WALKER SEEKS $150M FOR MILWAUKEE-TO-CHICAGO TRAIN UPGRADE

BY DINESH RAMDE (92 comments)
Original WSJ article here

March 29, 2011

Several months after rejecting federal funds to build high-speed rail across Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker is now asking for at least $150 million to add trains for an existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago line.

Walker said Tuesday the federal funds would be used to buy two train sets and eight locomotives as well as build a maintenance facility in Milwaukee.

The announcement came after the Republican governor, upholding a campaign promise, turned down $810 million to build a Madison-to-Milwaukee high-speed line. Walker had criticized the rail line as a waste of taxpayer money.

Upgrading this line, however, will save the state money through lower operating expenses, fewer capital costs and more ticket revenue while helping to accommodate growth in the rail line, he said.

"That's good for business, that's good for business travelers and it's yet one more incentive to do business here in southeastern Wisconsin," he said.

The money would come from $2.4 billion in high-speed rail funds that Florida was awarded but rejected. Walker said Wisconsin was filing its application jointly with Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and Amtrak.

He said one big difference between his proposal and the Madison-Milwaukee line was a proven level of demand. The Hiawatha line is an established corridor with access points already in place.

"You've got a proven commodity here, and we're making it better," he said.

Amtrak's Hiawatha line between Milwaukee and Chicago offers seven trips in each direction from Monday through Saturday, and six trips on Sunday.

Walker said the grant would allow for more and faster trips. The train currently travels at 79 mph, making the trip about 90 minutes each way. The upgrades would allow it to eventually travel as fast as 110 mph, shaving nearly 30 minutes from the trip, he said.

Walker added that he expected the fare — $22 each way — to remain unchanged.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett issued a statement supporting the funding application. Barrett, the Democrat who ran against Walker in November and was one of Walker's most outspoken critics for refusing the other federal funds, said the decision to apply for the funds made sense.

However, Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman criticized Walker for applying for the same stimulus dollars he scoffed at earlier. The $810 million would have expanded public transportation to new parts of the state, Bauman said, yet Wisconsin "kicked in the face of the federal government" by rejecting the dollars as an example of government run amok.

"Now we here we're applying for the same federal stimulus money, the exact same source of money, and somehow this is wonderful and good and this is going to promote the economic fortunes of southeastern Wisconsin," he said.

Walker said the grant would also cover a train shed that was to have been covered by the $810 million grant. He said the new grant would cover some of the cost, saving state taxpayers nearly $20 million.

He said he didn't think his refusal of previous funds would hurt his current application, saying the new request would involve upgrades that would benefit other states as well.

One of those states is Missouri, where Gov. Jay Nixon said Tuesday his state is seeking nearly $1 billion as part of the grant application.

That application will seek $373 million for upgrades to existing Missouri lines and about $600 million to plan, design and buy land for a separate line dedicated to high-speed rail only, said Nixon, a Democrat.

President Barack Obama has called for a six-year, $53 billion spending plan for high-speed rail as part of his goal of using infrastructure spending to jump-start job creation. In his State of the Union speech in January, Obama said he wanted to provide 80 percent of Americans with access to high-speed trains within a quarter of a century.

Amtrak's Hiawatha line carried nearly 800,000 passengers between Milwaukee and Chicago last year and is seeing growth this year, Walker said.

Countdown to DesertXpress begins...

From the Official Blog of the United States Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood

March 28, 2011

States and regions across the country are working tirelessly to realize President Obama's vision for American high-speed rail. And on Friday, I had the pleasure of joining Nevada Senator Harry Reid to announce that construction on the DesertXpress corridor between Las Vegas and Southern California will soon get underway.

The DesertXpress project cleared a major hurdle last Friday when the Federal Railroad Administration released its final environmental impact statement.

DesertXpress promises travel times of 85 minutes between Victorville, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada. This cuts the existing drive--three hours under the best conditions and nearly twice as long in traffic--in half. Sitting in congestion for four, five and even six hours along I-15 is especially brutal for travelers paying sky high gas prices.

But high-speed rail means much more than a shorter trip from California to Las Vegas. It means jobs, and it means reinvigorated American manufacturing.

Already, 30 rail companies from around the world have pledged that, if they’re selected for high-speed rail contracts, they will hire American workers and expand their bases of operations in the United States. And the administration’s 100 percent “Buy America” requirement will generate a powerful ripple effect throughout the supply chain.

Just think about the possibility. Factory workers building electric-powered trains. Engineers laying new track. Conductors, operators and ticket-takers helping passengers speed to their destinations. Americans of every trade advancing down the track to a better future.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood With US Senator Harry Reid and Nevada Department of Transportation Director Susan Martinovich

“This announcement brings us one small step away from tens of thousands of new jobs not only through the project’s construction, but by boosting our tourism. This line will connect tourists from southern California to our state’s great attractions like the Las Vegas Strip and the Hoover Dam. This announcement is excellent news for our state’s economic recovery."

And those are just the direct ripple-effects. High-speed rail also means economic development. As Nevada Senator Harry Reid said:

“This announcement brings us one small step away from tens of thousands of new jobs not only through the project’s construction, but by boosting our tourism. This line will connect tourists from southern California to our state’s great attractions like the Las Vegas Strip and the Hoover Dam. This announcement is excellent news for our state’s economic recovery."

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHoodWith US Senator with Harry Reid announcing the DesertXpress EIS release

DesertXpress will give people a safe, convenient transportation alternative to the notoriously congested I-15. And in a time of enormous economic challenge, it will create quality jobs.

This is the promise high-speed rail offers communities across the country. This is how America wins the future.

CONSERVATIVES AND CRITICS TARGET OBAMARAIL

Conservatives home in on 'ObamaRail'

THE HILL

By Keith Laing - 03/26/11 04:32 PM ET

“ObamaRail” is fast becoming the new “ObamaCare” for many Republicans.

Conservative activists are deriding the high-speed rail proposals set out by President Obama in his State of the Union address and 2012 budget as wasteful spending that imposes new mandates on cash-strapped state governments.

“Look, you look at the studies of these things, when they get built, [they] cost way more than they think,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott said in a Fox News interview shortly after he rejected $2.4 billion for a railway connecting Tampa and Orlando.

The Republican governor also said states get stuck with the costs of operating the new railways once they are built. “Who is going to take responsibility for that,” he asks.

The fight over high-speed rail loudly echoes the battle over healthcare, with Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio also making big shows of rejecting federal money.

The vehemence of Republican critics has surprised even some Republicans, who say transportation issues used to find more bipartisan support.

“This is the most significant headwind we’ve had in 50 years,” said Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union.

Cardenas, a former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, was criticized after being elected ACU chairman for supporting the Florida rail project so many staunch conservatives there hated.
He said advocates for rail transportation spending have been caught off guard by the backlash.

“It’s a headwind that caught (rail) smack in the face. It’s being looked at from a standpoint of ‘hey, if we don’t need to build it today, let’s not do it,’” said Cardenas, who has registered to lobby on behalf of high-speed rail, putting him at odds with the Florida Republican Party he led under former Gov. Jeb Bush.

In the past, it was possible to build a consensus between Washington and state governments on infrastructure spending, Cardenas said. “It was a matter of dollar separation, not where you [are] doing something or not.”

Transportation budget negotiations between the House and Senate “were the easiest conferences to attend,” he added.

Not anymore.

One of the first budget proposals to emerge from the new House Republican majority was to cut $1 billion in high-speed rail spending this year. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has taken to Capitol Hill to defend the projects, but has faced hostile congressional committees.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) said the increased partisanship of rail politics is Obama’s fault.

He said the White House screwed up by pushing for more high-speed rail investments in places where rail transportation is less popular. As a result, the administration is being stung by criticism that the proposed funding is wasteful spending.

“I don’t see it as a partisan at all,” Mica said of the rail fight. “I see it as the administration flubbed its job. I’m a Republican and I’m one of the strongest supporters of high speed rail.”

In an interview, Mica said the administration should have concentrated its rail efforts on the densely-populated northeast corridor. He added many of the projects proposed by the Obama administration are not truly high-speed.

Instead, Mica said, they barely increase the speed of existing Amtrak trains, which are already heavily subsidized.

“The problem is that there were 78 awards and Amtrak hijacked 76 of them for their Soviet-style train operation,” he said. “They made very unwise choices and set the high-speed rail effort back in the United States. It’s sad.”

Mica pointed out that only this month the Department of Transportation designated the Northeast as a federal rail corridor. Prior to that, the DoT had argued the Northeast did not need the designation because it had already developed railways.

The decision means the Northeast will more easily be able to compete for the $2.4 billion in high-speed rail funds that were rejected by Scott. Lawmakers from the region had long pressed the Obama administration to make the change.

“So many people along the northeast corridor are wondering what in heaven’s name is the administration thinking giving away limited money on marginal projects,” Mica said. “Congress and the administration threw huge amounts of money in the name of high-speed rail for snail-speed service.

“Even the most learned observer could smell a rat,” Mica continued. “You’ve got to do it where it makes sense, then it’s bipartisan.”

Some rail supporters are unconvinced.

Americans for Public Transportation President William Millar said Obama would likely have been criticized no matter which rail projects he proposed.

