Obama calls for integrated high speed rail network

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama yesterday outlined plans for a high-speed rail network he said would change the way Americans travel, drawing comparisons to the 1950s creation of the inter state highway system.

Obama characterized his plan as a down payment on a rail system that will take decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to build, connecting dozens of metropolitan areas around the country. The plan's Southeast Corridor includes Richmond.

"This is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future," Obama said. "It is happening right now. It's been happening for decades. The problem is it's been happening elsewhere, not here."

The United States trails other developed countries in developing high-speed rail. The Spanish can travel the 386 miles from Madrid to Barcelona at speeds averaging almost 150 miles per hour. Japan's bullet trains link its major cities at speeds averaging 180 mph, and France's TGV train averages about 133 mph in carrying passengers from Paris to Lyon.

The only U.S. rail service that meets the Federal Railroad Administration's 110 mph threshold to qualify as high-speed rail is Amtrak's 9-year-old Acela Express route between Boston and Washington.

Initially, regional transportation offices will compete for the $8 billion included in the $787 billion economic stimulus spending package for high-speed rail, bolstered by $1 billion a year for five years requested in the federal budget.

"It's very good news," said Charles M. Badger, director of the state's Department of Rail and Public Transportation. "We're hopeful that we should be getting some of the funds in the first round of grants."

Virginia has "a host of projects we can bring forward in a very short period of time that should be good candidates for this funding," he said.

The state has identified the need for eight major rail-improvement efforts with an estimated cost of $6.6 billion. "They're a lot of very mundane-type projects," Badger said.

For instance, among the potential rail stimulus funding projects would be a $235 million bypass to allow passenger trains to move expeditiously past the present choke point at CSX's Acca Yard in Richmond.

But "everything we do will fit with high-speed rail," Badger said. "We have to start by clearing up the congestion points where the high-speed rail will run."

Staff writer Peter Bacqué and The Associated Press contributed to this report.