Sometime in the not too distant future, John wakes up in suburban Chicago on a Saturday morning and heads to a White Sox game...in Detroit. Join him on a 300 mile journey to Detroit's Comerica Park as he experiences the transportation options of the future: a neighborhood electric car share program, smart phone ticketing, high-speed rail, and connecting light rail. This clip is brought to you by America 2050 as part of its "A Better Tomorrow" project to visualize America's future communities and transportation systems.

The National Journal Transportation Experts Blog moderator Lisa Caruso asked this week, "Is Obama Spending the High-Speed Rail Money Wisely? Read America 2050 Director Petra Todorovich's response here, along with other responses from a panel of transportation policy analysts and professionals. 

America 2050 hailed this week's high-speed rail announcement as the first step toward a sustained federal commitment to build a national high-speed rail network. But the skeptics at Fox Business had another take. Watch the clip.

(New York, NY) President Obama's expected announcement in Tampa tomorrow of proposed high-speed rail investments is a critical step toward implementing the long-term infrastructure vision our nation needs to pull itself out of the Great Recession and position itself for long-term competitive growth. America has gone from zero to sixty on high-speed rail in less than a year, joining virtually every other industrialized nation in making high-speed rail the backbone of a national infrastructure system.  We applaud the Obama Administration's vision in supporting this energy efficient, modern form of transportation and look forward to learning which corridors will be selected.

No matter which corridors receive the preliminary federal grants tomorrow, we offer the following principles for consideration as the program moves forward and expands:

The Administration should demonstrate early success by focusing on corridors with strong ridership demand and the lowest barriers to implementation. Our research indicates that the corridors with the greatest prospects for ridership demand are those that: