electricron wrote:At this pace, States ready to go fairly quickly with rail projects are years, possibly decades away from receiving Federal funds, when will Obama propose a dedicated revenue source to finance trains? I'm not so sure there will be any Federal funds made available for trains next year.....
There will be some federal funds for HSIPR next year, just not much. The House has passed a FY2011 Transportation bill with $1.4 Billion for HSIPR, $1.77 billion for Amtrak. The Senate is still in committee, but the Senate Appropriations subcommittee voted for $1.0 billion for HSIPR, $1.96 billion for Amtrak. If the $1 billion funding level is left unchanged by the Senate, then the House and Senate bills go to a reconciliation committee which will probably pick a number between $1.0 and $1.4 billion for passenger rail and the two Amtrak funding amounts.
It is clear looking at the applications and the states that either have or are fairly close to having intercity rail projects ready to go, that whether the FY11 amount is $1.2 or $1.4 billion, it won't go very far. The NEC alone could use a billion plus a year of dedicated funding. They are clearly punting until Congress takes up the next 6 year Transportation authorization bill, but there is no agreement on how to pay for it. Not just rail, but the much larger amounts that will go to highways & roads. If the Obama administration and the key Congressional players are serious about HSR and improved intercity rail, they will push for a minimum of $4 to $5 billion a year starting at year 1 and ramp up to $8 to $10 billion a year by year 6. With a lot of projects still in the study and engineering phase which take years to go through all the hoops, a ramp up funding approach for passenger rail construction projects is a reasonable approach. What will happen and when for the next 6 year Transportation authorization bill for passenger rail is anybody's guess. Meanwhile, there is $2.3 for FY10 to distribute. Hope they do it with some foresight.
