US high-speed rail continues to get support from Obama and Congress.

After President Obama announced that $8 billion would go towards high-speed rail in January, high-speed rail articles were popping up all over the place. It seemed as if we were entering a transportation revolution. But large-scale infrastructure projects don't get built overnight. Nonetheless, high-speed rail projects are moving forward with continued support from the Obama administration and Congress.

About two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that $80 million in grants for high-speed rail projects had been delivered in Florida ($66,600,000), California ($6,200,000), Wisconsin ($5,700,000), New York ($1,000,000) and New Mexico ($100,000).

"The President's vision for high-speed rail will forever change the way Americans travel by offering new transportation options," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "The grants released today are merely the very beginning of many more to follow."

With the exception of the New Mexico project, all of these projects had received part of the $8 billion Mr. Obama announced in January as well.

What is the $80 million for?

As you can see above, most of this money is for a rail project in Florida. In particular, it is for program management and preliminary engineering for planned high-speed rail service between Tampa and Orlando. The trains there will run at a speed of up to 168 miles per hour on 84 miles of track.

Additionally, California is getting money for track relocation work in support of a high-speed rail line connecting San Francisco and Sacramento; Wisconsin is getting funding for environmental assessments of planned stations on a 110-mph rail line connecting Milwaukee and Madison; and New York State is getting funding for project planning to increase the speed of the Empire Corridor to 110 mph. This 468-mile corridor connects all of New York's largest cities.

New Mexico "will receive a grant to create the state's first-ever rail plan, the first step in a project that could eventually link all the major cities in the Southwest," the U.S. Department of Energy reports.

More money to come

In order to provide continued support for high-speed rail, the Obama administration earlier this year proposed that over the next five years a minimum of $1 billion from the federal budget go towards jump-starting this multi-decade infrastructure effort annually. Congress supported this and more. It raised that amount to $2.5 billion.

So, things are happening and plans are moving forward for these massive high-speed rail projects around the country.

I was on a conference call regarding the future of rail transit in the US last week as part of the American Public Transportation Association's 2010 Rail Conference, and at one point someone from the press brought up the topic of future, ongoing funding for rail transit. Karen Rae, Deputy Administrator of the US Federal Railroad Administration, said that unlike with the national highway system, a lot of consideration is being given to the ongoing maintenance and operation costs of high-speed rail, even at this very early stage.

A lot of people in this field have been working towards this day for years. Now that things are really moving forward, you can be sure they won't stop easily -- much like a train.

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Image Credit: /\/\ichael Patric|{ via flickr/CC license