(The following article by Chip Jones was posted on the Richmond Times-Dispatch website on September 8.)
RICHMOND, Va. — Rising fuel costs and other economic aftershocks from Hurricane Katrina could jump-start efforts to be less dependent on cars, the nation’s top passenger rail official said here yesterday.
“We’ve built the whole economy on cheap fuel,” said David Gunn, president and chief executive officer of Amtrak.
Improving rail service could help reduce America’s gas reliance and help unclog highways, he said.
But with a crumbling infrastructure, Gunn warned, “If we don’t act fairly quickly, the railroads will be impossible to use.”
Speaking at a luncheon at the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, Gunn told about 40 area business leaders and rail supporters that he hopes Katrina has gotten the attention of lawmakers.
“The urgency of developing alternative modes of transportation has never been greater,” he said in an interview afterward.
Since its inception in 1971 to take passenger service off the backs of freight rail companies, Amtrak has “struggled to survive without any clear mandate,” Gunn said.
Nonetheless, it carried more than 25 million passengers in fiscal 2004 and served at least four times that number when regional commuter rails are factored in, he said.
Amtrak could become a more integral part of the nation’s transportation system, but only with clear guidance from Congress and the White House.
“This crisis will seriously impact our mobility and our way of life,” Gunn said.
Already in Virginia, he noted, Interstate 95 is a “parking lot.” Trains running on track owned by CSX Corp. in the Richmond-Washington corridor could give motorists a viable alternative to driving, Gunn contended.
The state has committed about $65 million for improving tracks and signals, but it will take nearly five times that amount — $300 million — to achieve hourly service with markedly higher train speeds in the corridor.
“It will take government money to fix the problem, but the resources are scarce,” Gunn said.
CSX has been hard hit by Katrina, with at least 40 miles of track and bridges “wiped out” in Louisiana, Gunn said.
“What happened in New Orleans is a serious blow for the rail industry,” the Amtrak chief said.
All freight railroads suffer from a lack of working capital, Gunn said, so the only viable way to build better rails is federal support — with state initiatives.
“The railroad system is not getting better, and a lot of capacity is needed,” he said.
Gunn expects to see express service someday between Richmond and Washington. The only questions are when and who’s going to pay for it.
“I think we have a chance to see this corridor develop into what it should be,” he said.
In his remarks, Gunn touched on Amtrak’s rocky ride through time.
“We were created in 1970 not to save passenger rail,” but “to save freight railroads” losing revenue from their passenger operations, he said.
By the time he took over Amtrak in 2002, the United States still lacked a national passenger rail plan. And every year, Amtrak must survive “sort of a Wild West shootout” in Congress, he said.
Such fights have happened under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, Gunn noted.
Currently, Amtrak funding for the next fiscal year appears to be on track in a bipartisan appropriations bill supported by Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J.
Gunn called Amtrak “a company that’s under control financially,” with a record number of passengers.
“But there is a problem,” he said. “There is no federal policy toward transportation in general, or passenger rail in particular. There is no agreement of where we should go.”