Barack Obama pledges $8bn to upgrade aged US rail network

US president and Amtrak devotee Joe Biden take jobs pledge to Florida

Suzanne Goldenberg
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 January 2010 22.46 GMT
Barack Obama announced $8bn in grants to upgrade America's slow and aged passenger rail network today, taking his state of the union promise to build America's clean energy economy to Florida.
Obama was touting his efforts to create jobs by investing in infrastructure and less polluting technology.
He was accompanied by his vice-president, Joe Biden, an Amtrak devotee, who told the audience that over his years in Washington he had made more than 7,900 round trips by rail to his home state of Delaware.
Obama said the 13 projects in 31 states would help create jobs as well as transform the way Americans travel.
"We are making the largest investment in infrastructure since the interstate highway system was created," he said. "There's no reason why Europe or China should have the fastest trains, when we can build them right here in America."
But the funds, authorised nearly a year ago under Obama's $787bn recovery act, will not quite bring America into the age of hi-speed rail. Most of the projects are for faster but still not necessarily hi-speed — trains.
More than a quarter of the funds, some $2.25bn, will help California move ahead with its plans to build a genuinely high speed rail project, which would convey passengers at 220mph between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
California has already raised $10bn for the estimated $42bn project.
The White House said the funds would be used for purchasing rights of way, and building track, signalling systems and stations on four segments of the 800-mile corridor.
In Florida, the funds would go to building just 84 miles between Tampa and Orlando. The project, which will receive $1.25bn, will feature trains that travel as fast as 168mph.
Routes connecting Chicago to St Louis will also get funds. There was also $112m to help speed service on the most highly travelled line, between New York and Washington.
The awards make good on Obama's promises to help America catch up with European and Japanese rail travel. During a visit to Strasbourg a year ago, the president confessed to a secret hankering after the TGV and other fast trains. But rail experts — and Obama and Biden today — admit that the $8bn represents only a start to the estimated cost of building a truly modern network. The administration has also committed another $5bn for rail under last year's recovery plan.
Apart from California, none of the routes announced today truly qualify as high speed rail. But the initial $8bn should help to win over Americans to giving up their cars for relatively short journeys between cities.
It also allows Obama to help drive home the connection made in his state of the union address between job creation and clean energy.
"We can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow," he said.