Transportation Solutions News

WASHINGTON, July 30 - $4 billion investment for high-speed passenger rail in the FY 2010 transportation budget approved by the House last week was slashed to $1.2 Billion in the Senate today. 

Since the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, forty states submitted 272 applications for these high-speed passenger rail grants, totaling $105 billion in projects. By cutting the remarkable rail investment approved in the House last week, the Senate demonstrated how out of touch they are with the calls of states for more high-speed passenger rail.    

For decades, Congress has turned a blind eye to modernizing transportation by overwhelmingly funding projects that fail to  decrease congestion or provide greater travel choices for Americans throughout the county.

High-speed passenger rail will provide clean, safe, reliable and efficient travel between America’s population centers. Long-term federal investment in rail will also create tens of thousands of quality American jobs in states that have experienced losses in the technology, construction, and engineering sectors over the last decade.

The House has stepped up to meet the burgeoning demand for high speed rail across the country, but unfortunately the Senate has not.

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U.S. PIRG, federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organization. For more information, click here or visit http://www.uspirg.org. For more information on the Transportation Solutions campaign, click here.