(The following article by Larry King was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on September 18.)
PHILADELPHIA — Hoau-Yan Wang of Philadelphia ended his long-distance relationship with Amtrak last fall.
“I had had enough,” said Wang, who commutes daily to New York City.
Amtrak does not miss him much.
A year after Amtrak announced steep increases of up to 59 percent in monthly pass fares, scores of commuters have abandoned its Northeast Corridor trains for other means and, in some cases, new jobs or addresses.
Despite the defections, Amtrak has managed to rake in more money along its heavily traveled Northeast Corridor, which stretches between Boston and Washington.
From October through July, monthly pass sales along the corridor declined by 20 percent, but revenue rose by 3 percent, according to Amtrak figures.
To Amtrak officials, squeezing out holders of discounted monthly passes to open more seats for full-fare occasional riders is smart business – especially when it is under pressure to cut its deficits and lacks the cash to add more trains.
“Amtrak is not primarily a commuter railroad. Ultimately, our goal is to produce the most revenue we can from the equipment and services that we provide,” Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.
For commuters, this strategy has created bleak choices. Many have swallowed the increase, paying hundreds of dollars more per month. Others have moved, changed jobs, or switched to other means of getting to work.
Wang, of Philadelphia’s Manayunk section, has switched to the slower but cheaper duo of SEPTA and NJ Transit. After three years aboard Amtrak, he bolted when the railroad announced it would raise his $633 monthly pass to $1,008.
Wang’s new route costs him 40 extra minutes but saves him more than $550 per month in train fares. Moving or leaving his job as an associate medical professor at City University of New York was never an option.
“I have tenure now,” he said. “New York real estate is very expensive, and my wife and kids are happy in Philadelphia.”
Such decisions have dropped Amtrak’s average monthly pass sales between Center City and New York from 675 last fall to 510 by mid-summer.
Nancy Roth, an executive at Pfizer Inc., bought a small apartment in New York, where she lives during the week before returning to her Philadelphia home.
“The apartment costs about the same as a monthly ticket,” she said via e-mail. “Better investment, I think.”
Others have made permanent moves. Calvin Butts, formerly of Elkins Park, moved to New Brunswick, N.J., and now walks to his NJ Transit stop for his trip to New York.
Butts, who once paid $555 a month to take Amtrak from Cornwells Heights in Bucks County to New York, now pays $250 on NJ Transit.
“I decided to cut my travel time at the same time I was avoiding the higher fares,” said Butts, director of client services at a medical education company. “I have no reservations about moving.”
In the summer of 2005, when James Walker left his longtime job with a New York nonprofit for a foundation post with the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, rumors of a hefty Amtrak fare hike were a factor.
Walker’s commute – once 90 minutes on Amtrak – is now 20 riding SEPTA to his Mount Airy workplace.
“I’m loving it; I’m home now at 5:15, as opposed to 6:30 or 7,” he said. “I do miss my train buddies. I rode that line for 15 years and made a lot of friends.”
The rumors Walker had heard were confirmed last September. Northeast commuters were stunned to learn their monthly passes would increase by up to 59 percent, while single tickets rose by 5 to 7 percent. Officials blamed rising diesel costs, although Northeast Corridor locomotives are electric.
Monthly passes are discounted by as much as 50 percent per ride below the price of single tickets. Until last year, the discounts were as much as 70 percent, but Congress has since capped them at 50 percent.
Amtrak “is more and more under pressure to reduce its losses,” Black said, and with passenger demand strong in the Northeast Corridor, cutting commuter discounts made sense.
By reducing multi-ride tickets, he said, “it frees up seats for occasional full-fare passengers on those trains, and increases our revenue all that much more.”
That logic doesn’t sit well with passenger rail advocates.
“If we’re serious about the energy crisis, this notion that we are happy because revenue remains up even though ridership is down leaves me stone cold,” said Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers.
Some commuters question whether Amtrak even needs more capacity for full-fare riders.
“If they are saying there aren’t enough seats, baloney,” said Karen Schmitt of Philadelphia, director of a breast cancer screening program at Columbia University. “I take the 5:10 every night out of New York, and that train is not packed.”
Some veteran commuters say they feel stuck between high fares, long commutes, and a love for their New York jobs and their home lives in Philadelphia.
“Ridership didn’t tank completely because people said, ‘I love this job, and I can’t afford to live in New York,’ ” said Gary Bramnick, a corporate promotions manager whose more than two-hour trip from Philadelphia to his office in the Bronx also entails two subway rides. “People are willing to suck it up if Amtrak is reliable.”
The problem, Schmitt said, is that service hasn’t improved.
“When you go to a nicer hotel, they give you a robe,” she said. “When you get on Amtrak at this price, it still breaks down, the toilets are still dirty, and when they’re late they still don’t tell you why.”
Yet this is her 17th year aboard Amtrak. She chuckled.
“I spend a lot of money to be abused,” she said.