“It’s fashionable today to take every issue and rip it apart in a partisan way,” he said.

“It’s a very difficult time to be a leader trying to lay out a great future for the country. I’m not trying to sound like a defender of the president, but just as an observer of politics, opponents of the president are going to use whatever they can.

“The era we live in, nothing is off limits,” Millar concluded.

Millar noted that the federal push for high-speed rail began when President George W. Bush signed the Passenger Rail Investment Act, not when President Obama talked it up in his first State of the Union address.

“Republicans have a long history of supporting infrastructure projects,” he said. “I hope that doesn’t change.”

HIGH SPEED DELUSION

NOTE FROM BLOG EDITOR: The following article published in American Thinker on March 28, 2011 highlights an ongoing and even more evident problem with journalists and writers who focus on the subject of high-speed rail. The problem: They know nothing about high-speed rail (HSR) and their comments on the subject make that very clear. They are in good company. Bill O'Reilly at Fox, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Vice President Joe Biden, Congressmen and Senators, and Republican Party spokespersons don't understand it, either. Their comments make that very clear.

They don't understand that HSR isn't exemplified by traveling at slow speeds like the 150 mph example everyone uses. Why do they use it? Because Amtrak's Acela train travels 150 mph top speed (but averages only 70 mph). Amtrak's Northeast Corridor Acela train exemplifies Amtrak's experience with "high-speed rail" -- which isn't high-speed rail at all. Amtrak understands 150 mph rapid rail as exemplified by their Northeast Corridor Acela train -- and that's what they and union workers are pushing on the American people, calling it "high-speed rail."

Rapid rail and high-speed are not the same thing.

HSR travels at a minimum speed of 150 mph at and a maximum of 222 mph, averaging about 200 mph (depending on the distance between departure and destination). The author of the article below, Al Boese, does a wonderful job of calculating the per mile building costs of "high-speed rail" for a train designed to go 110 miles. If Mr. Boese understood high-speed rail, he would know that speed capacity defines what kind of rail project is being built. In this case, a rapid transit train, not high-speed rail is being built -- yet, he continues to reference the project as "high-speed rail" -- which it is not. He misses the entire story -- as have the others mentioned earlier.

The real story is that the Obama Administration is building rapid transit, not high-speed rail. The real story is that it is far less expensive to build rapid rail than to build high-speed rail. So, where's all of that extra money going? I know Obama wants to save the unions because it's the only way to save the Democrat Party, but if he destroys America's economy in the process (especially at the State level), it goes beyond ridiculous to insane. The lies -- calling rapid rail high-speed rail -- are a boondoggle and everyone seems to miss it. It's like a newspaper reporter who buries the lead! Why does the Obama Administration want to charge more to build rapid transit than it costs and justify the over-spending by calling it high-speed rail -- which it is not?

Mr. Boese is right in stating that a remote train stop isn't a daily traveler's final destination. What Mr. Boese doesn't comprehend is that there are three elements to a well-designed, national, high-speed rail system: 1) High-speed rail (owned by private investors) that carries people relatively long distances (so the train can achieve top speed of 222 mph and maintain it, thus functioning at top levels of efficiency); 2) Rapid transit (owned by each State) which picks up passengers at somewhat remote locations and, at the speed of 150 mph, carries them from a somewhat remote drop-off point to part three of the total system, (which is) 3) Light rail (owned by each city) -- which carries passengers quickly (at approximaely 50 to 70 mph) very close to their front doors.

I am always happy to see the subject of high-speed rail discussed publicly -- but would be much happier if those writing about it would do their homework so the statements they make and the assumptions they draw about whether high-speed rail will be effective are an accurate reflection of reality rather than misassumptions. Governors Walker, Scott and Kasich have it right -- and the Republican Party spokespersons don't even understand why! Editors at American Thinker usually scrutinize what writers submit more carefully... perhaps they don't know the difference, either. The suggested system design was submitted to the U.S. Government in 1995 by private investors representing a Virginia company called AmeriRail... no taxpayer dollars involved whatsoever in building the system and hands experienced with high-speed rail projects (Amtrak has no such experience) ready to build. A training program to provide jobs for veterans returning from the Middle East is part of AmeriRail's plan to build an American high-speed rail system nationally.

Finally, I get numerous emails from people who do not live in the Northeast Corridor who point out that they have no desire to fund the residential choices and transportation alternatives for people who live in the Northeast Corridor. If they need a rapid rail system, let residents of the Northeast Corridor raise funds and build it themselves. Those of us who live in what Easterners refer to as "fly-over country" really have no desire to pay transportation costs so people can work in New York City but live in Hartford, Connecticut. I understand not wanting to live in New York City, but curb your arrogance and stop asking the rest of us to pay for your lifestyle choices.

March 28, 2011

High Speed Delusion

American Thinker

March 28, 2011

Al Boese

Last Tuesday, March 22nd, saw two Obama high speed rail shills, hapless Illinois Governor Quinn and the loyal, ebullient, camera centric Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, shamelessly announcing with pride, the next phase of the so called Chicago to St Louis High Speed Rail project. The new $1.2 billion phase is to run from Bloomington, IL to Dwight IL, a distance of 58.5 miles of what could only be described as the "Billion Dollar Train to Nowhere." Folks, that amounts to a mere $20,618,556 per mile, with an estimated heart stopping speed of 110 mph. Google Map estimates driving between these destinations to be 1 hour 10 minutes. This breakthrough rail line will take only 32 minutes, assuming your actual destination in either Bloomington or Dwight is the train station itself.

A guess: a remote train stop would not be your final travel objective. Consequently one must add some time to travel to the train station at both ends of the journey to calculate total elapsed time. If you are lucky, that could add 10 or more minutes at each end, so let's say a total of 25 minutes just getting to and from the stations.

Oh yes, to avoid missing the train, careful planning requires some contingency time be built into your travel plan to account for traffic slowdowns or even a freight train. That is another 5 to10 minutes. This adds up to about 1 hr 7 minutes, really close to the Google Map estimate. Furthermore, how often is this high speed train going to run and will it actually stop at Dwight?

Driving offers infinite departure and arrival times, a significant option of convenience, not to be overlooked. As to cost, driving that distance at a full up cost of $0.58 per mile will be a total of $33.93. The California High Speed Rail operating cost estimate is $2.30 per passenger mile, which could be used in our analysis. Therefore our theoretical trip between Dwight and Bloomington will cost $134.55, about $100.00 more than a drive.

Finally, the last flaw in the project is the rail congestion from Chicago to Joliet, some 40 miles, where delays and limited speeds are the norm. Without a completely separate and dedicated track system, any passenger service is low speed between these points, irrespective of the condition of the track or the rated speed of the locomotion equipment. In other words, this project is a sham and deceitful.

There is one other and troubling aspect of this mystical and politically correct new transportation system: it costs billions of dollars neither the federal government nor the State of Illinois has to spend. All known and available funds are committed to spending for current and future needs and obligations. Since no private investment is even a remote possibility without government guarantees, this becomes yet another state and federal supported obligation on top of the already unsustainable commitments we are facing. It is time to recognize the futility of it all and cease the insanity of universal High Speed Passenger Rail.

High speed passenger rail, and I mean high speed at 150 + mph is desirable and in substantial use in such dense geography as the northeast corridor between Boston, Connecticut New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC. With all due respect to St Louis, is there that much demand to go there, or anywhere in between? The same can be said for Detroit or Minneapolis, more Obama targets for high speed rail, in addition to the Orlando-Tampa FL route and the favorite, LA to the SF Bay Area.

Make no mistake, rail is ideally suited, and the mode of choice, for moving freight long distances. The Association of American Railroads states that the average freight train can move one ton of cargo 480 miles on one gallon of fuel, and one train can carry the freight of 280 trucks. As to fuel consumption, pollution, highway congestion, safety, cost and road damage, there is no comparison, rail wins on all accounts, including delivery time. Additionally, railroads are private, taxpaying ventures, requiring no subsidies. If high speed passenger rail were so compelling, why are there no initiatives by private sector railroads to fill a demand? The simple answer: there is no economic case, therefore, no demand for high speed passenger rail in America, period.

The mystery remains; why is the current administration so obsessed with the delusion of high speed rail for America, and at staggering costs? No reasonable economic case has found the facts to support the idea. It is an inexplicable, irrational, yet passionate desire of the political left to impose high speed rail on this country. Is it Europe or Japan envy, or is the concept of freedom of choice and flexibility that the automobile and our highways offer, just too much to bear for the elite liberals and their President?

AMERICAN SPECTATOR: MONEY TRAIN

Feature
March 2011

By Philip Klein from the March 2011 issue

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/03/01/money-train

"Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail," President Obama declared in his State of the Union address, making it the most ambitious element of his vision for "winning the future."

Invoking national pride, Obama mused that "America is the nation that built the transcontinental railroad, brought electricity to rural communities, constructed the interstate highway system." Sadly, he lamented, the U.S. now lags behind Europe, Russia, and China in modern transportation infrastructure.

If the nation met his goal for high-speed rail adoption, he said, "This could allow you to go places in half the time it takes to travel by car. For some trips, it will be faster than flying -- without the pat-down. As we speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already under way."

