These mean nothing for as long as the US government continues to contract work for these projects through private companies. This country needs a publicly-funded and operated office of construction. Otherwise, be prepared to watch that $8.2b amount to a couple hundred feet of rail and go 10x past budget and schedule
Not just that, we also need to take back the physical rails from private freight companies.
We gave them to them because they said they'd maintain them, but they don't because the insurance premiums are cheaper, and after major wrecks the taxpayers still have to pay to fix the worst sections to prevent a crash.
That's why passenger rail is virtually non existent here.
Since freight owns the rails, they get priority. So a passenger train might have to pull over and wait a couple hours for a freight train going 5 mph to get past them.
If we don't fix that, there's no point in doing anything else
One rather comedic and unfortunate problem—rail tracks are designed to somewhat circumvent this problem by occasionally splitting into two parallel tracks. The slower train goes onto one track and then the faster train goes onto the other track to pass it.
Now, the biggest issue is that freight companies have realised it's more profitable to run obscenely long trains rather than running more trains. As a result, the freight train is often longer than the entire section of parallel track, rendering it useless.
Ugh, Cincinnati just voted to sell the last municipality owned rail line to Norfolk Southern. I agree with you completely.
Well, at least they didn't sell it to a company who just had a crash spilling dangerous chemical is their state...
/s
Freight, by law doesn't actually get priority, but that law is basically never enforced which amounts to the same thing.
sounds like the perfect use of eminent domain.
I agree. You should start a grassroots campaign to get people in these local communities to start beating down their Rep's doors to make this happen. Not even joking.
I agree that regulated public rail is a better implementation, but this does not "mean nothing", it's a substantial investment in critical infrastructure and shows that the US is trying to catch up to the rest of the world.
It's a significant policy.
Amen.
Just look at the further decimated ruins of our public education system after diverting funds to charter schools.
Privatization of the commons is just another capitalist con-game to grow/metastasize/profit off of aspects of society where any rational, empathetic person would immediately understand greed has no place.
But acknowledging greed as the destructive force it is is the height of Un-American at this point, so whatever. There doesn't seem to be anything more than a tiny smattering of powerless peasants that even acknowledge let alone care what giving sociopathic, insatiable greed the keys has and continues to do to the citizenry. Even those most hurt tend to side with the faceless, amoral corporate entities that hurt them and blame whoever their preferred mass propaganda tells them to blame.
Oh lost your job/savings/future? Man, I'll bet you're really mad at that camp of powerless homeless people over there, or the concept of government (even though the corporations intentionally, loudly broke ours and bribe officials to keep it broken), it's really their fault if you do enough mental gymnastics, herp derp!
A high quality version of the map can be found at the bottom of this PDF: https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/2023-12/FY22%20CID%20Project%20Summaries-Map.pdf
And here's a screenshot of the high-res map: https://imgur.com/dHbLmXL
Okay for those who aren't aware of how this program works, here is a breakdown of what's being handed out and a very brief summary of the programs.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021 creates two very broad categories for train development.
The Fed-State National is getting the most money because obviously it's going to be building new things and repairing old things. The Corridor ID won't be building anything, per se, but will be helping the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and "others" to identify locations that could join the current network of passenger rail. The Corridor ID is only handing out $500,000 per selection so I won't be giving amounts there.
Total award: $8,185,997,586
Do note that for pretty much all of these projects, the awarded amount is NOT the total cost of the project. After each awarded amount, I have put / and then the current estimate for completion of the project. As example, the California high speed rail is currently estimated to cost $33 Billion. The year of TBD in parenthesis is the latest year the project is expected to be completed. The Nevada high speed rail project has a + on it's cost because that $10.4 Billion is an initial estimate that was put into the program before the close date, the cost has increased since then.
The Corridor ID program can be divided into four sub-programs.
Remember that each of these is awarded $500,000 to do detail study in how to implement the program they've been slotted into:
(continued...)
Total Award: 69 (noice) that I counted multiply by $500,000 = $34,500,000
Remember that the Corridor ID program is money the indicated people can use to do a required study for ultimately asking to be in the next grant of the Fed-State National. Just because these people are handed the money for the study DOES NOT MEAN that a rail project will be funded by the Fed-State National program.
Total awarded amount by the FRA as directed by the President: $8,220,497,586
Also note this excluded explicitly funding already earmarked for Railroad Crossing Elimination (RCE) and Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) as required by law. Things inside the RCE and CRISI are mandatory spending line items.
ITT: "I like trains but this is bad because I can't admit that Biden is capable of doing anything good."
Cynicism is what's killing America. Faster than any politics. Look in the mirror and grow the fuck up.
