Recovery Act is the Number One Reason to Re-elect President Obama

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 rejuvenated plans for the Fulton Street Transit Center in lower Manhattan. The project is set for completion in June 2014. Photo credit: Josh Marks

Republicans keep falsely claiming President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus, officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), was a massively wasteful failure. Right now the GOP is using all the money from their right-wing billionaire donors to inundate swing state voters with their anti-stimulus, pro-austerity message.

But in reality the stimulus is a smashing success. It is more than 50 percent bigger than Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and has begun to profoundly change the United States of America in ways many of us are just beginning to realize. The economic stimulus has kickstarted our transition to a 21st Century economy built to last. For example, $90 billion was pumped into the clean energy sector. To put that in perspective, a decade earlier President Clinton proposed a modest $6.3 billion clean energy initiative that was shot down. The Recovery Act is also one of the most transparent pieces of legislation in history. Contrary to the Republican lies, there is very little fraud or abuse associated with ARRA thanks to unprecedented levels of oversight. Click here to go to Recovery.gov and track how Recovery funds are being spent and report fraud, waste or abuse.

American High-Speed Rail Moving Forward

Despite shortsighted right-wing Republican opposition, high-speed rail (HSR) is moving forward in the United States of America. Soon we won't have to fly across the Atlantic or Pacific to experience world-class passenger train service. President Obama and Vice President Biden get much of the credit for revitalizing passenger rail travel by demanding a federal allocation of $8 billion for high-speed projects as part of the 2009 economic stimulus package.

While conservative Republican governors like Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Rick Scott of Florida have denied their residents high-speed rail by rejecting federal funding, and right-wing House Republicans like Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) passes a meaningless anti-California HSR amendment to the Fiscal Year 2013 Transportation, Housing & Urban Development (THUD) bill, progressive states like California are pushing ahead into the 21st Century with ambitious HSR projects. The latest good news for HSR advocates comes from The Golden State where last Friday in Sacramento, lawmakers in the Senate approved SB 1029 -- $4.5 billion in construction financing through the sale of bonds, including $2.6 billion for the initial segment in the Central Valley for the bullet train line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The legislative victory means that California will now qualify for another $3.2 billion in federal funding.

Photos and Videos: Europe High-Speed Trains

Imagine one day traveling on a high-speed train from Washington to New York in 96 minutes or Los Angeles to San Francisco in 2 hours 38 minutes. As the super sleek bullet-nosed marvel of modern engineering climbs to a top of speed of 220 mph (354 kph) on a dedicated high-speed track, the sensation you feel is of flying on an airplane at 30,000 feet. You look out the window as entire towns pass by in a blink of an eye. As you speed through The Garden State you briefly notice on your left a backlog of planes waiting to take off from Newark International Airport and on your right an epic traffic jam on the New Jersey Turnpike. But before you know it the train is tunneling underneath the Hudson River and gliding into a spacious new railway station as you realize that you left Washington and arrived in New York in the time it would have taken you to drive to the airport and pass through security or reach as far as Baltimore in rush hour gridlock.

High-speed rail in California, the Northeast Corridor and other regions could become reality soon as pundits and politicians debate the merits of investing in 21st century train travel while China and other countries rapidly build extensive high-speed rail networks. With high-speed rail such a hot topic here in America, I wanted to visit a part of the world where fast trains have been a part of the fabric of life for a long time. Riding the rails was the main reason I took a trip to Europe this past summer. My Eurorail pass opened my eyes to a way of life where citizens enjoy timely and efficient city-to-city rail service that is competitive with air and automobile travel.  Here are some photos of the high-speed trains I took followed by video of riding the rails through the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, France and Spain.

EUROSTAR

DEUTSCHE BAHN

THALYS

TGV

RENFE

Here are more photos of high-speed rail in Europe.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Riding the Rails: Paris to Barcelona

July 23, 2011 -- After a brief one day visit to Paris, I hopped on a TGV high-speed train heading south from Gare de Lyon railway station to Spain through the French countryside and Mediterranean coast via Nimes, Montpelier-Saint-Roch, Sete, Agde, Beziers, Narbonne and Perpignan . After a transfer at Figueres-Vilafant to a Renfe high-speed train, I headed to my last destination in Europe -- Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia.

It is hard to describe the feeling of speeding past vineyards and palm tree-lined coastal villages at nearly 200 miles per hour. It is amazing. I hope one day Americans will be able to experience true high speed rail like what the citizens of France, Germany, Spain, China, Japan and other nations enjoy.