To most Americans, the passing reference to California was likely an afterthought, lost amid all the dreamy rhetoric of rebuilding the nation. But upon closer inspection, the state's proposed high-speed rail system serves as a perfect example of the gap between the promise of transformational liberalism and the reality of big government. Taxpayers everywhere should pay attention, because the project has already been granted $3.2 billion in federal funds, mostly through Obama's economic stimulus package -- and its backers hope to gobble up billions more over the next decade.

The $43 billion transportation project to link Los Angeles to San Francisco with a bullet train by 2020 would be considered grandiose during the plushest of times, yet it's being pursued during an era when governments at all levels are mired in deep fiscal crises. The plan has been subject to a series of scathing reports by independent analysts, raising concerns about everything from its cost estimates to its business model. The University of California at Berkeley has questioned its lofty ridership projections. And even the Washington Post has editorialized against it.

Although voters in the financially strapped Golden State approved a ballot measure in 2008 authorizing up to $9.9 billion in bonds to build the rail system, the project has encountered a lot of opposition as it has progressed. Several cities are suing to prevent the trains from tearing through their downtowns. Farmers are worried that the tracks will carve up their land. Some environmental groups normally predisposed to supporting high-speed rail have turned against the proposed route, fearing its effects on undeveloped areas. When the High-Speed Rail Authority announced that the initial section of the line would be built in the state's less inhabited Central Valley region, many were puzzled as to why they didn't begin by connecting large cities with more potential riders. As a result, critics dubbed it the "train to nowhere."

"The cost projections are overly optimistic," Wendell Cox, a public policy consultant and co-author of a critical report for the libertarian Reason Foundation, says. "The ridership projections are absolutely crazy. The thing will have no impact on highway traffic and will have little or no impact on the amount of planes in the air. This project really defines the term ‘boondoggle.'"

The project will rise or fall based on federal commitments, a reality that spurred California state senator Doug LaMalfa to visit Washington in early January to make a rather unusual request for a state legislator.

"I know they're not used to this, but I asked them to stop sending us money," LaMalfa, a Republican, said. "Please stop sending us money....When they send us money, it actually costs us money."

So, at a time of unprecedented debt, why are the state government and the Obama administration still committed to the high-speed rail project? Why are planners starting the construction in a tiny, almost-unknown town outside of Fresno rather than in a major population center? And is there any chance of putting the brakes on the project?

BRINGING HIGH-SPEED RAIL to America has been a decades-long dream for liberals, who have long envied Europe's extensive rail system. Building a high-speed rail network, they hope, would move the nation away from automobiles and reduce pollution. It has the added bonus of being a massive, centrally planned public works project. The problem is just because rail has worked elsewhere, that doesn't mean it makes sense here.

"We're not like Spain or France, where the population densities are a lot higher, and the cities are not as spread out," Ken Orski, a former transportation official in the Nixon and Ford administrations and publisher of the newsletter Innovation Briefs, says. "So you can connect cities like Barcelona and Madrid or Paris and Marseilles easily."

In addition, large European cities have "distribution systems," meaning that when passengers arrive at a station, they can get where they need to go by public transportation or walking, without a car. By contrast, in a city like say, Fresno, a person would be stranded without one.
"So people who are saying ‘Look at Europe, why can't we be like Europe?' I don't think they really realize the difference between our geographic and demographic conditions and theirs," Orski says.

The only place where high-speed rail could theoretically make sense would be the Northeast corridor from Washington to Boston, which would pass through Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. The problem is, Orski explains, it's likely "50 years too late," because the area along that route is already densely populated and developed, making it cost prohibitive to acquire right of way.

Florida high court: Governor can reject rail funding

(AP) – (3/4/11)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Friday that $2.4 billion in high-speed rail funding intended for Florida will be sent to other states after the state Supreme Court upheld Gov. Rick Scott's decision to reject the money.

The Republican governor's decision effectively kills the Tampa-Orlando route.

Until Scott's election in November, it had been on track to become a leading example of how the Obama administration's stimulus plan is creating jobs and reviving the nation's passenger rail system.

Several states, including New York and Rhode Island, have asked LaHood for Florida's rail funds, but the only project that would achieve the high speeds associated with bullet trains in Asia and Europe would be California's.

"I know that states across America are enthusiastic about receiving additional support to help bring America's high-speed rail network to life and deliver all its economic benefits to their citizens," LaHood said in a statement.

Scott submitted a formal rejection of the funding shortly after a Friday morning telephone conversation with LaHood.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said in a statement that it now will evaluate its options for making the $2.4 billion available elsewhere.

The Florida Supreme Court had put the bipartisan lawsuit filed Tuesday on a fast track because LaHood had given Scott until Friday to accept the money.

Scott, an outspoken critic of the stimulus program, has said he believes the rail project would put Florida taxpayers on the hook for billions in cost overruns and operating subsidies.

State Sens. Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa Democrat, and Thad Altman, a Viera Republican, disagreed and sued Scott. Joyner said in a statement that the lawsuit sends a message to the governor that his actions will not always go unchallenged.

"Just because he can do it, does not make it right," Joyner said.

They said overruns and subsidies would be the responsibility of the private company contracted to build and operate the system and argued state law gave Scott no choice but to accept the money.

The Supreme Court issued a brief but unanimous decision siding with Scott less than 24 hours after hearing oral arguments. The unsigned opinion said the senators did not show they were entitled to an emergency court order that would have required Scott to accept the money.

Scott spokesman Brian Burgess said in a statement that Scott was pleased with the court's decision.

"He is now focused on moving forward with infrastructure projects that create long-term jobs and turn Florida's economy around," he said.

The ruling disappointed rail boosters such as U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

"It's unfortunate for the state because we could remake our transportation system that is now built on an interstate system that gets so clogged at rush hour, and you can imagine what it's going to be like 20 or 30 years from now," Nelson said. "And it's unfortunate for the 24,000 people that will not have these jobs in the next few years."

LaHood thought he'd found another way to insulate the state from liability by reaching an agreement with local government officials in central and South Florida to let them manage the project. Even that proposal failed to win over Scott.

Scott is third Republican governor elected in November to kill rail projects approved by his predecessor. Governors in Wisconsin and Ohio also turned down funds previously agreed to by Democrats for the national high-speed rail system, which President Barack Obama wants to make a signature project of his administration.

In Florida, the money had been accepted by Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist, who lost a U.S. Senate race last year.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jDzFYdVr_LSHEDgmmFHpolcQsk4Q

HIGH-SPEED RAIL

Greenwire

2/24/11

HIGH-SPEED RAIL: Bullet-train boosters fret as conservative tide swamps projects

When Florida Gov. Rick Scott put the final nail in his state’s high-speed rail project yesterday, he cited an economic burden to state taxpayers, a threat of construction cost overruns and a lack of ridership.

But to Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), the Republican governor’s decision had nothing to do with economics.

“The governor put his own rigid ideology ahead of the best interests of Florida’s businesses, workers and families,” Castor said last week, when Scott announced his intention to return the money. “Turning down these jobs and investment dollars does nothing to reduce the nation’s deficit.”

Castor is among a large number of bullet-train boosters who lament that their projects have become partisan footballs. Scott is the third Republican governor — behind Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Ohio’s John Kasich — to reject federal high-speed rail funds and join Capitol Hill Republicans in opposition to one of President Obama’s marquee initiatives.

“You tell me, what kind of businessperson would turn down 90 to 100 percent of funding for a project?” said Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), who derided the notion that Scott, a former health care executive, is casting himself as a businessman who’s above political maneuvering.

Meanwhile, House Republicans targeted high-speed rail in the budget debate last week, voting to slash all $5 billion in Department of Transportation funding for the program.

Freshman Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) went further, proposing an amendment to bar federal high-speed rail funding from going to his home state. When he withdrew the amendment, he vowed he would “provide aggressive oversight” of the California project.

Mary Ellen Curto, executive director of the American High Speed Rail Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group, said she had seen a shift in the discussion of rail since the Republican landslide of last November’s elections. Rail, she said, is caught in the Republican push to curb government spending.

“When I’m on the Hill, I can’t even talk about infrastructure as an investment rather than an expense,” Curto said. “There’s almost no plane where you can talk in business-type metrics. … There’s just such an emotional level around the $1.3 trillion [federal budget] deficit.”

Although there has traditionally been bipartisan support for infrastructure spending as a job-creation tool, the right has been slamming some of the administration’s latest public works proposals. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has emerged as a conservative leader on infrastructure ever since he canceled a planned transit tunnel backed by $3 billion in federal guarantees last November.

Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington last week, Christie dismissed Obama’s goals of building high-speed rail, enhancing wireless Internet and putting a million electric vehicles on the road as “the candy of American politics.”

“Those are not the big things,” Christie said. “Because let me guarantee you something, if we don’t fix the real big things, there are going to be no electric cars on the road. There is going to be no high-speed Internet access, or if there is, you’re not going to be able to afford to get on it.”

‘Extreme faction’?

Andy Kunz, president of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, a trade group, said opponents of bullet-train projects are not merely partisan. They are “extreme,” he said.

“We don’t see this as a Republican anti-rail thing,” Kunz said. “It’s an extreme faction. There are a lot of Republicans that do support it.”

