Assessing the recent reformulation of United States passenger rail policy

Abstract

This article reviews the prospects for major change in United States transportation policy based on initial experience with the Obama administration’s launch of a high-speed intercity passenger train program. Public policy theory suggests that such paradigmatic change requires a mix of both powering through new goals and puzzling over how to attain them. Pursuit of the Obama administration’s high-speed rail policy agenda to date suggests that when the power to initiate policy goals is much greater than the capacity to achieve them, then political conflict over implementation will become a constraint on policy paradigm shift.