Select an Issue or Program --------------- Sprawl & Transportation Public Lands & Open Space Marine & Coastal Habitat --------------- Conservation Legislative Political

Select a Region or Group -------------------- Sierra Club Headquarters -------------------- Inner City Outings (ICO) -------------------- Greater Boston Group Essex County Group Cape Cod Group Start a Sierra Club Group

Open Letter to Sen. Joseph Biden
from the National Sierra Club

National Sierra Club Applauds Support of S.250, 
High Speed Rail Investment Act of 2001

August 22, 2001

Dear Senator Biden:

On behalf of our 750,000 members, I would like to thank you for your leadership on S.250, the High Speed Rail Investment Act of 2001. The Sierra Club strongly endorses this bill. By investing in high speed rail corridors, this important piece of legislation would help to reduce congestion on our roadways, reduce air pollution and end gridlock at our nation's airports.

The average American driver spends 443 hours every year -- that is 55 eight-hour work days, or 11 weeks of work -- behind the wheel, and highway congestion is getting worse. Cars, trucks and buses are the biggest source of cancer-causing air pollution, spewing more than 12 billion pounds of toxic chemicals each year. Adding new lanes and building new roads only exacerbates this crisis by making people more reliant on their cars, leading to more congestion and more air pollution.

High-speed rail is a solution to traffic congestion and poor air quality. It gives Americans the option to not sit in traffic, which reduces congestion on our highways. With fewer cars on the road, the air quality and public health are greatly improved.

Air travel is another source of both frustration and pollution that could be reduced by investments in high-speed rail. A great deal of the air travel in the U.S. is for trips under 400 miles: Los Angeles - San Francisco; Sacramento - Los Angeles; Boston - New York - DC; Chicago - New York. In all of these cases, high-speed rail would reduce air traffic in our increasingly congested airports, and would be a far cheaper and more environmentally sound solution than airport construction or expansion.

In Chicago, the nexus of our nation's air transportation system, forty percent of the flights are of distances less than 300 miles. High-speed Rail in this corridor would greatly reduce congestion and gridlock in Chicago, which would in turn reduce the number of delayed flights in airports all across our nation.

S.250 authorizes Amtrak to sell $12 billion in high speed rail bonds over the next ten years to upgrade existing high speed rail routes, construct new dedicated high speed rail tracks, and purchase high speed rail equipment. Rather than Amtrak paying the interest to the bondholder, the federal government would provide tax credits, and states would match at least 20 percent of Amtrak's share. This bonding mechanism provides needed funding to Amtrak considering that rail only gets $361 million in federal subsidies yearly, while highways received $33 billion.

Our nation faces many transportation challenges. Public transit, particularly in our nation's most densely populated corridors, helps to ensure that transportation challenges are met while protecting our environment and public health. This bill provides badly needed resources for reducing our nation's traffic, air pollution and runway congestion. Once again, the Sierra Club thanks you for your leadership role regarding this critical piece of legislation, the High Speed Rail Investment Act of 2001.

Sincerely,

Debbie Sease
Legislative Director
Sierra Club