WASHINGTON–A year ago, during his State of the Union address, U.S. President Barack Obama set a goal for a national high-speed rail (HSR) network: 85 percent of the country’s population would have access to HSR within 25 years. One year later, that goal seems wildly optimistic. Within a month of Obama’s speech, Florida Governor Rick [...]

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WASHINGTON — Just three months after his inauguration in April 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled his vision of an expanded high-speed rail network that promised to transform much of the United States’ outdated rail infrastructure while enhancing energy security and providing environmental benefits. In his words, high-speed rail would “lead to innovations that change [...]

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 In my last blog post about the effects of High Speed Rail (HSR) stations on cities in Europe, I discussed the architecture of several notable HSR station buildings that have attracted a great deal of attention in and of themselves.  However, a memorable building alone isn’t sufficient to generate the so-called HSR Effect, which can [...]

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A GMF blog post by Ben Adler in September 2009 discussed the economic potential of high-speed rail, citing governmental and business leaders in Strasbourg, France, who agreed that their area had benefitted from the “High-Speed Rail Effect,” a host of civic advantages that can result from, or arrive alongside, new High-Speed Rail (HSR) service. These [...]

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