More info here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/04/16/A-Vision-for-High-Speed-Rail/
This is good news. I must admit, I get a little bothered with all this talk of increasing highway funding and technology to replace everyone's car with a hybrid or electric. We don't need everyone in America to replace their cars. We need fewer cars.
I'm a big fan of rail, having grown up in DC taking family trips by train across the entire US and into Mexico with my moms. What we need is even more radical rethinking about the place cars occupy in our society. This will require rethinking how our cities, towns and workplaces are organized, where and how we produce our food and how we produce and distribute our energy. What we really need is to treat solo drivers like smokers: No Quarter.
Second-hand cigarette smoke kills, and so does second-hand auto exhaust. I imagine a roadway system that prioritizes buses (clean, fast, pimped out coaches with wi-fi!), carpoolers and carsharers. Solo drivers can be crammed into the shoulder, shivering and hacking up the poison produced by a habit is killing all of us.
This financing for high speed rail is a solid commitment and good start, however. So I'm celebrating this moment.