WASHINGTON -- High-speed rail projects in Oregon and Washington are among the big winners of $8 billion in grants -- the start of what some Democrats tout as a national rail-building program that could rival the interstate highways begun in the Eisenhower era.
Thirteen rail corridors in 31 states received funds. The White House, which supplied a list of the grants to reporters late Wednesday, billed the program as high-speed rail, although most U.S. projects won't reach the speeds seen in Europe and Asia. Also:Superfast bullet trains finally in U.S.
Portland's Union Station will get more than $7 million for a seismic retrofit and roof repairs. Other money will go to engineering studies for Oregon railroads and improvements in North Portland. Projects will include upgrades to exhisting track and signal systems as well as safety upgrades.
Combined, Oregon and Washington will get $598 million with the majority of it going to Washington state. Washington Senator Patty Murray said the money will increase the number of Amtrak passenger trains between Portland and Seattle from four to six. It will also reduce congestion and improve schedule reliability - while also creating much-needed jobs. (Click on the poll at right to share your thoughts about a high-speed train between Portland and Seattle.)
Anybody who travels the I-5 corridor in our state knows that we need to find new, efficient options to get commuters and commerce moving. And anybody interested in boosting our state's economy knows that now is a great time to take action, Murray said. The grant announcement fulfills a longtime request by officials in Washington and Oregon to build faster rail service along the Cascade Corridor, she said
Obama says projects will help states and boost economy
California's trains would be by far the fastest, exceeding the 200 mph achieved by some trains overseas. Some of the money will go toward trains with top speeds of 110 mph, while other funds -- such as the $400 million allotted to Ohio to connect Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati by rail -- will be for trains traveling no faster than 79 mph.
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are expected to pitch the program as a boost to the economy at a town hall meeting Thursday in Tampa, Fla. A half-dozen Cabinet members and other senior administration officials were scheduled to fan out across the country for rail events Thursday and Friday. The White House said rail projects will create or save thousands of jobs in areas like track laying, manufacturing, planning, engineering and rail maintenance and operations.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and members of Congress have acknowledged they expect much of the expertise and equipment to be supplied by foreign companies. Except for Amtrak's Acela line between Boston and Washington, there are no high-speed trains in the U.S. and no domestic high-speed rail industry.
Congress set aside the $8 billion as part of the economic recovery plan enacted last year. The money is just a start. Last year, Obama asked Congress in his budget request for an additional $1 billion a year for five years. Congress for this year approved another $2.5 billion that remains to be awarded. And Obama is expected to ask for yet more rail funds when his budget is presented next week.
Also, LaHood has hinted that some of the $1.5 billion allotted in the stimulus plan for discretionary transportation projects may go toward high-speed rail.
Japan launched the first high-speed trains in 1964, and France and other European countries followed in the 1980s and 1990s. China has announced plans to expand its high-speed rail system to a network of more than 16,000 miles by the year 2020 at an estimated cost of $300 billion.
In the U.S., only the projects in California and Florida are planned to reach maximum speeds of 150 mph or more, what most transportation experts consider high-speed rail.
Projects awarded the largest grants include:
-- Washington-Oregon: $590 million to upgrade a rail line from Seattle to Portland
-- California: $2.3 billion to begin work on an 800-mile-long, high-speed rail line tying Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay area to Los Angeles and San Diego.
-- Florida: $1.25 billion to build a rail line connecting Tampa on the West Coast with Orlando in the middle of the state, eventually going south to Miami.
-- Illinois-Missouri: $1.1 billion to improve a rail line between Chicago and St. Louis so that trains travel up to 110 mph.
-- Wisconsin: $810 million to upgrade and refurbish train stations and install safety equipment on the Madison-to-Milwaukee leg of a line that stretches from Minneapolis to Chicago.
-- North Carolina: $520 million for projects that will increase top speeds to 90 mph on trains between Raleigh and Charlotte and double the number of round trips.
By spreading the $8 billion among so many states, Obama is ignoring the advice of transportation experts and high-speed rail advocates who said the best way to build continuing political support for the program would be to concentrate on two or three grants large enough to get a high-speed line up and running. Once that happens, they reasoned, other parts of the country would lobby for more money to build their own lines.
We can't try to touch as many political bases as we can with that money. We have got to do major projects, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said in a recent interview.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., disagreed. You really have to look at local and regional approaches to create the political will to expand the program, he said.
Rep. John Mica of Florida, the senior Republican on the House transportation committee, complained that the Midwest lines awarded grants will achieve top speeds of only 110 mph and were selected more for political reasons than for high-speed service.
