Southeast considers high-speed rail line

0 Comments | USA TODAY, December, 2003 | by Larry Copeland

ATLANTA -- It used to be possible to zip from one city in the Southeast to another along interstate highways that were seldom crowded outside major metropolitan centers.

But two decades of unprecedented growth have changed all that. Today, a driver heading from here to Birmingham, Ala., or from Charlotte to Columbia, S.C., is likely to encounter the same congestion long familiar to motorists in other regions.

Now, in a rare effort of regional cooperation, six Southeastern states are joining to push for an alternative -- an ambitious, high-speed train network that would connect the region and link it with Washington, D.C. Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee and their allies in Congress recently won $750,000 in federal funds to...