Green Living

Stimulus Money for High-Speed Rail Service a Good Sign

I took a 600-mile (each way) road trip with two young children. I seriously considered the train — honest — but it meant spending more than I would for airline tickets, giving up 40 hours of time to travel, and changing trains twice (once in the middle of the night). Instead, I copped out and burned up two-thirds ton of CO2 emissions, according to carbon offset site www.nativeenergy.com). Even a $14 carbon offset through the site did little to assuage my guilt.

So you can imagine how heartened I am that one of President Obama’s key stimulus commitments is to fund high-speed rail service with $13 billion. Train travel is by far a more energy-efficient mode of transportation than either driving or flying — traveling by rail, we’d have reduced our carbon footprint to less than half of what generated. Check out comparisons in the Native Energy site.

While $13 billion is not enough to fuel the realization of a nationwide high-speed rail, it’s one more drop than we had before-and already it’s sparking dialogue and furthering the re-thinking of transportation as we know it.

The stimulus money may not carry us to the end of our journey to a more sustainable transportation system. But maybe, just maybe, it could be enough to push us past the tipping point and power the little engine that could.

energy, transportation

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