Victory in Iowa! « It’s Getting Hot In Here

Iowa is all over the news this week. But what you may not have heard through all the coverage of same-sex marriages is that Iowa will soon connect to the Midwest High Speed Rail Network.

This weekend the Iowa State Legislature approved the allocation of $3 million to the Department of Transportation specifically for passenger rail. These funds are enough to qualify Iowa for matching federal funds of $12 million, which is enough to begin upgrading existing tracks between the Quad Cities and Iowa City to handle higher speeds.

As I mentioned in my post last week, “travel by train is approximately 3 times more efficient than travel by car and six times more efficient than travel by airplane. So not only does it create jobs, reduce congestion and traffic hassles, but it cleans the air and enables affordable transportation between urban centers.” But that is just in terms of transportation emissions. Rail has further benefits if you consider that rail doesn’t require the paving of green space for parking lots, creates jobs in upgrading the tracks and has next to zero fatalities or injuries.

Although $3 million may seem like a small amount of funding (for perspective, the state spends $14.7 million a year to build and repair local roads, much of which goes to fixing potholes), it is crucial to connecting Iowa to the rest of the Midwest (see map below). Across the state students in the Iowa Sustainability Alliance have generated hundreds of letters to the state legislature, worked with the Sierra Student Coalition and Iowa Global Warming to build a coalition of diverse groups in support of rail and generated a massive buzz in the media (see local coverage from the last week here, here and here).

Although we succeeded in getting this funding from the state, we still need the Iowa DOT to request the matching federal funds. So, if you are in Iowa (or know people in Iowa), please attend one of the DOT hearings Tuesday-Thursday this week and voice your support for joining Iowa to the Midwest High Speed Rail Network.

Map from www.midwesthsr.org

About Juliana

Juliana Williams grew up in Washington state and began organizing at Whitman College in 2004, working to get her campus to purchase renewable energy. She volunteered with the Sierra Student Coalition and help found the Cascade Climate Network. Following that, she lived in Iowa for two years, working as the SSC's Great Plains Organizer with amazing students in MN, IA, MO, NE and SD. After working with the Breakthrough Institute she is now pursuing her Master of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. She is an avid ultimate player, plays string bass and spends way too much time on wikipedia.