People

Mark Reutter

PPI Fellow Mark Reutter is the former editor of Railroad History and author of Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might (2005, rev. ed.).

Why High-Speed Rail Could Still Get Built in Florida

Contrary to reports in the New York Times and elsewhere, high-speed rail in Florida is not yet dead. There’s a grassroots effort by municipal governments…

Gov. Scott Stages a Trainwreck in Florida

Why is Florida’s rookie Republican Gov. Rick Scott hell-bent on rejecting $2.4 billion in federal funds for a Tampa-Orlando high-speed railway? Is it because his…

Gov. Scott’s Plan for Florida: Let Them Eat Highways

In rejecting $2.4 billion in federal funds for high-speed rail in Florida yesterday, Gov. Rick Scott came up with a great idea to solve the…

Budgeting for a Fast Train Future

President Obama’s proposal to fund high-speed rail in the next surface transportation bill does more than boost the prospects that fast trains could be running…

Obama Raises his Bet on High-Speed Rail

The White House won’t back down. That was the signal beamed yesterday when Vice President Joe Biden announced the administration’s plan to spend $53 billion…

State of the Union on High-Speed Rail: How to Pay for Fast Trains

In setting a national goal of providing high-speed train service to 80 percent of Americans by 2035, President Obama challenged himself and Congress to come…

The Washington Post Gets its Signals Wrong on High-Speed Rail

One might expect, with a disastrous oil spill just behind us and gas prices predicted to soar to $5 a gallon by 2012, that the…

Obama Doubles Down on High-Speed Rail Investments in California and Florida

The Obama administration yesterday called the bluff of two newly elected Republican governors and regained control of its high-speed rail program. Confronted by Governor-elects Scott…

British Deal Shows Private Investment Demand for High-Speed Rail

This week, the British government will formalize an agreement with two Canadian pension funds with enormous implications for passenger train development in the United States….

How Two Republican Governors Are Giving High-Speed Rail an Unintentional Boost

Talk about a blessing in disguise. Just as the Obama administration’s high-speed rail program was running out of congressionally-appropriated cash, Governor-elects Scott Walker of Wisconsin…