Congress Considers New Funding for High Speed Rail

Congress is finalizing next year's transportation appropriations bill, which could include an historic investment in high speed passenger rail. High speed rail would provide clean, safe, reliable and efficient travel between America's population centers.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that included $4 billion in funding for high-speed rail this year, but just before the Recess, the Senate cut the allocation down to $1.2 billion in their version. The two bills will now move to a conference committee, where they will decide the final amount of investment.

Tell Congress You Support $4 Billion for High Speed Rail
 
U.S. PIRG has launched an online campaign to convince Congress to commit to $4 billion in high speed raill funding in this year's transportation funding bill. 

Go to www.fourbillion.com to tell your representatives know that you support a stronger, faster, more competitive rail system for America.  

America has long under-invested in its passenger rail network, instead relying on cars and airlines for trips between cities. Yet, Americans are increasingly fed up with congestion on the roads and with the hassles of flying. Building ever-wider roads and more runways can’t solve the problem.  Moreover, both cars and airplanes consume vast amounts of oil – increasing our dependence on fossil fuels and contributing to both local pollution and global warming.  

High-speed passenger rail can help solve many of these problems by taking cars off the road and relieving congestion at airports. They provide downtown-to-downtown travel that is typically faster than either flying or driving. High-speed lines generally run on electricity – reducing our dependence on oil – and can be far more energy efficient than airplanes or automobiles, reducing emissions of global warming pollution.

High-speed rail makes economic sense for the future. Stations can help regenerate downtown areas – including those in declining smaller cities – and serve as local hubs for revitalized public transportation. Investments create jobs in manufacturing, engineering, construction and other fields, while reducing the costs imposed by congestion and airline delays and avoiding the need for massive spending on bigger highways and airports.

High-speed rail has been part of the public conversation in the United States since the 1930s, yet the nation has only one borderline “high-speed” line – the Amtrak Northeast Corridor – leaving us decades behind nations such as Japan, France and Germany with robust high-speed rail networks. In the early 1990s, the Clinton administration identified a series of corridors across the nation that would be suitable for high-speed rail, but the investment to actually build out those corridors did not follow.

Now, with the Obama administration strongly in support of high-speed rail, with states hungry for new transportation options, and with the public broadly in support, the opportunity to build out high-speed rail is greater than ever.