High speed rail

On Thursday, President Obama announced a commitment to the development of a high speed rail system. The Post mentions it today very briefly in the printed paper, but with a good blog entry, "Obama Pushes Vision for High-Speed Rail" while the AP, "Obama outlines vision for high-speed rail network" and other newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, "U.S. Commits $13 Billion to Aid High-Speed Rail," give it much more play.

-- Federal Railroad Administration on high-speed rail

Clearly this is an example of how who is in office at the Presidency level makes a huge difference. This would never happen with a Republican Administration.

WSJ image.

The interesting thing about this from a local economic development standpoint in the DC region, is because Amtrak is headquartered here, because of the Northeast Corridor, significant maintenance yards, etc., Amtrak is a key source for local high-paying "industrial" jobs. You'd think the Post would want to push this more. Having a high speed railroad system generally, and along the Eastern seaboard will only help DC's local economy.