spending it testifying before the House Transportation Committee. The hearing is on "Mistakes & Lessons Learned" from the high-speed rail program, but -- no surprise here -- LaHood and House Republicans have differing ideas about what "mistakes" have been made.

How can you convince Americans that transportation is important enough to invest in?

House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica backed off his controversial plan to privatize passenger rail on the Northeast Corridor today, announcing at a press conference that reforming Amtrak would suffice.

Earlier this week, the California High-Speed Rail Authority released its new business plan [PDF]. The transportation establishment, the government, and the media issued a collective gasp: $98.5 billion? Thirteen years’ delay?

The full Senate passed a major appropriations bill yesterday, including funding levels for transportation and housing. The Senate put the kibosh on Sen. Rand Paul's attempt to strip bike/ped funding from the federal transportation program, as we reported yesterday. Here's the lowdown on the bill as a whole.