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High-Speed Rail Won’t Be Too Fast

Ben Adler | Feb 24th, 2009 | Topics: | Region: | Cities: | 1

So, the story that Harry Reid snuck the $8 billion for high speed rail into the stimulus package has been debunked. As the New York Times reports, Las Vegas is not in any of the corridors designated to receive high-speed rail funds. But the more important policy angle to the story is the fact that it reveals that the money for high-speed rail will not necessarily go to constructing new high-speed rail lines at all. It costs more than $8 billion just to build one long line—for instance, the northern-to-southern California route is expected to cost approximately $40 billion. And the money will be spread around. So, since the law will define high-speed as anything above 90 miles per hour, it will go to the sorts of basic improvements and expansions to the existing infrastructure, such as track expansions and more sophisticated signal systems, that can speed trains up.

That’s good because, as I’ve written before, the real problem in this country is a lack of quality service and mass transit options on existing corridors. You’ve got to learn to crawl before you walk.

Ben Adler joins Next American City as an Urban Leaders Fellow based in Washington, D.C. He will be focusing on Washington and the role of the federal government in urban policy. Ben covered the 2008 election and Congress as a staff writer for Politico. Prior to joining Politico Ben was the editor of CampusProgress.org, a daily online political and cultural magazine at the Center for American Progress, a regular contributor to The American Prospect Online and its award-winning blog, TAPPED, and a reporter-researcher at The New Republic. His writing has also appeared in Newsweek, The Washington Monthly, In These Times, The Nation and the websites of The Guardian and The Atlantic among other publications.

ben adler stimulus high-speed rail harry reid