President Obama today outlined a plan to build regional high-speed rail routes in the United States. Cross-country trips will still be conducted best in a plane or as a road trip, but options to go from Detroit to Chicago, for example, would include the new trains that can go up to 110 mph. The regional routes include a Chicago Hub, a California corridor (Sacramento and San Francisco down past LA), and a southeast corridor (DC down to Florida). There's a map of the proposed routes and all 10 regional routes after the jump.

The federal government is willing to spend up to $13 billion ($8 billion from the stimulus bill, plus another billion each year for the next five years). Obama acknowledged that rail won't replace the car in America, but that it is high time we get our tracks in order:

There's no reason why we can't do this. This is America. There's no reason why the future of travel should lie somewhere else beyond our borders. Building a new system of high-speed rail in America will be faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or adding to an already overburdened aviation system –- and everybody stands to benefit.

One last thing: go ahead and take a look at the file name for the image above. I didn't change if from the name that the White House gave it. Just so you know.

[Source: Detroit Free Press, White House]