A Note on the White House's Light Rail Proposal
Doing a word search of today's announcement regarding $8 billion of funding (.pdf) for high speed rail projects, one finds only two, with a total value of $74 million, that explicitly mention Amtrak. Once again, the U.S. government wants to spend more for less, on the assumption that unlike in every advanced industrial country Amtrak should pay its own way. One also notes that $1.25 billion is to be spent on a train between Tampa and Orlando, a train that, according to expert James McCommons, Florida completely failed to develop. Obviously, Florida got pork-barrel spending for 2012. In contrast, the Boston-New York-Washington DC corridor, one of the nation's busiest, got a measly $112 million. Some of these spending priorities (California; Washington/Oregon; Illinois/Wisconsin) make sense but even a casual look shows a great deal of waste as well as many missed opportunities. Score it a "D-plus," which, nevertheless, is one of Mr. Obama's very best efforts.
Posted by George Kenney on January 28, 2010 5:35 PM 
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Comments
I assume that your title is tongue-in-cheek. A more careful reading of McCommons' book and further reading of BruceMcF's work would illustrate how much of this money will benefit Amtrak.
You are likely correct that Florida is less ready to use the money that the others but at the same time you are likely wrong in thinking that the money would be better spent in the Northeast. Mostly it is a bang-for-buck issue. The next levels of improvement in the NE are very very expensive. Much better to begin bringing other parts of the U.S. closer to the NE in quality of service.
Keep in mind that Amtrak got all they asked for for a change.
I consider this to be one of the areas where Obama is doing OK. Of course it helps that he has some push-forward from the rail conglomerates.
Posted by: Jeff Wegerson | January 29, 2010 1:43 PM