I'm looking forward later today to a round-table conversation on high-speed rail hosted by Vice President Biden.
President Obama has already made it clear that high-speed rail is part of his plan to transform the American transportation system. And there has been a great outpouring of political will around rail that tells us America can build and operate effective high-speed service.
Last week, I had the great pleasure of learning more about high-speed rail. I rode the AVE from Madrid to Zaragoza with Spanish Development Minister Jose Blanco. Do you know the Spanish have a goal of establishing high-speed rail stations within 30 kilometers of 90% of all Spaniards by 2020? Now, that's ambition.
I also rode the TGV in France from Paris to Strasbourg. And, at a conference in Germany, I was able to talk with German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee about Deutsche Bahn high-speed rail.
You have never met a group of people so proud to talk about their rail systems, the environmental benefits, the mobility benefits, the job-creation benefits.
Several governors who are interested in establishing high-speed corridors in their regions will be at today's round-table with Vice President Biden. I'm very interested in hearing their vision of what high-speed rail can do in the U.S.
As we begin these discussions about the future contours of American high-speed rail, we'll have a lot to talk about. It's a conversation this Administration is ready to host.
Mr. Lahood, as an spaniard, I'm really prod you like our AVE system. As an spanish and frequent user of the AVE service between Madrid and Barcelona (yesterday as an example) I can say that I'm a real suporter of this kind of investments that, somehow, are related to renewables.
Think about it. Right now the only transportation system well developed that can run with electricity is the train. In spain 22% of the electricity is comming from renewables and this means yesterday, for the AVE train I used, 22% of the energy spent it comes from a national source and without polluting. We all know how important are this two issues now.
Efficiency is very high. According this study http://www.google.es/#hl=ca&q=modos+transporte+alta+velocidad+energ%C3%A9tico&meta=&fp=14edba86fd071078 (Sorry, in spanish) an AVE from Madrid to Barcelona is consuming only 50kWh of energy and generates emissions of 13,1Kg of CO2 per passenger, compared the 217kWh and the 67,1Kg of CO2 of the plane.
So everything is connected. With the renewables you have energy independence and godd enviromental impact, but if you are able to transfer passengers from vehicles, planes to electric tranes, you also transfer this benefits to the transportation system.
Again, proud you like it, and convinced that High speed trains are, for sure, the transportation system of the XXI century.
Posted by: Xavier Cugat | September 25, 2009 at 07:21 AM