The Great Lakes governors are high on creating a network of high-speed rail connections radiating from Chicago to cities such as Milwaukee, St. Louis and Detroit.
The Coalition of Northeastern Governors is anxious to get the last chunks of federal funding to electrify all of the New York-Boston line and get the ride down to 2 hours, 52 minutes.
Many states -- among them California, Vermont, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania -- have come up with hard cash to restore some of the service a revenue-starved Amtrak was forced to cut back.
And in Congress, Amtrak proved far more popular than the Republican budget-cutters, looking for a fast $1 billion hit, had expected. Lawmakers started hearing from figures like Mayor John Robert Smith of Meridian, Mississippi, arguing that Amtrak isn't just a cause of the heavily populated urban areas -- it's a lifeline to many small cities and rural areas.
Major subsidy cuts for Amtrak are in all the budget bills. But zeroing out, says Amtrak President Thomas Downs, ''was a bullet we dodged.''
Amtrak is fighting to get federal highway legislation altered to let governors use anti-congestion road funds for rail. Mr. Downs is euphoric (and highway interests apoplectic) about a proposal from the Senate Commerce Committee to assign a half-cent of the federal gas tax to Amtrak.
Is all this more than short-term lobbying? Is Mr. Downs whistling past the graveyard when he proclaims ''America is on the threshold of a rail renaissance''?
It may be so: Around the globe, passenger rail requires significant government subsidies. And budget-balancing is forcing a fierce shortage of subsidy money in America today.
But maybe -- just maybe -- we're maturing, starting to admit that highway and air transport, heavily congested in many urban regions, can't or shouldn't serve all our needs. Trains, by contrast, use our most underutilized infrastructure -- rail beds.
Fast modern train networks in population centers -- the Northeast, Midwest, California, Florida, Texas, maybe the Pacific Northwest -- can be a boon to fast, efficient business travel as well as tourism -- relieving pressure on airports and roads, reducing air pollution.
Running directly from city center to city center, they are competitive with air service on total travel time. And they're a way to boost our downtowns and discourage (for a change) sprawl development.
Anyone who has visited Europe or Japan would love to see replicas of the ultra-rapid rail systems like the 150-mph TGV Paris-Lyon line.
But right now, that's fiscal dreaming. The real (and viable) alternative is semi-high-speed rail, like the Northeast's 100-to-125 mph Metroliners.
Spreading such service along our dense metropolitan corridors could prove quite affordable. A multicity Midwest high-speed rail network, says Howard Learner of the Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center, ''is financially feasible without the federal government putting up millions of dollars.''
Including new trains, track and grade-crossing improvements and signaling, a Chicago-St. Louis corridor could be up and running for $400 million -- and presumably garner $70 million a year in fares. Chicago-Detroit would cost $300 million, Chicago-Milwaukee $500 million.
The Midwest total would be $1.2 billion -- far less than the cost of a possible new Chicago airport.
Govs. John Engler (Mich.), Tommy Thompson (Wis.) and Jim Edgar (Ill.) all seem enthusiastic, hopeful of private investors to run the new lines but open to the idea of investing state money for grade separations and assuring quality track.
And why not? Illinois recently spent $450 million to rebuild 7.5 miles of Chicago's Kennedy Express way -- more than the entire Chicago-St. Louis 284-mile rail line modernization would cost.
Tucked inside a June report from Mr. Learner's organization is an array of financing options that could make higher-speed rail a reality. One idea is to get federal permission to use pension money from the most fitting of all places -- the $14 billion Railroad Retirement Fund.
Several hundred million dollars (but only a fraction of the board's assets) could be used to help secure bonds -- guaranteed by either the state or federal governments, or both -- and sold to private investors to capitalize the needed rail modernization. There'd soon be more railroad workers, making pension payments and increasing the fund's stability.
The basic point: to capitalize on assets already in place. For less than worth $3.2 billion.
$1 billion, for example, electrification of the New Haven-Boston stretch and other improvements along the Northeast Corridor add immense value to a regional rail system already worth $3.2 billion.
Examples of the gain: dramatically increased passenger numbers, diversion of air traffic, reduced highway congestion, thousands of new jobs and economic stimulus to track-side communities.
The message on high-speed rail, says Gov. William Weld of Massachusetts, should be ''full speed ahead.''
But while the Coalition of Northeastern Governors has pushed the Northeast Corridor hard, the Midwest governors haven't coalesced for a full-steam effort. For high-return investment, they need to get on track.
Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.
