Are Fast Trains a Wise Investment?

EVANSTON, Ill --- High-speed rail in the United States has been an important agenda item for President Obama and his administration, with more than $8 billion in federal funding allocated its development as part of the President’s 2009 economic stimulus package. Those funds then became a campaign issue in the 2010 midterm election, with two gubernatorial candidates, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio, running and winning on pledges to return their state’s fast train money to the federal government. In this audio Q&A, Joseph Schofer, director of the Infrastructure Technology Institute and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University, discusses some of the issues associated with the future of high-speed rail in the United States.