6 • The Southwest Portland Post
Dear EarthTalk: Vice-President Joe
Biden just announced a commitment
by the Obama administration of $53
billion to high-speed rail. Isn’t it about
time? Why is the U.S. so far behind
other nations in developing environ-
mentally friendly public transporta-
tion? -- Diane A., Boston, MA
There are many reasons why public
transit hasn’t taken off in the U.S. as it
has in parts of Asia, Europe and else-
where. For one, ever since the Model T
first rolled off Henry Ford’s assembly
line, Americans have had a love affair
with cars.
Also, a successful plot by General
Motors and several partner companies
in the 1930 and 1940s bought up and
shut down rail transit lines across 45
American cities, replacing them with
bus routes driven on GM buses.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government
embarked on a plan to link the nation’s
metro areas via interstate highways,
further encouraging car travel. The
sexy new car designs of the 1950s
then drove the final nail in the coffin,
relegating public transportation to an
afterthought.
But with rising oil prices and grow-
ing fears about global warming, pub-
lic transit is looking sexier to many
Americans. As part of 2009’s landmark
American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (ARRA), the White House commit-
FEA TU RES
ted $8 billion to efforts to create and
maintain high-speed intercity passen-
ger rail service.
And just weeks ago, after calling for
giving 80 percent of Americans access to
high-speed rail within 25 years, Barack
Obama pledged another $53 billion to
increase the nation’s network of high-
speed rail lines.
Plans to expand high-speed rail ser-
vice are already underway in several
U.S. regions. Illinois was the first of 31
states to receive a portion of the funding
to begin building high-speed rail lines
linking Chicago and St. Louis.
A recent report found that high-speed
rail in the Midwest would reduce air
travel by 1.3 million trips and car travel
by 5.1 million trips per year by 2020,
saving 188,000 tons of carbon dioxide
emissions (equivalent to taking 34,000
cars off the road while still getting ev-
eryone to and from work).
Funding is also slated to go to Cali-
fornia, where trains traveling up to
220 miles per hour will move people
between San Diego and San Francisco
in less than three hours. California’s
high-speed rail system, which should
be in service by 2020, is expected to cost
about half as much as would expand-
ing highways and building new airport
runways and gates to accommodate
fast growing passenger transportation
demand.
Not everyone is on board with
high-speed rail. Florida’s Republican
governor Rick Scott recently rejected
$2 billion in federal funding to build
an 85-mile high-speed rail line between
Tampa and Orlando, arguing that cost
overruns would likely leave Florida
taxpayers making up billions of dollars
for something they don’t need.
Scott’s move in killing the Tampa-Or-
lando run calls into question whether or
not Obama can push his plans through
in other parts of the country that are
also conservative strongholds.
A pril 2011
Plans to expand high-speed rail service are now underway in several U.S. regions.
Pictured: High speed trains at the St. Pancras international station, London.
(Photo courtesy John Curnow, Flickr)
No matter how quickly Americans
get up to speed on high-speed rail, the
U.S. certainly has some catching up to
do. According to statistics from the In-
ternational Union of Railways and other
sources, China leads the world with
upwards of 2,800 miles of high-speed
rail lines in operation and another 5,500
miles planned.
Spain, France and Japan each have
around 1,200 miles in operation; Ger-
many has 800 miles and Italy has 577.
The U.S. has only 226 miles in operation
currently. The Obama administration
would like to see Americans riding on
more than 16,000 miles of high-speed
rail lines by the middle of the century.
CONTACTS: ARRA, www.recovery.
gov; International Union of Railways,
www.uic.org.
SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL
QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E
– The Environmental Magazine, P.O.
Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earth-
talk@emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit
publication.
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