John Judis at The New Republicmakes a good point^*, that the stimulus package should be used to expand rail.

While there is an obvious argument to be made about how quickly one could get new high speed rail projects off the ground, the fact is that there is a lot of track maintenance and track upgrades that could be done very quickly.

Tracks for 200 mph trains take a while, but upgrading tracks to handle 100 mph passenger rail requires a lot less time.

Bullet trains would be nice, but more Acella lines would be a very good start.

^*Yeah, I know, The New Republic and the phrase, “good point” don’t generally go together, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.