U.S.-bound travellers from several Canadian cities stand to benefit from $8 billion in funding awarded Thursday by the Obama administration to speed up passenger-rail service and introduce high-speed trains across more than a dozen routes in the United States.

In Tampa, Fla., President Barack Obama said his administration is going ahead with a plan to ensure that the U.S. can catch up to other jurisdictions in Europe and China by building routes that create manufacturing and related jobs in America while reducing traffic, consumption of fossil fuels and pollution.

“Those things are fast, they are smooth, you don’t have to take off your shoes,” Obama said. “Why don’t we have them? Part of it is that our population centres are farther apart. But let’s face it, we just love our cars. We don’t love gas prices, but we love our cars. But we need to invest in infrastructure like HSR (high-speed rail) that will allow us to choose the option of taking the train.”

But some warn that Canada might lose job opportunities and economic benefits if it doesn’t launch its own projects in its largest cities.

“We can’t let the Americans get the jump on us,” said federal Liberal transport critic Joe Volpe. “We’re better equipped than they are to do this and we can’t have a small-thinking government . . . stand in the way.”

The biggest winners of the $8 billion stimulus were the state of California, which will receive $2.25 billion for a route connecting such major cities as Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the state of Florida, which will receive $1.25 billion to begin building a high-speed rail link between Tampa, Orlando and Miami.

“There was a time not too long ago when this would have been a fantasy in North America,” said Paul Langan, the founder of High Speed Rail Canada, an advocacy group which promotes the service. “But it’s happening right now.”

Some of the U.S. stimulus money will go toward upgrades on existing conventional rail lines that improve service to Canadian destinations. That includes about $200 million in upgrades on the routes between Chicago and Detroit, across the Detroit River from Windsor, Ont., and on the New York-Buffalo route, which is linked to Toronto. The plan will also upgrade infrastructure between New York City and Montreal with a new track segment of about five kilometres on the route to reduce congestion and improve on-time performance.

By Mike De Souza, Canwest News Service >>> read full story

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