High Speed Rail: Coming Soon to a neighborhood near you?

The Republicans were convinced that Harry Reid was pushing for money in the stimulus package to go towards high speed rail in order to get a high speed rail line built between L.A. and Las Vegas which would obviously make Reid constituents very happy. Yet, the feds have been working on plans for high speed corridors for several years, and L.A.-L.V. is not one of those designated as a high priority project. Here's a map of projected projects that would serve the greatest good:
It's nice to see that the Pacific Northwest hasn't been left out, but this plan seems confusing. There are tiny gaps between some of the corridors; why not fill in those gaps to make fully functional regional systems? That seems most apparent in Texas where it would seem to make sense to have the triangle of Dallas/San Antonio/Houston linked up.

And, obviously, this will cost billions and billions of dollars to realize and take years but at least it's a high speed step in the right direction.

Did the President sneak this into the stimulus package?

From Politico: Obama plots huge railroad expansion

$8 Billion is a drop in the bucket, but it's a good start and makes it clear that Obama is in favor of high speed rail. Bush approved $1.5 billion last fall to expand rail, but that was funding designed to last through 2013. Obama wants at least a billion dollars MORE to be funded EVERY year. That's very good news, but only if they manage to spend that money wisely.

And, since the Right is convinced we're becoming a Socialist state, we might as well embrace it and have a practical, efficiently run, environmentally friendly mass transit, inter city/state, rail transportation system like Europe's....