Obama's New High Speed Rail Plan

Joe "Amtrak" Biden introduced the Obama Administration's plan for high speed rail lines:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – President Barack Obama unveiled his administration's blueprint for a new national network of high-speed rail lines Thursday, arguing that such an investment is necessary to reduce traffic congestion, cut dependence on foreign oil, and improve the environment.

The president's plan identifies 10 likely high-speed rail corridors for federal funding, including California, the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, Pennsylvania, Florida, New York, and New England.

It also highlights potential improvements in the heavily-traveled "Northeast Corridor" running from Washington to Boston, Massachusetts.

"My high-speed rail proposal will lead to innovations that change the way
we travel in America. We must start developing clean, energy-efficient transportation that will define our regions for centuries to come," Obama said at an event near the White House.

The president cited the success of high-speed rail in European countries such as France and Spain as a positive example for the United States.

Obama's plan would be funded in part through the recently-passed $787 billion stimulus plan, which includes a total of $8 billion for improvements in rail service. Obama has also proposed a separate five-year, $5 billion investment in high-speed rail as part of the administration's suggested fiscal year 2010 budget.

"We're going to make travel in this country leaner and a whole lot cleaner," Vice President Joe Biden said, speaking before Obama.

I doubt if it will make the country leaner and all that much cleaner, but I must admit, I'm a fan of high speed intercity rail service. I'd must rather see them spend money on that than on a lot of the Obama administration's priorities. As a guy who has made the trip to Northern California and back approximately 25 times in the last two years, it would be nice to be able to take a high speed train on that route.

According to a local news report to go from Orange County to Oakland now takes approximately 1 1/2 hour by plane, 6 hours by car, and 12 hours via Amtrak's Coast Starlight. The new train is advertised to take 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Will any of this ever become reality? Who knows, but I'd like to see it happen.

The main downside to this is if the line is extended to San Diego as they hope it will likely run within 100 yards or so of my house. I wonder how much noise a 220 mph train makes?