Obama promoting high-speed rail plan on Florida Visit
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/politics/29obama.html?hp
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WASHINGTON – President Obama is taking his job-creation message from the State of the Union address on the road Thursday as he travels to Florida to announce the awarding of $8 billion in high-speed rail projects designed to improve or create service in 13 major corridors across the country.
The projects, which span from coast to coast, include startup money to help build trains in California and Florida. For months, states have been engaged in a bidding war over the money, which comes from the economic stimulus plan approved a year ago.
“From the first railroads to the interstate highway system, our nation has always been built to compete,” Mr. Obama said in his televised address on Wednesday evening, previewing his announcement on Thursday. “There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.”
Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. are traveling to Florida to announce the rail projects. They are scheduled to appear at a town meeting in Tampa at 1 p.m. The president and vice president rarely travel together, but Mr. Biden has overseen the economic stimulus program and will be on hand for the high-speed rail event.
Several members of the Cabinet and other top administration officials are making similar announcements on Thursday in cities across the country as part of the economic roll-out strategy by the White House.
Most of the money will go to improving existing rail service – paving the way for faster service, but not for the kind of bullet trains that zip along faster than 150 miles an hour in Japan and Europe. More than a billion dollars, for instance, will go to speed train travel between Chicago and St. Louis to up to 110 miles per hour – faster than it is now, but a far cry from the super fast trains that are increasingly common elsewhere.
But two of the largest pots of money being distributed are being devoted to actual bullet train projects.
The administration on Thursday announced that it would award $2.25 billion to help California make a small down payment on its ambitious $45 billion plan to build trains that can go 220 miles an hour. The stimulus money will go to purchase right-of-way, build track, and do engineering and environmental work.
Another $1.25 billion will go to build 84 miles of track from Tampa to Orland that would allow trains to travel at up to 168 miles per hour, the first leg of a corridor that is eventually expected to go to Miami.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/politics/29obama.html?hp
The projects, which span from coast to coast, include startup money to help build trains in California and Florida. For months, states have been engaged in a bidding war over the money, which comes from the economic stimulus plan approved a year ago.
“From the first railroads to the interstate highway system, our nation has always been built to compete,” Mr. Obama said in his televised address on Wednesday evening, previewing his announcement on Thursday. “There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.”
Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. are traveling to Florida to announce the rail projects. They are scheduled to appear at a town meeting in Tampa at 1 p.m. The president and vice president rarely travel together, but Mr. Biden has overseen the economic stimulus program and will be on hand for the high-speed rail event.
Several members of the Cabinet and other top administration officials are making similar announcements on Thursday in cities across the country as part of the economic roll-out strategy by the White House.
Most of the money will go to improving existing rail service – paving the way for faster service, but not for the kind of bullet trains that zip along faster than 150 miles an hour in Japan and Europe. More than a billion dollars, for instance, will go to speed train travel between Chicago and St. Louis to up to 110 miles per hour – faster than it is now, but a far cry from the super fast trains that are increasingly common elsewhere.
But two of the largest pots of money being distributed are being devoted to actual bullet train projects.
The administration on Thursday announced that it would award $2.25 billion to help California make a small down payment on its ambitious $45 billion plan to build trains that can go 220 miles an hour. The stimulus money will go to purchase right-of-way, build track, and do engineering and environmental work.
Another $1.25 billion will go to build 84 miles of track from Tampa to Orland that would allow trains to travel at up to 168 miles per hour, the first leg of a corridor that is eventually expected to go to Miami.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/politics/29obama.html?hp
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