The Obama administration promoted high-speed rail projects across major US states to adopt more environmentally friendly transportation initiatives and improve infrastructure. California accepted billions in federal grants to begin developing a high-speed rail line, though critics argue the projected ridership and costs make the project economically unfeasible, especially given California's budget issues. Supporters counter that large public works projects can have broader economic and social benefits beyond just transportation.

1. California’s High-Speed Rail Project A goal of the Obama administration
California’s High-Speed Rail ProjectA goal of the Obama administration has been to
promote high-speed rail across the most populous and geographically-dispersed states in
the United States. The idea is to adopt more energy-saving initiatives while also helping to
improve state’s infrastructure. It is with this in mind that the Federal Government made
billions available to various states in the 2008–2010 budget cycles. After the Fall, 2010
elections, several states that had elected Republican governors refused the grants,
suspicious that this seed money would not be sufficient to pay for what they viewed as
unnecessary construction based on over-optimistic expectations of the need for and use of
high-speed rail. One of the states that accepted the money and has moved forward strongly
into high-speed rail has been California, which has already begun work on a 65-mile section
in the middle of the state, earning the derisive nickname, the “train to nowhere.” This case
details the state’s projections regarding the need for high-speed rail, against the views of
infrastructure experts and critics who charge that for a state that is already in a severe
budget crisis, this is just the sort of project that makes no sense economically or
demographically.QuestionsAssess the benefits and drawbacks of the high-speed rail project.
In your opinion, do benefits outweigh drawbacks, or vice versa? Why? Justify your
answer.What are the implications of starting a project based on tenuous projections that
may or may not come true 10 years from now?Could you justify the California high-speed
rail project from the perspective of a massive public works initiative? In other words, what
other factors enter into the decision of whether to pursue a high-speed rail project? Why
are they important?