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President Obama unveiled a plan yesterday to build high-speed passenger rail lines in 10 regions. The plan includes an initial investment of $8 billion in stimulus funding, plus $1 billion from the federal budget each near for the next five years.

A map of the proposed lines is below. Why regional, you might wonder. Here’s what Joseph Sussman, an external adviser to the Department  of Transportation and professor at MIT, told GOOD last week:

I’m not talking about a national network of high-speed rail, because our country is just too darn big for that to be useful. When I say national I mean that we can develop these clusters of high-speed rail. It’s not only the Northeast corridor. There are opportunities in Florida, in the Texas triangle, Chicago, and in the Pacific Northwest. And it could have significant long-term impacts economically as well as environmentally.

Sussman, it should be noted, thinks that he stimulus spending on a national rail system is still too small.