From The Detroit News

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will visit Detroit and New York on Monday to
make major high-speed rail funding announcements.

Last month, Michigan applied for more than $560 million in funding —
including joining three other states as part of a joint request. Michigan
officials expect the state will receive significant funding for some grants
sought.

The state sought track improvements in Detroit and a new transit terminal in
Ann Arbor, and new trains are part of Michigan’s pitch for more federal money
for high-speed rail after Florida said it didn’t want $2.4 billion.

LaHood will be joined by Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, Gov. Rick Snyder, Sen. Carl
Levin, D-Detroit, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, and other elected leaders at
Detroit’s Amtrak station Monday afternoon. LaHood is to make an appearance
earlier in the day at New York’s Penn Station. Bing’s office declined to comment
ahead of the announcement.

The department said in a statement that LaHood will make a “make a major
announcement about high-speed intercity passenger rail.”

Michigan and 23 other states and the District of Columbia have submitted 98
applications totaling about $10 billion from the Transportation Department.

The department is expected to award $2 billion after the budget deal reached
last month rescinded $400 million of the funding.

“Governors and members of Congress have been clamoring for the opportunity to
participate,” LaHood said last month.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s office said the state sought more than $200
million for four individual projects, including:

$196.5 million for route improvements over the next three years between
Kalamazoo and Dearborn to allow trains to travel up to 110 mph.

Tim Hoeffner, MDOT administrator of high-speed rail and innovative projects
advancement, said last month the improvement could be completed by the end of
2013 and shave 50 minutes off the Detroit-Chicago trip, down to about four
hours.

$5.2 million for maintenance along the same route that could begin this
summer.

$2.9 million for the West Detroit Connection Track Universal Crossover and a
rail bridge. Amtrak trains make a slow left-hand turn from a Conrail track to a
Canadian National track, and improvements could cut 10 minutes off the trip,
Hoeffner said.

$3.5 million to build a station in Ann Arbor to be used for trains and buses
— by Amtrak, the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor Transportation
Authority.

The state is also one of four states jointly seeking $366.7 million to buy 31
locomotives and 100 coaches for use in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and
Missouri. The award would replace train equipment on all three Michigan Amtrak
lines — the Blue Water, Pere Marquette and Wolverine.

On Thursday, Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., announced that
of the $2 billion, the Transportation Department awarded $186 million in high
speed rail funding to finance track and other improvements on the Chicago to St.
Louis corridor between Dwight and Joliet.

In 2009, the Michigan Department of Transportation won $153.2 million in
federal funding to improve a planned high-speed rail corridor between Dearborn
and Kalamazoo.

Michigan also won $40 million in rail stimulus funding to build an Amtrak
station in Dearborn and to renovate stations in Battle Creek and Troy.

In 2009, Michigan had sought more than $1.7 billion to make high speed rail a
reality from Chicago to Detroit — including improvements in Indiana and Illinois
— that was not approved in earlier funding rounds.

Source: http://detnews.com/article/20110506/METRO/105060430/