The Job and Energy Benefits of High Speed Rail

High speed rail lines use less than a third energy per mile than auto travel, and a dedicated high-speed network could reduce oil use by 125 million barrels per year. Those are just two of the benefits of the proposed high speed rail program that President Obama and Vice President Biden seeded with $8 billion in initial grants on Thursday. The lines could also spur growth along heavily packed corridors in several states around the country. Florida, Illinois and California received the initial outlay of money for developing corridors between Tampa and Orlando, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Chicago and St. Louis. Time Magazine reports:

High-speed rail represents the kind of long-term infrastructure investment that will pay back for decades, just as the interstate highway system of the 1950s has. "This is a down payment on a truly national program," said Biden, who has logged more than 7,900 round trips of his own on Amtrak. "It will change the way we travel and change the way we work and live." Greens will be happy to see that.

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