Kentucky & Southern Indiana, I am surprised & actually kind-of impressed:

Map of national bike route system from Ray LaHood's USDOT official blog entry.

Want to go through the country on an epic journey, without getting too hot or too cold? Well, you pretty much will be coming through our region/state, won'cha? That's just what this nutjob had to do. While bicycle tourist dollars are not going to single-handedly revive our economy, it's nice to have these folks coming through. Nothing in life is more fun than rolling into an new town on your bicycle and finding an open diner or grocery store.

The press release, reproduced in full:

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Gov. Steve Beshear today announced that the Federal Railroad Administration has approved a $250,000 grant to study the feasibility of high-speed passenger service on a rail corridor that includes Louisville.

Gov. Beshear joined with Govs. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee and Sonny Perdue of Georgia in supporting a study of the corridor that runs from Chicago to Atlanta, through Louisville and Nashville, Tenn.

“Our goal, ultimately, is to see the national high-speed rail system revised and enhanced to include this corridor,” Gov. Beshear said. “We believe this would correct an omission in the nationwide network – especially in terms of a continuous passenger rail corridor from Chicago to Florida.”

In the old days TARC used to supplement its income by running charters to the Derby and other special events. A Bush-era ruling out of the USDOT reversed that, clearing the field for private enterprise. Miller had to bust some heads to crack open that market, and now its supplementing their income. Now the USDOT mulls reversing that ruling, leading to some hand-wringing here in River City.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood can hardly contain his enthusiasm at the prospect of all those applications. And in truth, it looks like the next transportation authorization will probably kick in about $10b/yr in HSR funding, so it is indeed good that the states are working so hard on this.

See also our previous article: High Speed Rail: The Battle of Chicago

Interesting profile on Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in the New York Times today:

But one of the astonishing things about Mr. LaHood, 63, is how limited his transportation résumé is, how little excitement he exudes on the subject (other than about high-speed rail) and how little he seems to care who knows it. So why exactly did President Obama pick this former seven-term Republican congressman from Illinois to oversee everything that moves?

Mr. LaHood posits a theory. “They picked me because of the bipartisan thing,” he explained, “and the Congressional thing, and the friendship thing.”

After reading this t4america blog article, talking about US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's new direction, where the primary goals are now:

1. economic recovery
2. safety
3. livable and sustainable communities

Its worth noting that we're winning. Heck, we might even win this one in our lifetimes.

"Make no little plans" -Daniel Burnham, by way of Barack Obama

You can read the announcement on the front page of www.whitehouse.gov.

The AP is running a story about the Feds contemplating moving from a gasoline tax to a miles travelled tax. This is the worst idea, ever. Everything we're working for is hurt by this.

The burn rate on road construction has exceeded the collection rate for gas taxes for some time now. This month the savings built up in the past are running out, and the Feds are cutting smaller, pro-rated checks, with a promise to pay back the difference "in the future". This will mean many states without savings of their own - which I suspect includes Kentucky, but not Indiana - will have to curtail road construction.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/us/06highway.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin