It’s all over the Connecticut news, but in case you missed it, the federal government reallocated Florida’s spurned $2.4 Billion (yes, with a B) in high-speed rail funding yesterday.
The good news is that Connecticut got a $30 million piece of it, especially since Congress’ recent budget agreements suggested that the Florida money might not be reallocated at all. But the less good news is that our award was significantly less than what we had strenuously advocated for ($100 million).
According to the Connecticut Mirror,
DOT Secretary Ray LaHood announced his agency had received almost 100 applications for various rail projects around the country, totaling $10 billion. From those, DOT chose 15 states and Amtrak to receive $2.02 billion for 22 high-speed intercity passenger projects. The investment in the Northeast corridor to speed up trains is "unprecedented," DOT said in a news release, and includes a $450 million award to Amtrak to expand capacity and reliability in the region. In all, the Northeast corridor is slated to get $795 million for a range of projects.
And as the New York Times editorial puts it, Florida voters will get some time to think about their governor’s decision to spurn the rail money “as they sit in traffic jams, burning up $4-a-gallon gasoline. In fact, some of them clearly have thought about it because Mr. Scott now has some of the worst approval ratings of a Florida official in the last decade.”
Take your pick of a few of the articles covering the rest of the story:
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