(The following article by J. Scott Orr was posted on the Newark Star-Ledger website on October 14.)
WASHINGTON — A controversial plan to shift control of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor to a new subsidiary came under attack yesterday from New Jersey lawmakers and others who fear it is a prelude to dismantling the national passenger rail system.
But Amtrak’s chairman, and some rail advocates, said the proposal could benefit the busy rail line from Washington to Boston by providing a clearer picture of its finances.
Amtrak’s chairman, David Laney, said the proposal is aimed at separating the Northeast Corridor’s bottom line from the rest of system to make it easier to justify asking states to help pay their fair shares of the system’s costs.
“Amtrak and the country are moving in the direction of requiring states to step up and begin covering more of the costs of operating deficits and capital needs. We really have to have the numbers down pat, so there is not a lot of room for disagreement,” he said.
Opponents of the plan said it is the first step toward the Bush administration’s goal of phasing out government support for the nation’s passenger rail system. They also questioned why the board met and voted in secret Sept. 22 and never made the plan public.
“This is the beginning of the end. … The ultimate goal is to shift some of the enormous costs of maintaining the Northeast Corridor away from Amtrak and secondly to end intercity passenger rail service altogether,” said Rep. Robert Menendez (D-13th Dist.), a member of a House subcommittee on railroads.
“The suspicious among us fear that it will work out to be the first step in implementation of the widely discredited plan of the Bush administration to break up Amtrak,” said Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers.
In a letter to Laney, Menendez demanded “an explanation of both the consequences of your actions and your reasons for hiding them.” The congressman went on to question why the board changed its position since April, when it said the separation of the Northeast Corridor from Amtrak operation “is not advisable at this time.”
“What has happened since April to change your conclusions? In the absence of any public explanation, I can only conclude that you have caved to the Bush administration’s long-standing goal of privatizing Amtrak,” Menendez wrote.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said through a spokesman, “It has been clear from the get-go that President Bush’s hand-picked Amtrak board has been planning to carve up and destroy the nation’s passenger rail system.”
Laney dismissed the skepticism from lawmakers and others as “speculative paranoia.” He said the board routinely meets and votes in private and does not make the results of its sessions public.
The Bush administration has made no secret of its desire to phase out the nation’s passenger rail corporation if it cannot be made self sufficient. The House and Senate, however, are moving forward with separate bills to provide more than $1.2 billion in funding for Amtrak in the current fiscal year.
Martin Robins, executive director of Rutgers University’s Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center, called the plan a “very preliminary step” that could improve the Northeast Corridor’s long-term funding outlook.
“There is much more to be said about the subject. This is really very much a preliminary step toward an end that we don’t really know yet, but that could be significant for the corridor,” he said.
Albert Papp Jr., director of the New Jersey Association of Rail Passengers, agreed that the idea of a Northeast Corridor subsidiary could have merit.
“We think there are real opportunities here for the state and federal governments to enter into a creative partnership,” Papp said, adding that states will be more likely to help fund the rail line if they have a better idea of where the money is going.
Dan Stessel, a spokesman for NJ Transit, which operates local commuter trains on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, said the agency could not estimate what effect the plan would have on its 100,000 daily commuters until it is given the details by Amtrak.