Wired.com: The Obama administration has promised more rail and transit funding. Are we going to see things start to happen?
Dukakis: No question about it. This economic mess we're in has actually turned out to be a huge opportunity to invest in transit projects. Despite the concerns out there, I think this is a huge opportunity.
NVDL: This is very good to see, although the US is probably better served constructing ordinary railways. High speed trains need different tracks and it is a more expensive investment which the country is unlikely to afford on a countrywide scale. ordinarily railways more so (more affordable that is).
The president's $825 billion economic stimulus package includes $30 billion for rail and mass transit projects; a Senate version specifically allocates $850 million for Amtrak and $2 billion for high-speed rail. It's significant, because Obama has long favored expanding passenger rail
service and has specifically called for a rail network linking
Chicago with the major cities of the Midwest.
Some aren't waiting for the feds to get with it. California voters recently authorized the legislature to issue almost $10 billion in bonds to begin construction of an 800-mile high-speed rail line linking San Francisco with Los Angeles. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has long argued California must lead the nation to a high-speed future. He and others say bolstering the nation's passenger rail system is faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or expanding an already overburdened air-travel system.
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