Today is the deadline for states to submit high-speed rail program applications. Only states with shovel-ready high-speed rail plans (meaning the final environmental impact statement has been approved) are eligible to make such applications. States without such plans had to submit applications for planning grants in late August, and at least some of those planning grants have already been awarded.
The Antiplanner spent Wednesday in Springfield, Illinois, where the primary question is not whether to build high-speed rail but where it is going to go. As the home of both the president and the secretary of transportation, Illinois officials believe their state has a lock on its proposal to build a high-speed (really, a moderate-speed) line from Chicago to St. Louis via Springfield.
