US climbs on board high-speed-train proposal

New York Times: For years, several US states have been proposing building high-speed-train networks on a par with those of Spain, Japan, and China. At long last those plans may come to fruition as the US government is finally putting some money toward supporting those regional projects. President Obama's new economic stimulus package that was announced over the weekend will provide $8 billion toward the development of high-speed rail. Two routes favored to receive the funds will be the high-traffic corridors of Orlando–Tampa Bay in Florida and San Francisco–Los Angeles in California. The federal funds will not pay for the entire cost of the projects; each state will have to provide some additional funding, which may be a challenge in the current economy.