To boost the job market and to decrease dependence on road and airlines network, US President Barack Obama announced on Friday a massive investment to create a chain of high-speed rail corridors across the US with an initial investment of $8 billion.
"It creates jobs immediately and it lays the foundation for a vibrant economy in the future," Obama said, at a public meeting in Tampa, Florida on Thursday.
The President announced 13 high-speed rail corridors covering 31 states across the country, a measure which will change the face US' transportation sector.
Addressing a joint meeting with Vice President Joe Biden, Obama announced an initial investment of $8 billion in projects across the country.
"There is no reason why other countries can build high-speed rail lines and we can't," Obama said.
These investments have several goals, Biden said, "First, to improve existing rail lines to make train service faster, more reliable; two, to pull cars off the road, reducing congestion, cutting pollution, and increasing productivity; and three, to begin to develop new corridors for high-speed trains that will go from 169 to 230 miles an hour."
Biden said $8 billion is just the seed money as there are proposals worth more than $55 billion from 50 states all across the country.
"Today's awards provide only initial funding for the rail system. Like Tampa and Orlando route, more funding is going to come in the future as progress is made," he said.
Buttressing the case of high-speed rail, Obama said, "If more and more facilities like that are available that's going to be good, as I said, for the economy of the region and it's going to be good for individual lifestyles because people aren't going to be stuck in traffic for two hours.
"It'll increase productivity. People will get to work on time a lot faster. They'll be less aggravated." The announcement was immediately welcomed by several US lawmakers.
"The major federal investment in passenger rail services announced today will help create jobs, spur economic opportunities, and make it easier for people to get around Maryland and the northeast region," said Senator Benjamin Cardin and Barbara A Mikulski.
"These Recovery Act grants will help expand reliable high-speed rail service, which will ease traffic congestion on the highways between Baltimore and Washington and improve service reliability for Amtrak, MARC and freight trains," they said.
Image: Barack Obama
