More exciting news on efforts to create high-speed rail connecting Detroit and Chicago:
- MDOT now has a High Speed Rail Department, with Tim Hoeffner leading a staff of ten, focused specifically on working with the Federal Rail Administration to improve rail speed and success.
- The Associated Press reported additional potential funding for high speed rail:
- "President Barack Obama’s high-speed rail initiative would get an enormous boost under a spending bill that a House committee approved Friday. Obama sought $1 billion for construction of a high-speed system and other intercity rail lines, which would come on top of $8 billion provided in the economic stimulus bill in February.
"The House Appropriations Committee decided to provide $4 billion, part of a $123 billion measure covering transportation and housing programs. Rep. John Olver, D-Mass., said the earlier money had generated about $70 billion in grant requests for high-speed rail projects.
"Democrats turned back a GOP effort to take $3 billion of the rail money and deposit it in the Highway Trust Fund, which is expected to go broke next month."
- An article in Chicago Crain’s Business highlighted some of the reason high-speed rail is so important:
- "Richard Longworth, author and fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, says the Midwest has the same mix of brains, creativity, energy and venture capital as California’s Silicon Valley or Boston’s Route 128 high-tech belt. But the Midwest, he says, cannot realize that potential because it is too spread out to interact effectively.
"The Midwest’s economic-integration problem is particularly acute because its major land-grant universities are not in the largest cities but in smaller towns – Champaign-Urbana, Madison, Ann Arbor, Bloomington, et al. That means some of our best scientific researchers are too far from the big banking centers – especially Chicago – to attract the capital they need to finance their ventures. They’re also too far from one another. The Midwest’s powerful resources need to be connected, and only high-speed trains can do the job."
Thanks to the Midwest High Speed Rail Association for the last two stories.
