Macomb, IL – Illinois is reportedly receiving about $9 billion out of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but instead of recognizing the economic crisis as much more than a local or even state problem and seizing it as an opportunity to invest as well as recover, officials' debate too often centers on partisan bickering and bureaucratic turf fights.
Mass transit in general and passenger rail in particular should be supported, and Republican obstructionism should be overcome.
Next week the Midwest High Speed Rail Association will hold its annual meeting in downtown Chicago. The March 21 gathering would be a good time to remind President Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin that passenger rail has proven to be popular, that Illinois is the hub of the country's passenger routes, and that the economy and society would be served by investing in passenger trains.
Already, Durbin, Gov. Pat Quinn and Amtrak chairman Tom Carper, former mayor of Macomb, this week said that that securing federal stimulus money for upgrading the Chicago-St. Louis Lincoln line to high-speed is a top priority.
Carper said, "The competition for the money will be fierce."
Nationwide, about $8 billion of the stimulus is reportedly being set aside for mass transit, just 1% of the whole package. So people should make it count for more than the same old IDOT projects. But people also should appreciate that Obama has dealt with a half dozen major tasks in his first 40 days in office:
1. The second half of President Bush's $700 bank bailout and redirecting some of those funds from being gifts to Wall Street to being loans to Detroit;
2. The foundation of a stimulus package that would pass Capitol Hill;
3. The homeowners' mortgage rescue plan;
4. A "stress test" for banks, some of whom took bailout money but still didn't resume loaning money to consumers and small businesses;
5. The $3 trillion budget; and
6. Almost all Republicans on Capitol Hill obstructing assistance at every opportunity.
Americans support Obama, according to Gallup Polls, which last month reported that 67% of the people approved of how Obama handled getting the stimulus bill through Congress, compared to 31% approving of Congressional Republicans' efforts to kill the measure.
The four-year-old Midwest Regional Rail Initiative linking Chicago with 11 metro areas within 400 miles should be revived, but it will probably face GOP obstructionism like this misleading statement by House Republican Leader John Boehner: "Tell me how spending $8 billion in this bill to have a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is going to help the construction worker in my district."
In fact, the $8 billion is for the whole country and includes one Midwest Rail proposal to connect the Ohio cities of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati - Boehner's district.
Boehner is typical of the obstructionism of the GOP (except for a few independent-minded Republicans such as Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, all of whom voted for the stimulus because their priorities are the public, not politics).
Meanwhile, train travel today is cobbled together with inadequate funding and overworked Amtrak personnel, who keep old equipment running and service in demand. Think of the savings after getting millions of polluting cars off highways or noisy jets out of the skies with a decent investment in passenger rail.
Extremists complain about subsidizing Amtrak (yet worry little about giving tax rebates or other incentives to big-box stores). Those critics ignore the massive amounts of subsidies that government for decades has given highways and airports. Government pays for airports and their safety needs. Government pays for highways and their maintenance.
The MWRRI is a cooperative, multi-agency effort that for 12 years has involved Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin, and the Federal Railroad Administration, to plan ways to offer business and leisure travelers shorter trips, more frequent routes, and more stops between cities and small towns. They want to use 3,000 miles of existing rail right of way to connect rural and urban areas; operate a hub-and-spoke passenger rail system; and introduce modern, high-speed trains operating at speeds up to 110 mph. The result could increase ridership and help reduce expected growth in auto congestion on highways and overcrowding and runway delays at regional airports.
Possible solutions such as better passenger rail service could help current problems and avoid future problems - if Republicans respond to Obama's willingness to compromise, and represent the interests of their constituents.
For details on the Midwest High Speed Rail Association and its research, go online to http://www.midwesthsr.org/
For a pdf copy of the 2004 report related to the Midwest Rail Initiative, go to http://www.dot.state.wi.us/projects/state/docs/railmidwest.pdf