Plans released outlining $240 billion investment into U.S. high-speed rail
The nationwide high-speed rail project would result in a wide number of benefits, with the plan drawing from global examples, including China.
Global Railway Review
May 21, 2020
Plans released outlining $240 billion investment into U.S. high-speed rail
Seth Moulton, the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s 6th congressional district, has released a proposal for investing $240 billion in a nationwide high-speed rail network. The plan would create an estimated 2.6 million jobs over the span of five years and “let the free market thrive in transportation as it does elsewhere in the American economy, [giving] a new generation of Americans, competing in a new world, the options and efficiencies we demand.”
Seth pointed to the lack of train options as a major competitive disadvantage for the U.S. at a moment when other nations are investing heavily in high-speed rail. For example, in China, business travellers regularly use high-speed lines that cover the equivalent distance from Chicago to Atlanta. The plan notes: “With more frequent service, far nicer accommodations, no weather disruptions, and much more time aboard rather than in terminal lines or security checks.” Major stops along a Chicago to Atlanta high-speed line would include Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville and Chattanooga, offering an hourly service.
Seth notes that the cost of the U.S. status quo, where cars and airplanes monopolise funding, “is hundreds of billions of dollars of added costs to our economy—from lost time and business due to historic traffic congestion, to environmental degradation and land waste on a massive scale—as well as hundreds of billions in lost economic opportunity.”
Development of the proposal began prior to the current COVID-19 crisis, but Seth outlined that the pandemic is “a moment to rethink the status quo of transportation and development dominated by the car. Why not more bike lanes? Why not more scooters? Why not high-speed rail?”
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