High-Speed Rail Still on Taxiway (Engineering News-Record, 05/26/2008)
Summary:
The Engineering News-Record reported that advocates of high-speed rail asked for a broader base of support for the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, which was closing in on re-authorization in Congress as of May 2003. Although this act was during the Bush administration, it is very important as a precursor gauging the willingness of the current Congress to invest money in high-speed rail.
Topic:
Category:
institutional
What is it?
a periodical article
Publication Information:
The name of the publication is Engineering News-Record. The article was published on May 26, 2003 in New York City.
Author:
no author listed
Location:
Accessed:
February 13, 2008
Support:
Rod Diridon, senior chairman for the California High-Speed Rail Authority board
Jim Costa, a retired California state senator
Greg Smith, a representative from the American Road and Transportation Builders Association
Frank Mulvey, minority staff director for the House railroads subcommittee
Rod Diridon said that the United States is at the same place it was in 1991 with respects to high-speed rail. Jim Costa said California needs to learn from the failures in Texas and Florida how to successfully start a high-speed rail project. Greg Smith said he is against the highway trust fund using its money to invest in non-construction stocks, and said that rail should also have a trust fund. Frank Mulvey said that a decision needs to be made on either using steel wheels or magnetic levitation technology, and rail projects need to be focused on trips that are three hours or less.
Audience and Agenda:
Engineering News-Record has a paid readership of 71,255. It caters to contractors, engineers, owners, and other construction professionals. They use this source to find information about engineering projects through stories, reports, and statistics. They expect objective, in-depth coverage of the engineering industry and government issues related to the engineering industry.
This article was payed for by McGraw-Hill Publishing Companies, which is a publicly traded corporation. Therefore, the article was funded by all the various investors in McGraw-Hill. They are trying to reach a professional audience concerned with the engineering industry. They are trying to influence engineering policy toward more support for high-speed rail.
Usefulness:
This article was created with the permission of the McGaw-Hill executive or editorial board to influence inform on and influence policy in a way they determined advantageous to their investors. There is no reason high-speed rail wouldn’t be supported by most investors, because passenger rail usually brings in higher volumes of people.
It is addressing engineering professionals and most likely government officials. These more professional sources are the most useful for influencing policy.
It is making the argument for a rail trust fund and a national decision on whether to pursue magnetic levitation or steel wheel technology. A rail trust fund would send the message that high-speed rail is officially a major form of transportation.
It talks about failures with high-speed rail, but gives no success stories. The pessimistic viewpoint was very surprising, considering that California had just recently passed a bond for a new high-speed rail route. It also doesn’t analyze the success of other countries in developing high-speed rail. It seems like Europe and East Asia would be the best place to get advice on high-speed rail.
Being published in a professional periodical, this source relates to Source Notes 11, Source Notes 12, Source Notes 13, and Source Notes 14.
Works Cited:
“Ulrichsweb.com.” Ulrich’s Periodical Directory. <http://ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/>
“TEA-21.” Federal Highway Administration. <http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tea21/>
“About Us.” McGraw-Hill Companies. <http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/aboutus/overview.shtml>
“About Engineering News-Record.” ENR.com. <http://enr.ecnext.com/>
Filed under: Institutional
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