Trains We Can Believe In

I don't know about any of you, but I am really stoked about this:

And it stokes my mojo even more to hear our President use language like this:

Now, all of you know this is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future. It is now. It is happening right now. It's been happening for decades. The problem is it's been happening elsewhere, not here.

In France, high-speed rail has pulled regions from isolation, ignited growth, remade quiet towns into thriving tourist destinations. In Spain, a high-speed line between Madrid and Seville is so successful that more people travel between those cities by rail than by car and airplane combined.

Dear God, it's the Europeanization of America! Who is going to stop this man?!?

Even so, my stokage is epitomized yet further with analogies like this:

You know, I've been speaking a lot lately about what we're doing to break free of our economic crisis so to put people back to work and move this nation from recession to recovery.  And one area in which we can make investments with impact both immediate and lasting is in America's infrastructure.

And that's why the Recovery and Reinvestment Plan we passed not two months ago included the most sweeping investment in our infrastructure since President Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s. (Emphasis added.)

Now, there's nothing really new or radical about this high-speed rail proposal. Take a look at the Obama map and compare it to this one here:

Population densities? Check. Heavily-trafficked commuter corridors? Check. It's even got the added benefit of pumping some much-needed infrastructure dough into some of the states, such as California, Michigan and South Carolina, that have been the hardest-hit by the current recession. No, what is truly radical about this proposal is that it is actually going to be implemented, in stages, over a number of years. Of course, the $8 billion outlay Obama mentioned today is merely seed money---it will cost tens of billions more to complete, and take upwards of a decade to construct, and a surly and uncooperative Congress could pull the plug on funding at virtually any time. And participating states are going to have to come up with some funding of their own, either via the floating of bonds, or tax increases, or a combination thereof, to keep the project rolling. Suffice to say, there are all sorts of of minefields that Obama will need to navigate here. But we are finally past the point of merely talking about high-speed rail in this country and starting to actually do something about it. That's the kind of change I voted for last November, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Oh, and could someone tell Governor Goodhair that funding for the San Antonio-Dallas-Tulsa line goes away if his state decides, you know, to secede from the Union? Yeah, like I said, there are lots minefields to tiptoe around, but it seems to me that if anyone can get this project off the ground successfully, it's Obama. If nothing else, he can send Joe Biden up to The Hill to harangue his fellow colleagues with hour after hour of heartwarming Amtrak commuter tales until they up and throw in the towel. He's a walking filibuster, that fella, and I can't think of a better way for Obama to put Joe and his God-given gift of gab to good use right now.

---Vitelius