While we're waiting...

While America sits and waits for electric cars to become less expensive, Obama is attempting to give us an alternative for the here and now. It's a bit left field considering we haven't relied on this mode of transportation in nearly a hundred years. That's right, the train! In 1929, the train was the main mode of transportation. With flying and driving not entirely reliable, the train was the only sensible way to get around. However, the car was quickly gaining popularity. There was a campaign by U.S. carmakers to buy rail lines and close them, along with a major push in Congress to build the world's largest interstate highway system. This was an effort to shift Americans away from train travel and toward cars. As a result, the U.S. became the ultimate auto nation, with more cars per capita than anywhere else in the world.
I've only ever been on a train once and I was in another country at the time. Other countries are entirely reliant upon the train to get them from A to B. Obama allocated $8 billion dollars of his stimulus package on the development of high speed rail lines across the country. His reasoning being to reduce the reliance on foreign oil and greenhouse gas emissions. The first round of federal funding will go toward upgrading existing lines. However, the majority of it will be used to jump start construction of new high speed train travel lines in 10 corridors across the country. Including areas in and around Chicago! Woot Woot! If this catches on, it could save six billion pounds of CO2 annually! This means we would have 29 million fewer car trips and 500,000 fewer plane flights each year. (Okay, I'm going to warn you all right now, I love statistics. I will be using them a lot.) I've only had my car for a little under a year, and I couldn't imagine how I would get along without it. I'm all for breaking my reliance upon it and encouraging others to do the same.