Let me refer you to an excellent interview with Andy Kunz in TreeHugger, talking about the present state of High Speed Rail and ntegrated rail.... Let me refer you to an excellent interview with Andy Kunz in TreeHugger, talking about the present state of High Speed Rail and ntegrated rail systems in Europe, and the hope for something similar that alleviates the US's desperate dependence on automobiles, with all the personal, social, and physical harm they cause. A quick quote:

There is no shortage of money for transportation in America, and there never has been. We have always spent big money on state-of-the-art roads and airports in America. The problem is we have been locked into a roads-cars-airports-only investment mode for more than 70 years, and now are stuck with systems that are beginning to fail, and because they are all dependent on oil, have a very bleak future.

In Europe, they spend the majority of their transportation dollars continually expanding and advancing their train systems. While their countries become more sustainable and productive each year as a result of their train investments, our country becomes less sustainable and less productive as a result of our road and aviation investments.

Read the entire article at TreeHugger.com.