House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) is on record supporting a rail network and was even caught on camera telling Obama after the State of the Union in January that he could be the “best cheerleader” for rail. But Mica doesn’t agree with the way the administration has distributed its rail grants, and has said that he would rather see projects built up in the Northeast Corridor.

Other House Republicans — notably, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania — have supported rail, and Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia has promoted a project for his state.

Kunz argues that opposing rail projects for budget purposes won’t help the economy now and won’t help get cars off the road and lessen U.S. dependence on oil.

“If you really look at the economics and get past their hyper-conservative rhetoric, we have to spend money right now to save the country,” Kunz said. “The country is sinking like the Titanic mainly because of high oil prices, and to cut spending on major technologies like high-speed rail that would reduce the nation’s oil dependency doesn’t help anything.”

Scott said he was concerned that cost overruns would cost Florida taxpayers $3 billion, a number also cited in a study by the libertarian Reason Foundation. But Scott rejected a plan yesterday that would have turned over the state’s sponsorship to a coalition of local groups (E&ENews PM, Feb. 24).

Given the difficulty of wooing Scott and other Republicans to support rail projects, Curto said her group is now aiming to rally public support.

“We can’t keep going with a two-year cycle of a mandate and an anti-mandate,” Curto said. “We’re going to attempt to get out to the population at large. If people are behind this, they need to get up and stop this nonsense.”

http://www.highspeedrailworks.org/2011/02/greenwire/

PHANTOM JOBS AND BULLET TRAINS

By Marilyn M. Barnewall
February 27, 2011
NewsWithViews.com

Everyone is suddenly talking about it. Thomas Sowell wrote an article, Bill O’Reilly talked about it on “The Factor,” the Washington Post wrote about it, Fox News got it wrong… everyone is talking about President Obama’s high-speed rail program and the Governors who are rejecting it.

I enjoyed being ahead of a large number of journalistic notables when I began writing about high-speed rail (HSR) over a year ago. What little-known journalist wouldn’t enjoy beating the big guys? But what’s more significant to me is the lack of factual data being published on this subject today – and the lack of journalists who see why HSR is so important to the Democrats/liberals. HSR and the jobs it promises will serve as one of the 2012 campaign issues. It’s so obvious it almost takes my breath away.

Most of the good and famous journalists and editorialists writing about high-speed rail appear innocent of any clear definition of the subject – including O’Reilly. That’s politically correct for what I would otherwise say: “They don’t know what they’re talking about!”

High-speed rail – or Bullet Trains like they have in France, Germany, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, et al – go from 150 to 222 miles per hour (mph). Rapid rail moves at from 75 to 150 mph and light rail is used to provide transportation between the hearts of our cities to suburbia at speeds of less than 75 mph.

In other words, when Joe Biden talks about riding high-speed rail trains from Delaware to Washington, D.C. frequently (and loving it), he’s talking about riding Amtrak’s Acela train. It averages about 70 mph and hits a top speed of 150 mph.

What does that tell you about Vice President Biden’s mode of transportation? And, what does it tell you about the Vice President’s knowledge of high-speed rail? Look at the definitions above. He’s using rapid rail and calling it high-speed rail – but doesn’t know enough about the subject to differentiate between the two. Or, perhaps he does and his political reasons outweigh his ability to be truthful about it.

This also tells you that Amtrak must have no idea of what high-speed rail is – they have no experience with real, live, high-speed rail – or they would quietly correct Vice President Biden to prevent him from looking foolish to those who know better. The same is true of President Obama and his “know nothing about high-speed rail” Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood. Yet, according to Biden, Amtrak (which has no experience with HSR) is serving as the Vice President’s source of expertise to build Bullet Trains in America. If a little old lady living on the side of a hill in Western Colorado can find these things out, you’d think the highly paid research staffs of major news outlets could! They must not be looking very hard!

This is a case of liberals convincing people that they will create jobs on the one hand, while knowing that there is no money in the other hand to build HSR – so the jobs will never materialize. It provides insight into what Democrat Campaign 2012 will be based on: Republicans (who refuse to irresponsibly further bankrupt the nation by accepting funds to build rapid rail systems liberals call high-speed) will be positioned as anti-job creation. Was the money there to create the jobs in the first place? No, but to liberals that doesn’t matter. Promises and intentions are what count.

We have four very courageous Governors taking flak right now because despite what they knew would be nasty publicity intended to stir the insecurities of the masses into hateful opposition to their necessary actions they did the right thing, anyway.

We are so anxious to criticize (it appears) when politicians do wrong. We sit down immediately and write letters of complaint. Have you sat down, however, and written a letter to any of the four Governors who are willing to risk their political popularity to do the right thing? If not, please do. If you want politicians to do the right thing, support them when they do. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t the Governors of your state. What matters is that they are doing the right thing for America! They are behaving morally and responsibly.

What we are seeing in Madison, WI, is a mini-debut of what is to come. In Madison, we have teachers whose salaries (including benefits) average $89,000 to $100,000 a year for working about nine months annually. Wisconsin is one of the most highly taxed states in the nation. In return, they get teachers whose efforts result in placing Wisconsin 44th in the nation in education.

What was it Jesus called the moneychangers on the steps of the Temple? “Oh, ye hypocrites!”

Wisconsin’s Governor, Scott Walker, deserves a medal for the businesslike way in which he is handling bad examples for children in the form of teachers who get their phony “I’m sick” letters signed by lying physicians on street corners. He also has legislators too cowardly to report for duty, fight their fight, and accept the will of the people who put Republicans in office last election. The really sick thing about all of this is that two years ago, then Democrat Governor Jim Doyle told Wisconsin public employee union members that thousands of them would have to be terminated because of budget shortfalls. There was absolutely no response. No protests, no doctors on corners handing out sick leave slips (who should lose their licenses to practice medicine), and no union objections. “Oh, ye hypocrites!”

And yet, they continue to protest. Ohio Governor John Kasich is facing similar problems with budget shortfalls in that Great State. He rejected federal funds to build a rail system in Ohio that has nothing to do with HSR. The feds wanted to pour dollars into Ohio to provide a rail system that would take longer to get from Cincinnati to Cleveland via Columbus than the rail system that was in place 50 years ago. Kasich analyzed the long-term costs to Ohio taxpayers and rejected the offer. Will Governor Kasich have the required starch in his shorts to stand as solidly against union demands as Governor Walker has so far exhibited? It’s the core problem, after all. Kasich positions himself as being pro-union because he lives in a highly unionized state. So does Governor Walker!

As for Governor Scott in Florida, his state was singled out at Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address as receiving funds to build HSR between Tampa and Orlando (85 miles apart). As I pointed out in a HSR article after that speech a year ago, HSR Bullet Trains are designed for long distances, not short hops. A Bullet Train would hardly get up to speed before having to slow to stop in 85 miles. That was, from its inception, a rapid rail project for which taxpayers would be charged high-speed rail prices. A boondoggle!

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie stopped one of the most taxpayer unfriendly and costly projects in the country when he ceased the building of a HSR tunnel between New York City and New Jersey. Like Governor Kasich, he evaluated the long-term and ongoing tax costs to his state and his people and said “no.” He, too, takes a lot of mainstream media heat over this wise decision.

As I have said numerous times, government’s HSR program is a boondoggle! It has been all along. Until the demonstrations in Wisconsin came up, I failed to see the reason. Now, it’s pretty clear.

Here’s how liberal minds function. Liberals take one of their greatest weaknesses – in this case the inability to create new jobs because they don’t understand how capitalism works – and put their opponents in the position of rejecting costly programs that create new jobs – at least, in theory. That way, their opponents cannot use their weakness against them. If a Republican candidate for office says anything about the Democrat inability to create jobs, all of the high-speed rail jobs that would have been created had Republicans not rejected the federal dollars for the program will be thrown in their face. That’s how liberals think. It doesn’t matter to liberals that no money was available to fund the high-speed rail programs and the jobs would have never been created. What matters is that they had the intention of providing jobs. How do we fight that kind of intellectual dishonesty? The way the governors of four states are doing it: Head-on.

Save me from liberal intentions! Please! For readers – particularly Tea Party leaders – who will have candidates in the 2012 elections, prepare to deal with this issue because it is the main course on liberal campaign tables. Too, we might want to keep in mind the fact that governors who accept these funds are making it impossible for State government to function independently of Washington. It’s a rather scurrilous way for the feds to stave off declarations of State Sovereignty, isn’t it?

One of the oldest HSR projects in the country was that of California. Again, it was a case of “promises, promises!” No funds were forthcoming and Governor Schwarzenneger went to Shanghai last September to beg for money from China.

Here are the names and addresses of the four Governors who are doing the right thing for their states and our Great Nation. If you’ve got any citizen starch in your Fruit of the Looms, drop them a line and say, “Thanks; we needed that and appreciate your courage!”

Office of Governor Chris Christie
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
PO Box 001
Trenton, NJ 08625

Office of Governor John Kasich
STATE OF OHIO
Riffe Center, 30th Floor
77 South High Street
Columbus, Oh 43215-6117

Office of Governor Rick Scott
STATE OF FLORIDA
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

Office of Governor Scott Walker
STATE OF WISCONSIN
115 East Capitol
Madison WI 53702

Note: Additional information on high-speed rail.

