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Allocate High Speed Rail Full $4 Billion, Argues NYT

Posted by: Irvin Dawid
Thanks to: Bay Area Transportation News
3 August 2009 - 12:00pm

In this editorial, the New York Times urges the Senate not to reduce the House's high speed rail budget allocation of $4 billion to $1.4 billion. Though President Obama is a prominent supporter of HSR, he supports delaying the transportation bill.

The United States lags the industrial world, and even some developing nations in building a true high speed rail network, laments the New York Times. Reauthorizing the transportation funding bill - on time, as Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar advocates, would be an excellent opportunity to secure the necessary funding to jump-start this essential program.

"President Obama noted...that high-speed rail is not some pie-in-the-sky idea. 'It’s happening now,' he said. “The problem is that it is happening elsewhere.”

"Despite his support of the idea of high-speed rail, President Obama has put off dealing with the national transportation bill for another 18 months. That is a delayed opportunity to move forward on an important new national transportation plan to expand public transit in much the way the Federal-Aid Highway Act did for roads more than 50 years ago."

Full Story: Editorial: America’s Not-So-Fast Trains
Source: The New York Times - Opinion, July 31, 2009
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