I live in the Northeast where travel by passenger rail is an option. In fact, there's an Amtrak stop just a few miles from my home, where I can board intercity trains that can take me to New York City and beyond.
For purposes of business, riding a train is great. I don't have to take off my shoes and have my bags inspected prior to boarding. Once in my seat, I can plug in my laptop computer, turn on my wireless broadband card, take calls on my cell phone and do just about everything I do back in my office. If I'm hungry, I can stroll down to the cafe car and get something to eat and drink. By the time I reach my destination, I'm far more relaxed and have accomplished much more than when I fly.
I also know I can only do this in the Northeast Corridor, where frequent and relatively fast rail service makes traveling by train both reliable and convenient. You can't do the same between, say Chicago and St. Louis, or Atlanta and Nashville or Los Angeles and San Francisco. There's nothing speedy, convenient or reliable when it comes to rail service in these and about a dozen other high capacity corridors of travel.
Fortunately, the situation is about to change. Today, President Obama announced plans to develop high speed rail in the United States. In February, Congress approved spending $8 billion to jump start the kind of intercity rail service that can be found throughout much of Europe, Japan and, eventually, China. Obama has included another $5 billion for high speed rail in the White House budget.
In his remarks, Obama spoke about the nearly $80 billion in lost productivity that happens annually in the U.S., thanks to congestion on the roads and at airports. High speed rail won't eliminate all the congestion; the country is too big and would require a train network too large to reach every corner and provide everyone service that's convenient, fast and reliable.
But by focusing on a dozen or so potential corridors between 100 and 500 miles in length, high speed rail can make a difference by becoming an option in terms of travel. We have the proof from highly successful rail systems built in the same manner overseas and within the northeast corridor, between Boston and Washington, D.C.
So what's this have to do with technology? Plenty. High speed rail is one component of smart transit, America's new infrastructure. Just as we're learning that IT can help create smart grids that make our use of energy more efficient, so too can IT help make surface transport more efficient, reliable and convenient.
Bits and pieces of smart transit have been popping up in recent years. Mapping tools help car drivers find their destination more easily; they help fleets of trucks and buses move more efficiently and, with the development of a high speed rail system, IT will aid in speeding up the movement of trains and give passengers up to the minute information for making connections between the trains and airports, buses and subways.
It's all about new, smart infrastructure that allows people to have more options for traveling easily without paying the high cost of lost productivity and environmental damage.
All aboad!
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