NEW YORK — The U.S. Department of Transportation will begin accepting expressions of interest to finance, design, build, operate and maintain high-speed trains on the Northeast Corridor and in 10 other federally-designated corridors around the nation.
“This is a first step in a process established by Congress to put ideas to paper, and to make concrete proposals for what the future might look like,” Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said.
“Imagine traveling by train between New York City and Washington, D.C. in just two hours or cutting your trip time by 25 percent between New York City and Boston,” Peters said. “Or imagine new passenger rail service on high-speed corridors between other major cities across the country. We want to know if and where it can be done — and we want to know how to make it affordable.”
Americans need new ways of travelling between major cities, and a properly structured intercity passenger rail system can and must play a larger role in our nation’s transportation future, the transportation secretary said.
“In the past year, we have seen Americans driving significantly fewer miles, and we have seen ridership on trains increase,” Peters said. “Just last week, we announced data showing Americans drove more than 100 billion fewer miles between November 2007 and October 2008 than during the same period a year earlier.”
— Railfanning.org News Wire
