Obama's Grand Rail Plans: What Went Wrong?

For high-speed rail proponents, it's been four long years since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included a historic $8 billion down payment on the development of a nationwide network of high-speed rail. "Today," notes Yonah Freemakr, "while Amtrak ridership continues to increase, improvements to the rail system thus far have been too minor for most people to notice."

Freemark explains how the failure to find a dedicated funding source and the use of the topic as a wedge issue by Republicans have conspired to put the future of the federal high-speed rail program in doubt.

"Though the president mentioned high-speed rail in his State of the Union address this year, the transportation mode is absent from his new focus on urgent repairs of the nation’s infrastructure. Nationwide, the political winds suggest that there will likely be little significant progress over the next four years."

"Unless there is some unforeseen progress in convincing Republicans of the value of rail investments, federal spending on this transportation mode will be constrained for years," he concludes. "The Obama administration’s plan for a U.S. high-speed rail system, then, remains little more than a vision."