© 2011 Marilyn M. Barnewall - All Rights Reserved

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall began her career in 1956 as a journalist with the Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne. During her 20 years (plus) as a banker and bank consultant, she wrote extensively for The American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, Trust Marketing Magazine, was U.S. Consulting Editor for Private Banker International (London/Dublin), and other major banking industry publications. She has written seven non-fiction books about banking and taught private banking at Colorado University for the American Bankers Association. She has authored seven banking books, one dog book, and two works of fiction (about banking, of course). She has served on numerous Boards in her community.

Barnewall is the former editor of The National Peace Officers Magazine and as a journalist has written guest editorials for the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and Newsweek, among others. On the Internet, she has written for News With Views, World Net Daily, Canada Free Press, Christian Business Daily, Business Reform, and others. She has been quoted in Time, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and other national and international publications. She can be found in Who's Who in America (2005-10), Who's Who of American Women (2006-10), Who's Who in Finance and Business (2006-10), and Who's Who in the World (2008).

Letter Supporting Governors Who Reject Government Paid High-Speed Rail

If we went our elected officials to act in the public's better interest, it might be a good idea to thank them when they do!

Office of Governor Chris Christie
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
PO Box 001
Trenton, NJ 08625

Phone: 609-292-6000

Office of Governor John Kasich
STATE OF OHIO
Riffe Center, 30th Floor
77 South High Street
Columbus, Oh 43215-6117

Phone: (614) 466-3555


Office of Governor Rick Scott
STATE OF FLORIDA
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

Phone: (850) 488-7146

Office of Governor Scott Walker
STATE OF WISCONSIN
115 East Capitol
Madison WI 53702

(608) 266-1212

Dear Governor (Last Name):

Thank you for the courage you have shown by rejecting federal funds designed to put the State of _______ (Ohio or Florida or Wisconsin or New Jersey) in continual debt to the federal government. Though you will hear very little from the mainstream media about the courage you are showing by rejecting funds from our bankrupt federal government, you have not only done the right thing for your State, you have done the right thing for a Sovereign America.

High-speed rail needs to be a national system and, in the spirit of free enterprise and American entrepreneurism, it needs to be implemented by private investors.

A private investor by the name of Ambassador Lee Emil Wanta has for many years been offering to build a national high-speed rail system for the American people with no tax dollars involved. There will be no burden on our children and grandchildren and America will be able to update her transportation/rail system so as to be competitive with Japan, Great Britain, France, China and other Great Nations of the world. Regardless of the number of times President Obama discounts American exceptionalism, this is still the Greatest Nation on the face of the earth. I thank you for actions you take on our behalf. We’re all in this together, Americans standing side by side.

Again, thank you for your courageous decisions and please support Ambassador Lee Emil Wanta’s project to build our high-speed rail system at no cost to American taxpayers. As Governor Scott so eloquently said, the high-speed rail program proposed by the federal government is a “boondoggle.” It is the Democrat Party in action… promising jobs that will never exist because, like California’s program, it will never be funded – but it gives them a wonderful way to attack Republicans for opposing job creation, doesn’t it?

California’s program was one of the first, one of the largest high-speed rail programs. If the federal government has the money to fund high-speed rail in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and New Jersey, why was Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger in Shanghai (according to a Reuters article) begging the Chinese to fund that State’s high-speed rail system? Why was he also asking them to help build it?

All that must be done for Ambassador Wanta to implement high-speed rail is for the Federal Reserve to release to him funds that were wire transferred via CHIPS by the People’s Bank of China to the Bank of America in Richmond, Virginia in 2006. The funds were diverted by the Federal Reserve and have been withheld from Ambassador Wanta since that time – even though he was acting in accordance with a Federal District Court Judge’s Decision (Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, April 15, 2003, Alexandria, VA).

Sincerely,

SPEECH PLANNING AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS

By Marilyn M. Barnewall
February 6, 2011
NewsWithViews.com

No one seemed to notice it but me. Maybe I’m getting old. Or, maybe the media is.

Charles Krauthammer – who never misses anything – missed it.

Brit Hume of Fox News missed it.

Sean Hannity of Fox News missed it.

Shepard Smith missed it, too. So did Juan Williams.

Michelle Bachman missed it – but she came closer to actually giving it than the person charged with the responsibility.

Congressman Paul Ryan from Janesville, Wisconsin, missed it, too.

And, Barack Hussein Obama certainly missed it.

What did I get that everyone else seemed to miss?

I missed input from President Barack Obama on the State of the Union in his State of the Union address. Maybe I’m still groggy from anesthesia.

Instead of discussing the dangers posed by America’s debt, or possible solutions for the mortgage foreclosure frauds running rampant throughout our court system (please note my non-use of the words “system of justice”), or the war in Afghanistan – or the state of anything – the President filled the airwaves with words like “I’ve ordered … I’m willing … I am prepared … I will veto … I know … I urge … I’m proposing … I disagree … I would” and a lot of other words were placed after the pronoun “I.”

Good grief! Is Washington totally bereft of decent speech writers? Does anyone in this White House understand good communications? Based on performance to date, a very good case can be made that no one in White House communications – including the Press Secretary – has any insight into what constitutes effective communications.

When planning a speech, what is the primary objective?

Gee, knowing the topic one is expected to speak about used to be at the top of my priority list. When someone requested me to give a speech, it was because they had a topic they wanted explained to an audience. They invited me because I was qualified to give that explanation. The media seemed to be looking for a well-delivered speech designed to motivate people. Bill O’Reilly certainly was looking for that.

Maybe someone needs to remind the media that a President’s State of the Union address is supposed to be about the State of the Union – and it’s on how well that topic is covered their speech reviews should focus.

It is called “State of the Union” for a reason. It is on this night the President of the United States is supposed to tell the citizens of this country the problems faced by the nation and the impact the problems had on the Union during the past year.

Let’s see how gently this can be put. The subject of a sentence defines what the person who says or writes the sentence considers the most important part of the sentence. When the word “I” is the subject of so many sentences, the speaker obviously considers “I” the most important. If he didn’t, the word “I” would not be the subject of so many sentences.
The President’s sense of self importance rather than compassion and respect for the people of the United States came through loud and clear. The media didn’t catch that, either.

But Obama is supposed to look, and sound, like a leader. How can he do that without making the word “I” the subject of his sentences? By making “the people” the subject of his sentences and expressing his leadership as a part of the sentence sub-structure. He says “The people want” rather than “I want.” He says “The people deserve” rather than “I urge…” and completes the sentence by saying “…and as their President, I intend to support them by doing the following things.” Such a sentence makes “The people” the subject – the most important element of what’s being said – not the President. Take a look at the text of this speech and count the number of times the word “I” is used!

This is called “Communication 101.” This administration needs someone who passed the course – and took at least one semester in sales and another in marketing – to help write this man’s speeches. President Obama sounds like a narcissist of the first order (and may be – but the job of his “people” is to keep him from sounding like one).

Obama began the “meaningful” part of his speech by saying: “At stake right now is not who wins the next election -- after all, we just had an election. At stake is whether new jobs and industries take root in this country, or somewhere else. It's whether the hard work and industry of our people is rewarded. It's whether we sustain the leadership that has made America not just a place on a map, but the light to the world.”

If we are a light to the world, why has Obama found it necessary to apologize for America whenever he steps onto foreign soil?

He referred to jobs numerous times in his speech. Creating jobs is a hot button issue with the American people – and with unemployment over 9 percent (and most of us believe it’s far higher than that), it should be. He should have provided statistical data on this subject and given his projections for improving it. The truth is, liberal democrats don’t have a clue about how to create jobs because to do so requires government to get out of the way and let independent businesses (not multi-nationals whose loyalties lie with providing jobs to the least expensive labor pool in the world) grow and hire people.

“These steps we've taken over the last two years may have broken the back of this recession…”

Yes. He had the – nerve – to say that. He didn’t even flinch when he said it. Broken the back of this recession? What gall! It will make all of the people who have been illegally foreclosed against and all of those who are still unemployed hopeful, I suppose, to know President Obama has “broken the back of the recession.”

The only thing worse than Barack Obama’s failure to understand how to define and give a speech that explains the State of the Union is the media’s inability to perceive and report the failure.

For example, he could have told us:

1. “I have issued 733 waivers for Obama Care…” (more than 500 granted in December – but that wasn’t made public until the day after his State of the Union “address,” a/k/a his opening 2012 campaign speech). “The waivers exempt recipients from the increased costs of health insurance” (which means the rest of us will pay higher insurance premiums so those with waivers can be exempted from the higher costs). Nothing new there… a vigorous redistribution of wealth continues.

2. Those who are receiving waivers for enforced Obama health care mostly include unions, businesses, cities that support him politically (like Detroit – where unemployment exceeds 25 percent), states that have either proven to be loyal or which he needs for reelection – Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee. Democrat Senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana have already received payment for the Obama Care support of their votes.

