Let’s hear: All aboard

Monday, April 20, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

Sudden interest in upgrading the nation’s passenger rail system has occurred several times, such as the years 1973, 1979 and 1990. But because that interest was spurred only by the rising gasoline prices of those years, it invariably faded once the prices dropped to levels that drivers found acceptable.

President Barack Obama, however, is trying hard not to let the most recent uptick in rail interest — last summer when gas prices topped $4 a gallon — fade to nothingness.

He has some good arguments now that were not so persuasive even in 1990. Gasoline prices no longer can be trusted to stay affordable for any sustained length of time. Gas at $4 could happen again relatively soon, given the continuous, insatiable demands for oil by China and India.

Obama also points to today’s crowded airports, jammed planes and clogged highways, which can take the joy and efficiency out of travel by jet or automobile.

Not the least among his arguments is that a modern passenger rail system would help clean the air and help slow global warming by vastly reducing emissions from cars, vans and pickup trucks. Also, he argues, passenger rail would lessen our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

If those arguments are not persuasive, here’s another: Why sit back while European and Asian countries raise their economies and standards of living above ours through their ultramodern rail systems?

The president rolled out those arguments last week in proposing that the nation get started on modern high-speed rail lines in 10 regions, using the $8 billion set aside for this purpose in the stimulus bill, as well as $1 billion a year for the next five years from the federal budget. That amount would be a down payment, he says, on a long-term public-private project to upgrade the national rail system, which hasn’t improved much since the 1940s.

We support his proposal. Rail improvement would provide good jobs for decades, make business travel more efficient and put more of this country’s tourism destinations within everyone’s reach.