Obama's Multibillion-Dollar High-Speed Rail Plan Full Steam Ahead?

Choo choo!

President Barack Obama is preparing to call for a six-year, $53 billion project to create high-speed rail in the U.S. His budget, which will be released next week, will include an initial $8 billion.

There's "$10.5 billion already in the pipeline," says USA Today, pointing to $8 billion from the 2009 stimulus package, plus the $2.5 billion Obama called for in his 2010 budget.

Today's announcement, made by Vice President Joe Biden -- a noted Amtrak fan -- and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, comes on the heels of Obama's State of the Union goal to have 80 percent of Americans living with access to high-speed rail by 2035.

"Battle Lines Drawn"
Not everyone is thrilled with the plan. As the National Journal notes, House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John Mica and Railroads Subcommittee Chairman Bill Shuster "are skeptical about high-speed-rail spending." Mica is more train-friendly than some of his fellow Republicans but has long questioned Amtrak -- he says "Amtrak's Soviet-style train system is not the way to provide modern and efficient passenger rail service" -- and the Federal Railroad Administration.

Some Republicans have been trying to curtail high-speed rail spending. For instance, House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers "has set his sights on the $8 billion that was devoted to high-speed rail in the economic stimulus package, hoping to rescind anything that's left over," the National Journal says.

This announcement brings more attention to what is likely a sore subject for Obama: The Republican governors of Ohio and Wisconsin rejected federal funds for high-speed rail projects recently.

Not Over Yet
Streetsblog, which advocates for public transportation, admits, "The White House press release doesn't explain how it intends to come up with the money, or get such a proposal through an axe-happy House." Still, the site says that the plan "is a good start," particularly because "it will separate the accounts for new rail capacity and state of good repair, depositing $4 billion in each at the outset. "

More Money Still Needed
At the liberal blog FireDogLake, David Dayen writes that the $53 billion is just an initial investment in a comprehensive high-speed rail system. But, he says, "[i]t will put the country on that path, and the hope is that private investors will see the opportunities created by transportation hubs and add their own funding."

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