RSS
Home
Obama high-speed rail runs slowly through Georgia
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
"With high-speed rail system, we're going to be able to pull people off the road, lowering our dependence on foreign oil, lowering the bill for our gas in our gas tanks. We're going to loosen the congestion that also has great impact on productivity.
"We're also going to deal with the suffocation that's taking place in our major metropolitan areas as a consequence of that congestion."
- Vice President Joe Biden, in his introduction to President Obama's April 16, 2009, announcement committing $8 billion of the Recovery Act to building a national, high-speed rail system.
President Barack Obama, accompanied by
Vice President Joe Biden, makes remarks
on expanding the high speed rail system,
April 16, 2009, in Washington. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
President Obama's optimistic vision of a high-speed rail network connecting major cities in the Lower 48, as well as two big Alaska towns, may be - as he stated last Thursday, at the event announcing the plan - good news for those seeking to create "a smart transportation system ... that reduces congestion and boosts productivity, [and] reduces destructive emissions ."
And for some communities, the president's promise that this endeavor is not some "pie-in-the-sky vision of the future" is true. "Ready projects," Obama said, will begin receiving the money by the Fall.
But despite the fact that the Obama proposal has two major lines intersecting in Atlanta, and two in Savannah, Georgia's Department of Transportation has no rail projects "ready" for federal money. The only thing the state leaders can do with any money they may get from Washington is to begin to study the possibility of the administrations proposal.
In fact, the only state rail line which has been promised federal dollars is held over from the last administration. Washington, DC, allotted $83 million for a train which is supposed to run less than 30 miles, from Atlanta south to Lovejoy, but the money is in danger of being forfeited because the state legislature has been reluctant to provide the necessary matching funds to complete the project.
Area planners, like the Atlanta Regional Commission's Chick Kraulter, blame the road construction lobby wandering the marble halls under Georgia's gold dome. "[The] Department of Transportation has for years been primarily a department of highways,” Kraulter told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
The only other rail project, with guaranteed cash available, is a line from Atlanta to Chattanooga that was part of a 2000 bill from the state legislature, HB 1348. In fact, the bill, which was passed when the Democrats last controlled the State House, contains plans for several lines around the state, but only the Atlanta-Chattanooga high-speed track is specifically guaranteed funding "should federal or private funds be made available for such high speed rail."
Unfortunately for Georgia legislators, though, President Obama's rail plans do not include a line between the two southern cities, meaning that if the state still wants to build that line, it needs to come up with the money itself.
Special Report: Obama's First 100 DaysExclusive examiner.com coverage of the Obama administration's promise to bring about change.
Related Articles:
Comments
