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HSR is politically divisive issue
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HSR is politically divisive issueProgressives and conservatives can’t agree on the purpose of HSRLongman Jul/Aug2011 (Phillip, Senior fellow at the Washington Monthly and the New America Foundation, The Case for Not-Quite-So-High-Speed Rail., Washington Monthly; Vol. 43 Issue 7/8, p13- 16, 4p) [b]ullet trains speeding at 180 mph or more from major city to major city are great for business execs in a hurry and on an expense account. But the more conventional, cheaper, "fast enough" high-speed rail lines like the West Rhine line are the real backbone of the German passenger rail system and that of most other industrialized nations. And it is from these examples that America has the most to learn, especially since it now looks as if the U.S. isn't going to build any real high-speed rail lines, except possibly in California, anytime soon. In an ironic twist, between the mounting concern over the state and federal deficits and growing Republican and NIMBY opposition to highspeed rail, the Obama administration is being forced to settle for incremental projects that will only bring passenger rail service up to the kind of standards found on the West Rhine line. And that's a good thing, provided Republicans don't succeed in killing passenger trains in the United States altogether, as they are increasingly wont to try. The debate over high-speed rail in the United States has become akin to that over organic food. Most people can't define exactly what it is, but they tend to have strong, almost theological opinions about whether it's morally good, elitist, impractical, and/or politically correct. Progressives are likely to tell you that high-speed rail is necessary to reduce global warming, prepare for "peak oil," and overcome "auto dependency." The Obama administration plays to this by proudly proclaiming that it has set in motion projects that will bring high-speed rail to 80 percent of the U.S. population within twenty-five years. Meanwhile, especially since the elections of 2010, conservatives have been rallying their troops in full-throated opposition to any and all government spending to improve passenger rail service, often portraying it as another step on the road to serfdom. Though many Republicans, such as Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, have strongly supported Amtrak over the years (especially for service in their own backyards), we now see a new breed of Republican governors in Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin all making a big show of waving away billions in federal stimulus dollar for rail improvements in their states. HSR Popular: GOPHSR receives support from GOPCooper, 2012 (Michael, New York Times, For High-Speed Rail, Support in the Past From G.O.P. Presidential Hopefuls, January 3, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/us/politics/for-high-speed-rail-support-in-the-past-from-gop-presidential-hopefuls.html?_r=1) President Obama's program to bring bullet trains to the United States has been left on life support by the strident opposition of Republicans in Congress and in statehouses around the nation. But the idea may carry more favor with some of the Republican candidates vying to unseat Mr. Obama, who have a history of supporting high-speed rail. Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House, has written books and given speeches about the importance of high-speed rail in the United States, and he supported a study for a high-speed line from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tenn., sought by local boosters when he was in Congress. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas saw a role for high-speed rail in his failed $175 billion transportation plan to build what would have been called the Trans-Texas Corridor. Even Representative Ron Paul of Texas, a small-government libertarian, signed a letter that several members of Texas' Congressional delegation sent to federal officials in 2009 urging them to give the state money for rail studies to help it build ''a truly ambitious and world-class high-speed rail network.'' But Mr. Gingrich may be the most outspoken Republican presidential candidate when it comes to his support of high-speed rail. He has spoken and written admiringly of China and France, and how far ahead of the United States they were when it comes to high-speed rail. He has opined that high-speed train lines would make sense in Florida and California -- places the Obama administration sought to build them -- and in the Northeast, among other places. And he has spoken of a role for government to help build a national rail network. ''If you want to be the most competitive country in the world in 2040 or 2050, you have to think large,'' Mr. Gingrich said in 2009 at a videotaped forum sponsored by the National Governors Association and Building America's Future, an infrastructure advocacy group. Mr. Gingrich's large thought was for America to build high-speed magnetic levitation trains, as China has. ''Let's go ahead and be really bold, and go head to head with the Chinese in developing and implementing maglev trains that move at 280, 300, 320 miles an hour,'' Mr. Gingrich said in his speech, which Streetsblog.org, a transportation Web site, wrote about recently. ''And you suddenly change all sorts of equations about how this country operates.'' Before the politics of rail was scrambled in recent years, Republican support for high-speed rail was not unusual. As recently as 2004, the Republican Party platform stated that ''Republicans support, where economically viable, the development of a high-speed passenger railroad system as an instrument of economic development and enhanced mobility.'' Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 0.9 Mb. Share with your friends:
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