In 1962, George Wallace carried every county except Jefferson — the heart of the Birmingham metro area — in his Democratic Primary win. Jefferson County was the population center of Alabama, and was roughly the same size as Atlanta. In pique, Wallace zeroed state highway funding to finish the I-20 segment going through JeffCo. Atlanta, not Birmingham, become the southeastern metropolis of the 20th Century. Southerners are past masters at shooting themselves in the foot in regards to infrastructure development, and this cycle is no exception. Alabama won’t ask for any high speed rail money:
WASHINGTON — When the state of Florida turned down $2.4 billion in federal funds for high-speed rail, Washington put that money up for grabs.
Alabama will not be among the applicants. The Alabama Department of Transportation and Gov. Robert Bentley’s office say they’re not interested. Alabama doesn’t have a fully-developed high speed rail project on the books, and the state focuses its public policy and tax money on roads rather than transit.
The article is about the efforts of rail advocates to do the preliminary work on an Atlanta-to-Birmingham train. I wish them luck; the article actually understates the case, as Alabama has had a zero in its transit line item since about the time Rosa Parks last rode a bus. And no, that’s not a coincidence.
