Remember how, a while ago, I told you that the feds had set aside over $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, and Michigan was joining with other states in the vicinity of Chicago to make a request? Well, today was the deadline, and it appears as though we’ve requested $830 million from Uncle Sam. At least that’s what Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm said as she was preparing to leave Dearborn for Jackson yesterday, aboard an Amtrak train… the following clip comes from the Detroit Free Press:

Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Michigan will apply for $830 million in federal grants to create a high-speed rail system from Pontiac to Chicago.

Granholm, speaking at the Amtrak station in Dearborn, said the system would allow train speeds of 110 m.p.h. and a travel time from Detroit to Chicago of 4 hours instead of 6 hours. Nine such trips would be planned each day.

Among the improvements would be moving the Dearborn Amtrak passenger station to a new station at Greenfield Village.

Other existing passenger stations would be upgraded, and the rail improved so passenger trains would no longer be delayed by freight train traffic…

There wasn’t a lot of detail given that we didn’t already know from SEMCOG’s Carmine Palumbo, but it’s good to finally know the exact dollar amount that we’re going for. And, I don’t believe that I’d heard anyone to date make the claim that the trip between Detroit and Chicago would only take four hours, which, if true, would be great… Now that I think about it, I also don’t remember hearing previously that the Dearborn station was “moving” to Greenfield Village. I thought that there would be stops at both.

Of course, several other regions are vying for these same funds, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. As Obama has said on previous occasions that the Chicago rail corridor was particularly close to his heart, though, I’m encouraged that something will come of it. And then there’s the fact that the Detroit-Chicago route is the second most popular midwestern Amtrak line after Chicago-Milwaukee, which should also help.

But, there’s apparently a complication. According to the Governor, it might not sit well with the feds that, as we’re requesting these funds to further build-out our rail infrastructure, we’re also cutting back on our contributions to Amtrak… The following comes from the Chicago Tribune:

…The pursuit of the federal dollars means Granholm likely will have to abandon her plans to trim 22 percent of the $7.3 million from state Amtrak subsidies for lines originating in Port Huron and Grand Rapids. Funding would drop by half — to about $3.7 million — starting in October under a budget passed by Senate Republicans.

If she cuts Amtrak funds, it’s less likely the state will persuade the federal government to give Michigan high-speed rail grants.

Granholm said she must “make the case” to restore the cuts, which were protested last week in East Lansing by a group called Save Our Trains Michigan, and show federal transportation officials the state is committed to high-speed rail.

“We’re going to push (for) the full amount into the budget,” she told The Associated Press on the train. “We’ve got to restore those cuts. … If it leverages $833 million, I think it’s worth the investment.”

Preserving the funding won’t be easy. Granholm and legislators are trying to close a $2.8 billion shortfall in the budget year that starts Oct. 1. Much of the hole can be filled with federal recovery money, but state officials still face a sizable gap between revenue and spending.

Many groups oppose high-speed rail investments by the government and Amtrak subsidies.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Midland-based free-market think tank, has encouraged the cuts. It argues that passenger rail subsidies aren’t among the state’s constitutional responsibilities…

My hope is that the feds, in all of their wisdom, wouldn’t hold it against us, when making this decision, that we’ve got the most depressed economy in the country (and therefore might not be able to contribute as much as we’d like to Amtrak). But maybe they would. Who knows? Maybe the federal government has already written-off the imploding city of Detroit as a lost cause. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see… Or, perhaps we could be proactive about it, and push our state Senators to reinstate the full Amtrak subsidy, as a sign of our dedication to rail. Of course, I have no idea where the money would come from to do so. Furthermore, I don’t know that $830 million would even come close to covering the real costs of high-speed rail between Detroit and Chicago.

Oh, it should also be noted that Governor Granholm indicated that a second rail-centric federal funding request would be submitted in October. Those funds, if granted, would be used to jump-start the business of high-speed rail car and engine manufacturing in the state. (Something that we should have been pushing aggressively since the day after 9/11.)