I don't agree with him often, but damn we should have put in a rail system decades ago.
So...what if the railroad companies take the money and then do absolutely nothing, like what happened every single time this has been tried? What is there to hold them accountable this time?
Add telcoms to that list as well... almost a trillion was given to them to get broadband in all homes in the USA...poof
In fairness, last time this was tried we had Husky Musky employing a fraud with the explicit intent of killing the high-speed rail. Toss on a host of republican opposition and undermining in 2013± and you have the reason why it failed. It has nothing to do with the rail companies. It has everything you do with political dysfunction and not wanting to "let liberals win".
In the one hand, most of these allocations are to fund planning studies, so that’s exactly what will happen
In the other hand this is not like the telecom situation where we hand money to private companies promising to provide service. It’s generally infrastructure improvements and I believe project ownership is Amtrak or local DOT
The US desperately needs a high speed rail road. It's long overdue. It's the future. This should be a bi-partisan project.
Wow, this guy really fucking loves trains. For real, though, this is really great news.
If I could ride a train, instead of flying across the US, that would be so nice. Hop on one train, take the travel time to read, wfh, relax and avoid traffic.
I also find it ironic how central to the web Chicago is looking when Saint Louis put up that fight so long ago.
For at least 30 years middle Georgia (USA) has asked for rail commute to Atlanta and Savannah.
Now see.....this rail used to be a passenger rail. Somehow this ended and we can't get it back.
With the abysmal traffic in Atlanta, this would seemingly call for enthusiasm. Somehow the issue always dies quietly after a poll is given.
Living in Savannah, I'd really just like the old passenger schedule to re open.
Not gonna happen anytime soon.
My god, a rail system all the way down I-75, A STRAIGHT FUCKING SHOT PERFECT FOR A TRAIN, would be amazing.
Instead, we got more Peach Pass that is seemingly never open on the side that actually needs it.
And of course the automobile and oil lobbies will have such a massive fit that these plans end up always going nowhere.
Love how these huge infrastructure projects get announced right at beginning of election season, so even if it does actually get set up, it'll just get ripped out by the next party after he loses.
Ain't no way we're getting bullet trains when NYC's subway barely qualifies as having a circular route.
Can't wait to see all this go to the lowest bidder so we can get the finest rail made of 1880 cast iron after a decade's worth of delay.
Its been 13 years and AT&T still hasn't given my old city fiber with the morbillion dollars they got to expand the nations network.
Cool.
Can we treat rail road workers like people too? Or are we still building all of this on the backs of people sacrificing their health and their families?
Not to downplay anything but passenger rail employees are treated significantly better than freight. The majority of employees have set schedules including conductors and engineer. It's different from crew base to crew base but between 15% to 30% are extra board working on call.
I wonder if the fact that Amtrak is nationalized and freight are private corporations has anything to do with how the employees get treated… Something to think about when it comes to freight railroads
Im sure you Biden hating pessimistic losers would love to shit on this one.
I'll believe it when I see it is all I will say. Anyone can promise nationwide high speed rail for the US, and many have in the past, yet here we are. Genuine praise will be warranted when it's actually completed and carrying passengers.
Lol why is the image at the bottom of the article so tiny? I want to see the map.
About damn time.
Building it is only part of the solution. The other part is making it affordable to use. The rail in Florida was basically already built, and recently. The problem is that it's not affordable as an option for residents. A weekend trip from Orlando to Miami is $120 (one way) https://www.gobrightline.com/booking. It costs half that in gas to drive round trip, and takes about the same time too.
In my opinion, public transportation doesn't need to be profitable. Subsidized by taxes, like our freeways. Adds to the economy and is worth the investment
Did they ever find the billions dedicated to improving high speed network access during the Bush era? They certainly didn't find the upgrades
Find it? It's not exactly missing, it's in the pocket of telephone companies mostly and some cable companies.
https://conexon.us/blog/sunk-costs-a-cautionary-tale/
Tldr: There's a lot more to it than just this, but the bill specified broadband but didn't specify the speed that meant. FCC set a good at the time goal of 100 mb/s speed internet for urban areas but a not even that good for the time goal of 4 mb/s speed for rural areas. They would then pay companies to achieve those goals in essence. FCC calculated the cash awards for reaching those speeds based on if companies were to do it by building a fiber network. Companies didn't need fiber to hit those slow rural target speeds, built much cheaper networks, many already existing, and then pocketed the difference. Good idea, but ruined in the details and telecom companies made off like bandits.
And all the lawyers and opponents are salivating at the prospect of getting in the way of the project and miring it in profitable legal battles.
is there a bigger version of this image? i can't read that blurry shit
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