February 17th, 2011

If you like trains, now would be a good time to speak up about it. Money for Amtrak and for proposed high speed passenger trains is on the budget block, awaiting the guillotine of lawmakers in Washington who want to cut funds for all sorts of programs that could improve our lives, green our transportation and keep America working and moving toward the future.

Yes, the country is in tight straits. People are out of work. We have a budget deficit. But we have to push on. When we have before, well, we’ve gone to the moon. We’ve turned the tide in world wars. Should getting to St. Louis be that difficult?

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April 23rd, 2010

After running our households, transportation is the second biggest way we humans degrade the environment. If we were traveling in droves, on say trains, it wouldn’t be so bad. But our penchant to scoot around solo or in small groups in gas-fueled vehicles has left an impressive scar on the globe. Starting with the paved roads that carve up wildlife habitat, and ending with those recently popular luxury SUVs that spurn air quality with their single and low double digit gas mileage, automobiles have created a huge carbon footprint.

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February 8th, 2010

By Harriet Blake
Green Right Now

In his Jan. 27 State of the Union Address, President Obama included high-speed rail, stating, “From the first railroads to the Interstate Highway System, our nation has always been built to compete. There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains or the new factories that manufacture clean-energy products.”

He followed that up with a visit to Tampa the next day, where he stated that $8 billion in grants would be going to a Tampa-Orlando-Miami route in Florida, followed by similar rail projects in California and Illinois.

This is music to the ears of longtime train advocate Anthony Perl, a fellow with the Post Carbon Institute (PCI). The San Francisco-area institute in an apolitical think tank that envisions a world of communities and economies that thrive within ecological bounds. The president’s address spurred PCI to send Obama an open letter applauding the speech but imploring him to lead the transition to a post-carbon economy by, in part, preparing for the future with cost-effective energy, such as trains. In addition to his position with PCI, Perl is the director of the Urban Studies Program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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February 3rd, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

California is No. 1 with a bullet … train that is.

When the federal government recently awarded $xxx for the development of high speed railway projects, the Golden State took the big prize — $2.3 billion. California High-Speed Rail Authority chairman Curt Pringle called the award “fantastic news for California and for our state’s high-speed rail project.”

“It is an award that will lead to the creation of tens of thousands of quality jobs in the near-term and to continued economic strength and enhance our transporation network in the longterm,” Pringle said in a statement.

California, he noted, is closer than any other state or region to building the first true high-speed rail system in the United States.” The federal money recognizes California’s work in partnering with local governments and state legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to put the plan into action, he said.

Here’s a look at the states that were winners, the amount of funding, and a brief description of the projects being funded:

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February 13th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

When the giant stimulus bill expected to be approved by Congress, finally lumbers forth it will pour billions into projects that have been neglected, like highway renovations, and items that have recently bleeped onto the public radar screen, like clean energy incentives.

In some cases, money has been included (so far) for programs that have been debated and tabled for years. High speed rail, which is slated to get $8 billion, falls into that category.

You might be ask yourself, what is high speed rail? And you’d be right to ask that question, because right now, in America, there is no high-speed rail. There’s a grand plan for a high-speed train that would run the length of California, where voters last fall approved the first bond money for the Sacramento to San Diego line. Once, years ago, people proposed high-speed rail as a way to better connect Dallas, Austin and Houston, a plan that met an early death in a state well-served by airlines and enamored of highways.

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December 1st, 2008

By Catherine Girardeau
Green Right Now

Despite the derailing economy, California voters got on board for reviving train service in their state November 4th by passing state proposition 1A — a $10 million bond to begin construction of a fully electric rail system running 220-mph trains between San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal and Union Station in Los Angeles.

The bond is a vote of confidence from the public and a down payment on the $40 billion-plus project that plans to run high-speed trains from Sacramento to San Diego. The plan’s boosters say it will create jobs, relieve air and highway congestion, and help the state meet its legislative mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

While detractors like the San Diego Union-Tribune’s editorial board said California’s budget woes make spending billions of dollars on a massive transportation project not only ill-advised, but “potentially the biggest boondoggle in California history”, proponents called the victory a landmark for high-speed rail nationwide.

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August 18th, 2008

By Barbara Kessler It’s refreshing in these days of gas and environmental calamities, not to mention lending and budget crises, to hear about something that’s chugging along in a positive direction. That’s the story of Amtrak, or nearly so, at this junction. Ridership on the American passenger rail service is up a healthy 14 percent [...]

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