Steve Szuter

I was watching the press announcement earlier today in which the $400 million grant for high-speed rail in Ohio was announced. It was really exciting and it still really is. This is something that I’ve clearly been advocating for a long time now. Because this money will be pumped into Ohio, it will create around 11,000 jobs and Columbus residents will finally be able to go to Chicago and other cities. Being just down the road from the OSU campus, it will easily serve the 53,000 OSU students and make it unbelievably easy for them to head to Cleveland, Dayton, or Cincinnati. There are 220,000 students that will be able to jump on the train and head home for the weekend. It is also a starting point for light rail within those cities.

In the video, everyone is emotionally charged and unbelievably excited about the announcement. As am I. Maybe, one day, I will have a future in Ohio. If you’re interested in watching the video, here’s the link: http://www.ohiochannel.org/multimedia/media.cfm?file_id=124118

Come 2012, I may update my blog while riding the tracks.

This morning, I attended a presentation by a partner from PriceWaterhouseCoopers. It was all about IFRS (International Finance Reporting Standards). I also read a few articles beforehand to come up with some questions for the partner. The information was interesting, in particular to me, because I like things that have to do with rest of the world. As I said before, it was interesting. Particularly that more than 100 countries around the world have already adopted IFRS as their basis of financial reporting standards. The United States has the largest and most "sought-after" economy in the world. Everything is compared to the dollar. Although these are changing, somewhat, the way the United States reports their financial statements, is changing as well. Instead of continuing with what was once known as "The Gold Standard" of financial reporting (US GAAP, or United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), accountants in the United States will soon be required to report using IFRS.

Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 12:20 pm

A Vision for High Speed Rail

"I'm happy to be here. I’m more happy than you can imagine," said the Vice President, a noted rail enthusiast, before introducing the President for the release of his strategic plan for high speed rail in America.  Revolving around the $8 billion in the Recovery Act and the $1 billion per year for five years requested in the President’s budget to get these projects off the ground, the President painted the picture that will become a reality as a result of these investments:

 

What we're talking about is a vision for high-speed rail in America.  Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city.  No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes.  (Laughter.)  Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination.  Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild America.

 

Now, all of you know this is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future.  It is now.  It is happening right now.  It's been happening for decades.  The problem is it's been happening elsewhere, not here. 

 

In France, high-speed rail has pulled regions from isolation, ignited growth, remade quiet towns into thriving tourist destinations.  In Spain, a high-speed line between Madrid and Seville is so successful that more people travel between those cities by rail than by car and airplane combined.  China, where service began just two years ago, may have more miles of high-speed rail service than any other country just five years from now.  And Japan, the nation that unveiled the first high-speed rail system, is already at work building the next:  a line that will connect Tokyo with Osaka at speeds of over 300 miles per hour.  So it's being done; it's just not being done here.

 

There's no reason why we can't do this.  This is America.  There's no reason why the future of travel should lie somewhere else beyond our borders.  Building a new system of high-speed rail in America will be faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or adding to an already overburdened aviation system –- and everybody stands to benefit.

 

The inclusion of high speed rail in the Recovery Act was one of many symbols of the new vision for America and its economy that guided the plan.  As the Vice President explained in his introduction, joined by Transportation Secretary LaHood, in addition to putting Americans to work across the country it went towards several the Recovery Act’s key goals:

 

And we're making a down payment today, a down payment on the economy for tomorrow, the economy that's going to drive us in the 21st century in a way that the other — the highway system drove us in the mid-20th century.  And I'm happy to be here.  I'm more happy than you can imagine — (laughter) — to talk about a commitment that, with the President's leadership, we're making to achieve the goal through the development of high-speed rail projects that will extend eventually all across this nation.  And most of you know that not only means an awful lot to me, but I know a lot of you personally in this audience over the years, I know it means equally as much to you. 

 

With high-speed rail system, we're going to be able to pull people off the road, lowering our dependence on foreign oil, lowering the bill for our gas in our gas tanks.  We're going to loosen the congestion that also has great impact on productivity, I might add, the people sitting at stop lights right now in overcrowded streets and cities.  We're also going to deal with the suffocation that's taking place in our major metropolitan areas as a consequence of that congestion.  And we're going to significantly lessen the damage to our planet.  This is a giant environmental down payment. 

 

The report formalizes the identification of ten high-speed rail corridors as potential recipients of federal funding. Those lines are: California, Pacific Northwest, South Central, Gulf Coast, Chicago Hub Network, Florida, Southeast, Keystone, Empire and Northern New England. Also, opportunities exist for the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston to compete for funds to improve the nation’s only existing high-speed rail service:

 

I read an interesting article in the Post today. It was talking about how more and more students are becoming increasingly interested in composting and gardening while they are here at Ohio University. The article highlights the idea that it's difficult for most students to garden and to compost, because most students have no yard or land to do so. Although, Ohio University boasts the largest composting center of any other campus nationwide. I don't know whether or not they have a program for public use, though.

Tesla Motors has rolled out their new Model S. Although it will not be in production until the third quarter of 2011. I love Tesla Motors. The only problem with the company now, is that they only offer one car, which is a the Tesla Roadster, and it costs more than $100,000. For the wealthy, that isn't much, but what is much is that the car is completely electric. It runs on electricity, and can only go about 200 miles per charge. But that's saying a lot of the green advocates, such as myself. You can check out the sexy roadster here.

The Model S, on the other hand, goes for a mere $50,000 after the federal tax credits. The picture of the Model S is above. The reason I am excited about the Model S, is that it is much more affordable for the upper middle class, and anything that's green and more affordable is a beautiful thing. So I'm hoping to see these guys hit the road in a couple of years and in full force. When president Obama was running for the position he currently holds, he many-a-time promised to increase the number of cars like the Model S on the road. I haven't seen that, and I doubted whether or not he had any power to do that. But what I do see now is that some of these new, greener cars are hitting the road, and that makes me happy. If there's any way that we can get more of these on the road, I'm for it. But as well, if there's any way to increase high-speed rail in the States (or even bring it here for that matter), I'm for that.