President Barack Obama laid out a sweeping vision for high-speed rail in the United States this past week. Obama has already secured $8 billion in funding in the stimulus bill and plans to pursue another $5 billion over the next 5 years.
Joe Romm at Climate Progress provided an excellent summary of the announcement.
In the meantime, Canada’s [non existent] national transportation strategy looks like this:
Yeah, I know, they’ve been really busy planning for our future, haven’t they?
Once the global recession ends, oil prices will resume their inevitable march to record levels which will be heralded with great fanfare in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, but will serve to continue to hamper the economies of all other regions. Airlines will switch from fighting off bankruptcy due to the recession to fighting off bankruptcy due to rising fuel costs.
In the age of Peak Oil and Climate Change, High Speed Rail must be a national priority in Canada as a means of minimizing short haul flights and large numbers of cars. We need to outline this vision now and put the systems in place before it’s too late. Government economic stimulus would be well placed to be working toward that vision.
I fear, however, that what we will see first is >$200 per barrel oil, airlines asking for bailouts, a public clamouring for alternate transportation plans, and a government who says, “Well, you can’t blame us because no one saw this coming.”
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I couldn’t agree more. I think this is just one example of how the Canadian government’s response to the “economic crisis” lacks any vision or creativity. We’re about to make the most significant investments in our country in decades and the ideas are all “business as usual”. What an opportunity we are squandering.