And I hope that on that beautiful day in the United States of America when our trains travel over 200 mph, that we can look out the window and see wind turbines like these near the France-Spain border powering our country with clean, domestic energy.

Here are more photos and video of my train trip from Paris to Barcelona. Click here to see the photo set on Flickr. The 30-minute video shows scenes of the spectacular French and Spanish countryside and Mediterranean coastline.

Riding the Rails: Brussels to Berlin

July 17, 2011 -- I took a Deutsche Bahn InterCity-Express train from Brussels to Berlin with a transfer in Cologne. The train makes intermediate stops at Liege and Aachen before reaching Cologne. From Cologne the train makes intermediate stops at Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Bochum, Dortmund, Hamm, Gutersloh, Bielefeld, Herford, Hannover, Wolfsburg, Stendal and Berlin-Spandau. DB ICE trains travel at speeds up to 200 mph (322 kph).

The train station at Liege, Belgium is spectacular. It was designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who also designed the new transit hub at Ground Zero in New York City and the Chords Bridge in Jerusalem.

In typical German fashion, Deutsche Bahn wants you to know exactly how fast and efficient their high-speed trains are. The ICE trains top out at around 200 mph (322 kph) so my train was gaining speed at the time I took this picture. For Americans reading this blog post, that is 155 miles per hour.

As we sped through the German countryside I was expecting to see alpine houses and gothic cathedrals, which I did. However, I also saw gigantic wind farms with enormous wind turbines dotting the landscape. And it seemed as if every other house I saw had solar panels installed on the rooftop. Germany is obviously not the windiest or sunniest country in the world, but the Federal Republic has had a Renewable Energy Act in place since the year 2000, so this is the result of over eleven years of generous incentives for wind and solar power. It is impressive to see so many wind farms and so many citizens powering their homes with the sun.

That evening we arrived at the multi-level, futuristic looking Berlin Central Train Station. Trains are coming and going all the time on different levels, making it look like something out of the Fox animated science fiction show "Futurama." So cool.

Here are photos and video of my high speed train trip from Brussels to Berlin. Click here to see the photo set on Flickr.

Riding the Rails: London to Brussels

July 16, 2011 -- From London's St. Pancras Railway Station I took a Eurostar high speed train to my next stop -- Brussels, Belgium.

The Eurostar train zips you to Brussels in a little under two hours and travels at speeds up to 186 miles per hour (300 kilometers per hour). It was my first time riding a high speed train and it was an amazing experience. You literally feel as if you are flying on the ground. But while the speed is incredibly fast, the ride is also surprisingly smooth. The highlight for me was traveling through the English Channel Tunnel, otherwise called the Chunnel. It takes about 20 minutes to travel the 31.4 miles (50.5 kilometers) from Folkestone, Kent, United Kingdom to Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais near Calais in northern France. It is thrilling being 250 feet (75 meters) under sea level on a high-speed train roaring ahead at nearly 200 mph.

Eurostar makes stops at Ebbsfleet and Ashford in southern England; and Calais and Lille in northern France, before arriving at Brussels South Railway Station.

Here is video riding the rails from London to Brussels:



Here are photos of the rail trip from London to Brussels. Click here to see the Flickr set.

Infrastructure Bank Would Boost Economy

Yes, the latest jobs report made for a depressing day here in the United States of America. But are there solutions to our economic and employment problems? One potential answer is the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank that would fix our crumbling roads and bridges; make it easier and faster to build a high speed rail network; and start to make a dent in getting Americans back to work.

MSNBC.com is reporting that the BUILD Act is gaining traction in Congress. It has bipartisan support amongst many Democrats and Republicans, and also has the backing of two groups usually on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum -- the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO.

The dismal economic and jobs news is only one compelling reason to move forward with a dedicated source of funding for these projects.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has given American infrastructure a D grade and has said we need to spend $2 trillion over the next five years to fix our infrastructure.

And China is investing massive amounts of money into high speed rail and other major infrastructure projects. A little over a week ago the first bullet trains on the Shanghai-Beijing rail line started running. China is also committing huge amounts of money into research and development to eventually get high speed trains across the country to reach speeds of up to 300 miles per hour.

Where is America's competitive fire? Do we want to get left in the dust by Chinese high speed rail?

If you care about the future of the United States of America as much as I do, then please call your Representative and Senators and tell them how important a National Infrastructure Bank is to fixing the economy and creating jobs and demand they support the BUILD Act.