3. The new Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, rejected President Obama’s offer of funds for a high-speed rail line between Madison and Milwaukee. Why? First, because what is planned isn’t high-speed rail. It’s rapid transit. Second, because Governors in other states have discovered the offers are designed to gain voter support by promising (rather than providing) jobs. Otherwise, why was former Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger in Shanghai a couple of months before the New Year asking the Chinese for funding and assistance in building California’s high-speed rail project? Why did Governors in Florida, New Jersey, and Ohio also reject or suddenly question the offer of federal funds to build high-speed rail? (Maybe because there are no federal funds?) After President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union speech, I wrote about the high-speed rail boondoggle and I wrote about it again last fall. In spite of union activist interruptions at his Inauguration, Governor Walker said “We’re going to focus on things we can afford.” He promptly rejected the phony financing backed by collateral consisting of worthless mortgage-backed derivatives. Good grief! Even Bill O’Reilly did a 15 minute segment last week on why high-speed rail needs to be done by private investors!

4. Remember the 2009 and 2010 State of the Union addresses given by President Obama? In both years, he recommended government spending be frozen for a period of three years. The Democrats controlled both the Senate and the House during those two years. It’s funny how Harry and Nancy just ignored the President. This year, though, he said “I want to freeze spending for five years.” Of course, since he gave his 2009 and 2010 speeches, the budget Obama now wants to freeze is 84 percent larger – and growing every day. Since the Republicans want to take a hatchet to spending, the budget will not be frozen, it will be cut.

We, the People, deserve to know what’s going on with regard to the BP oil spill – what is the status of offshore drilling? In what prison cell is Secretary of the Interior Salazar languishing because his lax offshore drilling policies (which have never been called before Committee) caused broad-based human suffering? Too, we deserve to know the status of the Afghanistan conflict. As of the date of the State of the Union speech, 27 American servicemen had been killed during 2011.

There are many things we deserve to know, but there are few that will be willingly revealed. If I ever hear the word “transparency” associated with this man’s name again, I will barf. He can’t even be transparent in a State of the Union speech where he’s supposed to be transparent.

As an aside: Thanks to so many of you who took the time to write and wish me well during my recent surgical “experience.” Your prayers were the greatest gift you could have given and were most gratefully accepted. God bless all of you. To answer the question many of my readers are asking, Flight of the Black Swan is completed and will soon be published in final format. At the moment, a pre-publication version has been printed. For those of you who use Kindle to read e-books, it is available at Amazon.com.

© 2011 Marilyn M. Barnewall - All Rights Reserved
________________________________________
Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall began her career in 1956 as a journalist with the Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne. During her 20 years (plus) as a banker and bank consultant, she wrote extensively for The American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, Trust Marketing Magazine, was U.S. Consulting Editor for Private Banker International (London/Dublin), and other major banking industry publications. She has written seven non-fiction books about banking and taught private banking at Colorado University for the American Bankers Association. She has authored seven banking books, one dog book, and one work of fiction (about banking, of course). She has served on numerous Boards in her community.

Barnewall is the former editor of The National Peace Officer Magazine and as a journalist has written guest editorials for the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and Newsweek, among others. On the Internet, she has written for News With Views, World Net Daily, Canada Free Press, Christian Business Daily, Business Reform, and others. She has been quoted in Time, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and other national and international publications. She can be found in Who's Who in America (2005-10), Who's Who of American Women (2006-10), Who's Who in Finance and Business (2006-10), and Who's Who in the World (2008).

Governor/Governor-Elect Letter from Ambassador Lee Wanta

10 November, 2010

Dear Governor and/or Governor-Elect,
National Governor’s Association, et al ….

The many thoughtful comments made by Governors and Governors-elect recently about High Speed Rail [HSR] Programs are appreciated. It is always a pleasure to discuss innovation and progress with people of foresight and logic. The fact that so many Governors and Governors- elect around the United States are coming to the realization that the promises of an American High Speed Rail System can be best done nationally utilizing private, not government, funds is heartening.

Perhaps the reason the Obama - Biden Administration approached the implementation of High Speed Rail – promising HSR (150-230 mph) when, in reality, they planned to build rapid transit rail (100-150 mph) – is because the Federal Government knows each State needs to solve transportation problems that high-speed rail doesn’t solve. What the federal government failed to see is that local rapid transit systems need to be owned and controlled by State Government, not the Federal Government. Too, HSR systems are more costly and need to be privately funded with no taxpayer grants or subsidies – particularly at this moment in America’s economic history.

There is no doubt in my mind that each State Government needs to implement a rapid transit system that is coordinated into the AmeriRail High Speed Rail Transportation Program. Upon the Economic Receipt of my personal/repatriation funds, I am willing to enter into a planning process with each State Governor through whose State AmeriRail travels to discuss temporarily providing funds to build a rapid transit system designed to solve your most pressing transportation problems.

It is clear that the Economic Recovery/Crisis is creating financial difficulties that make it impossible for State Governments to do much more than provide basic necessities to the American Populace. I believe State Legislatures across the country need to better define “necessary” and become more prudent in their spending. I also believe the jobs that can be created by building both HSR and rapid transit systems at the same time will solve much of the economic instability. People are not going to borrow and spend until they feel confident about jobs, salaries and full employee benefits. Before the jobs and housing situations can be solved, lost confidence in government must be restored.

The suggestions for what needs to be done in your State must come from you. You know your State. You know your State's needs. What we are probably talking about is a loan to your State from AmeriRail [upon my personal Economic Receipt] for limited rapid rail links and attachments to the AmeriRail system. We are also talking about all proceeds from the rapid rail system being used to repay any loan made by AmeriRail for rapid transit … and we are talking about AmeriRail maintaining control of cost factors involving rapid transit until any loans for the system are repaid. Beyond cost factors, the State would be in control of managing the system until repayment is completed.

My objective with the funds being unlawfully withheld from me since May of 2006 has always been to do what best serves the needs of America. As the Federal Government has become more and more bloated and unable to implement meaningful Economic Recovery, it has become clear to me that problems will need to be solved with sovereign states, not a bureaucracy run amok.

If you are interested in discussing these and other creative ideas with me, I will expect to hear from you.

Sincerely,

(/s/Signed)
Lee E Wanta

Proposed AmeriRail High-Speed Rail Map

Republicans Embrace Obama Rail Initiative

By Michael O'Brien - 01/29/11 02:00 PM ET

Key Republicans are embracing a major spending initiative outlined in President Obama's State of the Union address.

Two top members of the House Transportation Committee said they will push the president's initiative seeking to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail over te course of the next 25 years.

"I believe it's good for America to develop a high-speed rail corridor in the Northeast corridor," Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), the chairman of the railroad subcommittee, said according to the Connecticut Post. "It's a place we have to start, we have to accomplish it, because then I believe all of America, in the various corridors around the country, will want high-speed rail if they see success here."

Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the chairman of the whole committee, also said Friday he was "pleased that President Obama has helped to launch a system for improved passenger rail service for our nation."

The pair warned Obama to seek more private investments in the project, and encouraged the administration to be more focused in where it will deploy high-speed rail service.

Still, the pair's support could enable cooperation between the Republican House and the Obama administration on one of the president's major initiatives.

"Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail," Obama said in his address. "This could allow you to go places in half the time it takes to travel by car."

High-Speed Rail off the Tracks

January 27, 2011
by: Luke Gelber

Wastewatcher, January, 2011


When stumping for Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) in October 2010, Vice President Joe Biden made a telling statement regarding the government’s role in investments. He credited the government with “every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century,” adding that “in the middle of the Civil War you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States. … No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years.”

Ignoring the insult to all non-government workers of the past three centuries, one may presume that the government has a similar explanation for its own, more modern focus on railways. The President’s stimulus package contained $8 billion for high-speed rail (HSR) projects, including $2.3 billion for a line linking San Francisco to Los Angeles and $1.25 billion for a line extending from Tampa Bay to Orlando. In October 2010, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced an additional $2.4 billion for HSR projects across the country. Almost $2 billion of that amount was redirected from projects in Wisconsin and Ohio when local officials refused to accept the money due to costs to the states that they could not afford. In his January 25, 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama promised 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail in 25 years.

The Federal Railroad Administration claims that HSR will “serve as a catalyst to promote economic expansion (including new manufacturing jobs), create new choices for travelers in addition to flying or driving, reduce national dependence on oil, and foster livable urban and rural communities.” These justifications, taken at face value, do nothing to explain why billions of taxpayer dollars are necessary. Federal funding of HSR projects forces taxpayers across the country to foot the bill for someone else’s enormously expensive product.

HSR projects do not constitute a public good as defined by economists. Their delivery by the private sector is not prevented by threats of free ridership or other market failures. Those who benefit pay, the same way as passengers on airplanes or in taxis. Instead, the problem with HSR is the inherent ultra-high cost, ranging anywhere from $22 million to $132 million per mile, according to a Government Accountability Office report. California originally estimated that its HSR project would cost roughly $45 billion, but a 2008 study by the Reason Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation called that number low by as much as $26 billion. Even California’s “official” estimates have been rising, prompting State Sen. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) to renege on his previous support.

Even on the environmental front, experts are far from a consensus on whether HSR makes sense. Many estimates of reduced emissions and congestion on highways rely on very high ridership rates, which are far from certain. Further, approximations of cost on light rail projects in Arizona, Oregon, and Virginia have proven consistently low. As Warren Meyer observed in Forbes on September 22, 2010, Phoenix could have purchased a Toyota Prius for each daily rider of its light rail system and still had a billion dollars to spare. California, showing typical thrift, spent $250 million on HSR before it laid a single mile of track.

