Build Better Connections for Stronger Cities

Ryan Avent (if you're not reading him you should be) celebrates the new excitement about infrastructure.  He reports for Grist, "Last week, Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) introduced the High-Speed Rail for America Act, a bill that would authorize $23 billion in bond sales to fund rail infrastructure generally, and true high-speed networks (with speeds in excess of 150 mph) in California and the Northeast corridor. If passed it would be the second bill this year to help lay the groundwork for high-speed rail investments.

"The arguments in favor of high-speed rail are straightforward and familiar. It's green. It relieves congestion on highways and at airports. And by improving connections between cities, it boosts economic productivity."

Avent makes the case that urban economies will be improved by rail.  "We have to remember that to build healthy, walkable cities we need robust urban economies. And to get those economies we have to make the transportation investments we've been unwilling to make in the age of highways. High-speed inter-city rail is an indispensable part of that equation."

  

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