National Defense
Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor
The stimulus bill has been signed. The money is going through appropriations and agencies across the United States are licking their chops at what they might be able to do with that money. This is especially the case for rail agencies — or potential rail agencies — but should funding for intercity rail be considered a part of transportation funding, or should it be a matter of national defense?
It isn’t a surprise to most of us in the transit industry that the interstate highway system was built on the back of national defense in 1956. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 is often better known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 and accounted for $25 billion in funding for the system. One of the major plans for the interstate highway system was as a means of high-speed supply transfer and troop deployment in case of an invasion.
But would this still be the case? If another country did invade the United States, would the military be able to use the interstate highways as planned? Or would they be choked with civilian cars as they flee from the invading force? With so many cars on the roads today, I have to believe the latter.
This brings up high-speed rail. How much better would a system of high-speed, interconnected, intercity rail lines be for national defense? It’s not like we have lots of people with their own trains who could clog those tracks. And trains moving at 200+ miles per hour would seem to be a much better means of supply and troop transfer.
Of course, the nature of war has changed just as much as transit has since 1956. If 9/11 is any indication, any future attacks on the United States will be by terrorists and not a large armed force. This may be the reason it’s difficult to sell an intercity rail network as a necessary national defense measure.
One thing that hasn’t changed, and one we have a tendency to forget, is that the interstate highway system was finished vastly over budget and far later than it was originally promised. If a rail line took more than a dozen years and $100 million dollars more than projected to finish, the cries of boondoggle would be able to be heard across the country.
Should the rail lines be thrown into the national defense budget? Possibly. If I could travel by train instead of airline to some destinations, maybe the airlines wouldn’t be such a target for terrorists.
Besides, doesn’t the President Barack Obama National System of Interstate and Defense Rail Networks have a good ring to it?
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Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,
Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
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