No doubt it would be lovely to have mass transit “whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour,” as President Obama said. High-speed rail lines are incredible feats of engineering that make for glorious photography and impressive ribbon-cutting ceremonies. As a result, federal spending on HSR enjoys bipartisan favor. But to support federally-subsidized high-speed rail is to suffer from a politician’s typical lack of vision. It is to fawn and obsess over what is tangible, obvious, and shiny while ignoring the massive opportunity costs of such politically-advantageous projects. Money spent on high-speed rail could have gone toward paying down the national debt, education, poverty relief, law enforcement, or, best of all, the individual free spending choices of taxpayers.

Indeed, Vice President Biden would do well to brush up on his history. While the federally-subsidized Union Pacific Overland Route was America’s first transcontinental rail line, it went bankrupt by 1897. Each of its competitors that received land grants and subsidies failed similarly. Only the Great Northern, financed privately by individuals trading peacefully and voluntarily, managed to escape conservatorship. The United States should heed this lesson and pull any federal funding for high-speed rail.

http://www.cagw.org/newsroom/waste-watcher/2011/january/rail.html

High-Speed Rail: Waste of Taxpayer Money

By Michael Barone
January 20, 2011 6:35 am
The Washington Examiner

Where can the new Congress start cutting spending? Here’s one obvious answer: high-speed rail. The Obama administration is sending billions of stimulus dollars around the country for rail projects that make no sense and that, if they are ever built, will be a drag on taxpayers indefinitely.

When incoming Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio cancelled high-speed rail projects, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood refused to let them spend the dollars on other forms of transportation and sent the funds instead to California and other states.

Walker argued that Wisconsin didn’t need $810 billion for a 78-mile line between Madison and Milwaukee because there’s already a transportation artery — Interstate 94 — that enables people to get from one city to the other in a little more than an hour (I once drove that route to have dinner in Milwaukee).

Kasich’s rationale? “They tried to give us $400 million to build a high-speed train that goes 39 miles an hour.” Train boosters countered that its top speed was 79 miles per hour — about the same as many drivers on Interstate 71.

High-speed rail may sound like a good idea. It works, and reportedly even makes a profit, in Japan and France. If they can do it, why can’t we?

A look at some proposed projects gives the answer. Take the $2.7 billion, 84-mile line connecting Orlando and Tampa that incoming Florida Gov. Rick Scott is mulling over.

It would connect two highly decentralized metro areas that are already connected by Interstate 4. Urban scholar Wendell Cox, writing for the Reason Foundation, found that just about any door-to-door trip between the two metro areas would actually take longer by train than by auto — and would cost more. Why would any business traveler take the train?

As for tourists headed for Orlando’s theme parks, there is already a convenient rental car operation, with some of the nation’s lowest rates, at the Orlando airport. Why would parents get on a train, pay a separate fare for each kid and then rent a car at the station when you could more easily get one at the airport?

As Cox points out, cost estimates for the Florida train seem underestimated and the ridership estimates seem wildly inflated. If he’s even partially right, Florida taxpayers will be paying billions for this white elephant over the years.

Other projects seem just as iffy. California is spending $4.3 billion on a 65-mile stretch of track between Corcoran and Borden in the Central Valley, which is supposed to be part of an 800-mile network connecting San Diego and Sacramento. Its projected cost was $32 billion in 2008 and $42 billion in 2009, suggesting a certain lack of precision.

Or consider the $1.1 billion track improvement on the Chicago-St. Louis line in Illinois. It would reduce travel time between the cities by 48 minutes, but the trip would still take over four and a half hours at an average speed of 62 miles per hour.

None of these high-speed projects are really high-speed. Japan has bullet trains that average 171 miles per hour, France’s TGV averages 149 miles per hour. At such speeds you can travel faster door-to-door by train than by plane over distances up to 500 miles.

In contrast, Amtrak’s Acela from Baltimore to Washington averages 84 miles per hour and the Orlando-Tampa train would average 101 miles per hour. That makes the train uncompetitive with planes on trips more than 300 miles.

Now take a look at your map and see how many major metro areas with densely concentrated central business districts and large numbers of business travelers are within 300 miles of each other.

The answer is not very many outside of the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston. Our geography is different from France’s or Japan’s.

Moreover, to achieve the speed of French and Japanese high-speed rail, you need dedicated track so you don’t have to slow down for freight trains. To get dedicated track, you need a central government that is willing and able to ignore environmental protests and not-in-my-backyard activists. Japan and France have such governments. We don’t.

So we are spending billions on high-speed rail that isn’t really high speed, that will serve largely affluent business travelers and that will need taxpayer subsidies forever. This should be a no-brainer for a Congress bent on cutting spending.

—

Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner (www.washingtonexaminer.com), is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/2011/01/20/barone-high-speed-rail-is-a-fast-way-to-waste-taxpayer-money/

California Seeks China's Help for High-Speed Rail

Governor Schwarzenegger asks China for money

NOTE: This story from Reuters dated September 13, 2010, indicates the United States government does not have sufficient funds to finance the construction of America's high-speed rail program. Otherwise, Governor Schwarzenegger wouldn't be seeking to borrow from China to build California's project.

Why, if funds are not available, does President Obama go to Milwaukee and Cleveland on Labor Day promising to re-build our rail infrastructure? Every time Obama makes a public appearance lately, he promotes high-speed rail. Apparently this a political ploy designed to garner Democrat voter support in the November elections. It is equally apparent that American voters are being told lies.

Democrat Party redistribution of wealth plans ("redistribution" is a socialist, not capitalist, concept) prevent new job creation and hinder economic recovery. Properly done, high-speed rail would provide two million new jobs within two years -- but "properly done" is defined as a national program, not building rapid transit in a handful of states.

What President Obama and Vice President Biden refer to as "high-speed rail" is really "rapid transit." Yet, estimated construction costs reflect the cost of high-speed rail, not rapid transit. Readers might want to remember that bullet trains (high-speed rail) travel from 150 to 222 miles per hour (mph). The maximum rail speed achieved by the Obama Administration plan is 150 mph.

What's going on? Oh, yes. Political ploy.

SHANGHAI | Mon Sep 13, 2010 1:07am EDT

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - California will seek China's help in financing its high-speed rail system and welcome bids from Chinese firms to help build it, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Monday.

Earlier this year, California was awarded $2.25 billion of the $8 billion set aside for high-speed rail projects under the U.S. government's stimulus plan. The state plans to build a high-speed line between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

"We look to China to build our high speed rail, to be part of the bidding process that we are going to go through," Schwarzenegger told a gathering of U.S. businesses in Shanghai.

"Many countries will be bidding to build our high-speed rail, (and we plan) also to look for financing from China," he said.

The $8 billion, part of the $863 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will introduce high-speed rail to a country that has long relied on a vast interstate highway network and air travel.

Completing high-speed lines will require a mix of federal, state and private investment, experts have said.

California, which has entered into its fiscal year without a budget signed into law, has seen its financial problems crimp its ability to move ahead with projects such as the high-speed rail.

Last year, California temporarily issued IOUs during a lengthy budget impasse.

U.S. government transportation officials have also recently toured China and other Asian countries as the United States embarks on its plans to build more high-speed rail lines.

The Rush Limbaugh Show on High-Speed Rail

RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW, August 30, 2010, 1:45-2:00 P.M. (EDT)
(Guest Host for Rush, Mark Belling, Comments on High-Speed Rail)

One of the initiatives of the Obama Administration has been high-speed rail. Take existing Amtrak lines and convert them to these 110 to 115 mile an hour trains and put these trains where there isn’t Amtrak service right now. They’re pushing this all over America right now. It’s extremely expensive. All over the country, you’re seeing states you think would support these train lines because they’re getting the trains are objecting. They are objecting on the basis that it costs too much.

(Paragraph about general pork barrel spending omitted here. See below for total pork barrel spending text.)

In my own state of Wisconsin, Obama is pushing a high-speed rail line between the cities of Milwaukee and Madison. They’re only 75 miles apart. When traffic is terrible it’s only a 90 minute drive… when it’s terrible. It’s usually a little bit less than that. It’s an annoying drive, but it’s do-able. He wants to put a high-speed bullet train there – a train that will go 115 miles per hour and maybe you’ll be able to complete the trip in an hour.

The cost for this line – which is a little over 80 miles – is $810 million, paid for by the federal government. The leading Republican candidate for Governor in my state, Scott Walker, is running television ads saying he’ll kill the train if you elect him. Those ads are resonating across Wisconsin. He’s saying, “If you elect me, I’ll kill this pork they’re trying to give us” – and he sees it as a winning political issue.

First of all, he recognizes that our state of Wisconsin will be on the hook for operating costs for this train. He also realizes that those costs will have to be taken out of his own State budget and will mean less money for roads, less money for local busses.

The point that I’m making is that he has a winning issue here, he perceives, by opposing federal money. The Democratic candidate for governor, the Mayor of Milwaukee, is saying; “Well, if we don’t take this money for the train, they’re just going to give it to another State.” People aren’t buying that. They’d rather not have the pork at all than have it wasted in their own area.

This is a fundamental change. I think people are now open to considering that all of this government spending is bad, even if they get it. They look at stimulus. $816 billion that supposedly is being spent. They can’t find any example of it in their own daily lives. They don’t see any jobs being created. They’re turning their noses up at the notion that the government should be spending, and spending, and spending and spending and spending without any consequence at all.

If they’re willing to object to rail, they may be willing to object to a lot more pork. But more importantly, I think it tells you that there is a change in attitude going on in this country.

TOTAL TEXT OF MONOLOGUE, RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW, CLOSE TO 2:00 P.M. (EDT), Guest Host: Mark Belling, on Pork Barrel Spending. Wisconsin high-speed rail project used as an example.

BY MARK BELLING ON RUSH LIMBAUGH:

The media has a way of missing a lot of things because they are blind to them. When you don’t want to see something, you don’t see it.

There’s something going on right now on an issue that I think is really important and it tells you that 2010 is a different year. One of the initiatives of the Obama Administration has been high-speed rail. Take existing Amtrak lines and convert them to these 110 to 115 mile an hour trains and put these trains where there isn’t Amtrak service right now. They’re pushing this all over America right now. It’s extremely expensive. All over the country, you’re seeing states you think would support these train lines because they’re getting the trains are objecting. They are objecting on the basis that it costs too much.

We all know what the problem with political pork is: Everybody says they’re against it, but everybody wants their own piece of pork. It’s why Congressmen and Senators of both parties have tried to “deliver the mail” back home. “Well, I know we spend too much money – but I want to make sure that our State gets its fair share.” So we object to everybody’s “Bridge to Nowhere” until we get a “Bridge to Nowhere.” We object to every building named after a Congressman across the United States until that building is in our own area and it’s for something we like. This has been the problem all along. Earmarks occurred and Congressional pork occurred because Congressmen benefited politically by bringing that stuff back home. But now that we are spending ourselves blind and people are truly terrified that we don’t have a way of digging out from under this debt – they understand the numbers; they don’t have to be actuaries, they realize the baby-boomers are aging… that this large group of taxpayers is going to be transitioning to people who are going to be on the dole collecting Medicare and Social Security and not paying as much in taxes – so how are we ever going to pay off this debt? How are we ever going to get an economy that has a balanced budget? How are we ever going to be able survive without paying the entire GDP out in servicing our own debt? And they’re now open to rejecting pork. This isn’t isolated.

In my own state of Wisconsin, Obama is pushing a high-speed rail line between the cities of Milwaukee and Madison. They’re only 75 miles apart. When traffic is terrible it’s only a 90 minute drive… when it’s terrible. It’s usually a little bit less than that. It’s an annoying drive, but it’s do-able. He wants to put a high-speed bullet train there – a train that will go 115 miles per hour and maybe you’ll be able to complete the trip in an hour.

The cost for this line – which is a little over 80 miles – is $810 million, paid for by the federal government. The leading Republican candidate for Governor in my state, Scott Walker, is running television ads saying he’ll kill the train if you elect him. Those ads are resonating across Wisconsin. He’s saying, “If you elect me, I’ll kill this pork they’re trying to give us” – and he sees it as a winning political issue.

First of all, he recognizes that our state of Wisconsin will be on the hook for operating costs for this train. He also realizes that those costs will have to be taken out of his own State budget and will mean less money for roads, less money for local busses.

The point that I’m making is that he has a winning issue here, he perceives, by opposing federal money. The Democratic candidate for governor, the Mayor of Milwaukee, is saying; “Well, if we don’t take this money for the train, they’re just going to give it to another State.” People aren’t buying that. They’d rather not have the pork at all than have it wasted in their own area.

This is a fundamental change. I think people are now open to considering that all of this government spending is bad, even if they get it. They look at stimulus. $816 billion that supposedly is being spent. They can’t find any example of it in their own daily lives. They don’t see any jobs being created. They’re turning their noses up at the notion that the government should be spending, and spending, and spending and spending and spending without any consequence at all.

If they’re willing to object to rail, they may be willing to object to a lot more pork. But more importantly, I think it tells you that there is a change in attitude going on in this country.

The Chicago Tribune - On High-Speed Rail

Critics say current plans don't shoot for real travel improvements

Jon Hilkevitch
Getting Around
August 30, 2010

A revolt is building against what some public officials mistakenly consider high-speed rail.

You can't blame anybody who has experienced riding aboard bullet trains for being completely unimpressed by the current goal to have passenger trains traverse the Midwest at top speeds of 110 mph, up from 79 mph on Amtrak today.

But that's the game plan, at a cost of billions of dollars.
Bullet trains routinely operate at 150 to 220 mph. It's the performance level Illinois should be shooting for, said state Sen. Martin Sandoval, D- Chicago, who is chairman of the Illinois Senate Transportation Committee.

Sandoval sponsored legislation this year creating a commission working to establish world-class bullet trains, and he helped push the administration of Gov. Pat Quinn to seek more than $8 million in federal seed money toward that goal.

Other lawmakers have joined the campaign, urging U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to approve the funding to explore truly fast trains that would bring major cities in the Midwest within three hours of each other via rail. A decision is expected soon.

"We need to get to work on true high-speed rail. The people want it,'' Sandoval said, adding he is frustrated that the process of appointing members to the Illinois and Midwest High Speed Rail Commission is "moving as fast as our current freight trains.''
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There is a lot of push-back and inertia coming from various quarters.

Officials at Amtrak, which has minimal expertise in operating high-speed rail, don't see a problem topping out at only 110 mph. An infusion of billions of dollars in federal and state funding will mean better Amtrak service in the Midwest — just don't mistake it for true high-speed trains.

The genuine article, service at up to 220 mph, is being planned in California and Florida. It already exists to a lesser degree on Amtrak Acela Express trains that get up to 150 mph on small portions of the route between Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

Meanwhile, the Union Pacific Railroad, which owns the track between Chicago and St. Louis that is set to be the first higher-speed corridor in Illinois, officially supports the 110 mph plan because it provides millions of dollars in government subsidies to upgrade tracks, signals and other infrastructure that freight trains share with Amtrak and Metra trains.

The rail modernization will greatly benefit the freight railroad, even though Union Pacific executives would prefer to have nothing to do with high-speed trains.

Union Pacific agreed to allow 110 mph passenger trains on the tracks being rebuilt mostly with federal stimulus funds between Chicago and St. Louis only because it inherited the obligation when it bought the track along the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1996. An earlier Southern Pacific agreement allowing the Illinois Department of Transportation to run faster trains was part of a grandfather clause.

"If I had a choice, I wouldn't be doing this investment (in high-speed rail),'' Union Pacific Chief Executive Officer James Young told the Bloomberg news agency in July. "We need to focus on freight for our good and for the good of the country.''

Sandoval said Illinois "can't sell the real benefits of investing in freight and Amtrak service on the back of the bullet train.''

"Our current state strategy falls short because it relies on the Union Pacific to deliver to the people more round-trips, more reliability at faster times without any guarantees. This investment in the UP is not the bullet train the people want,'' Sandoval said. "We should be upfront with the people of Illinois.''

He is right about no guarantees. The Union Pacific has not agreed to allow for increases in passenger service once the 110 mph track upgrades are completed on the 284-mile line between Chicago and St. Louis. So a huge investment is being made to operate only a few trains a day?

Wouldn't the money be more wisely spent on building track dedicated to 220 mph, electric-powered passenger trains, like California and Florida are doing?

After prodding by true high-speed rail supporters, IDOT begrudgingly asked the Obama administration last year for $5 million to conduct a preliminary study on the feasibility of 220 mph trains along the route from Chicago to St. Louis. The request was submitted during the first round of the high-speed rail funding competition. Illinois' application was denied, although the state did receive $1.23 billion to construct tracks and make other improvements for future 110 mph service.

Now, IDOT is seeking more than $8 million to begin designing a 220 mph bullet train railroad linking Chicago and St. Louis, with stops in downstate Illinois as well as O'Hare International Airport and McCormick Place. The money would be spent on a market study, ridership forecasting, an implementation strategy and a comparison of route options.

The current 5½-hour Amtrak trip between Chicago and St. Louis would be slashed to two hours.

The request is contained in IDOT applications vying for a second round of federal grants to advance Illinois' 110 mph passenger rail program. A decision by the Federal Railroad Administration is expected as early as late September, officials said.

Officials who have recently written to LaHood, the U.S. transportation secretary and a former congressman from Peoria, in support of the $8 million in funding include Sandoval; state Senators John Millner, Toi Hutchinson, Dale Risinger, Michael Bond and David Koehler; state Reps. Ken Dunkin, Sara Feigenholtz, Elaine Nekritz and Dave Winters; U.S. Reps. Phil Hare and Jesse Jackson Jr.; Chicago Ald. Toni Preckwinkle; St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay; Glenn Poshard, president of Southern Illinois University; and Randall Blankenhorn, executive director of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning.

Contact Getting Around at jhilkevitch@tribune.com or c/o the Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Read recent columns at chicagotribune.com/gettingaround