(Bloomberg News circulated the following story by Angela Greiling Keane on March 23, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Amtrak said ridership on its high- speed Acela train line plummeted 17 percent in February from a year earlier, a fifth straight monthly decline, as the recession eroded business travel.
The number of passengers on the fastest U.S. passenger rail service, running between Boston and Washington, dropped to 226,551.
The drop reflects cutbacks in business and consumer spending that contributed to the fastest pace of U.S. economic contraction since 1982 last quarter. Amtrak, which set passenger records in each of the past six fiscal years, has cut Acela fares and said this month it may lower prices on other trains.
“A great deal of the ridership in the Northeast is business travelers,” Cliff Black, an Amtrak spokesman, said today. “Business travel is down on all modes” of travel.
The Washington-based Air Transport Association said last week that the number of passengers on U.S. airlines fell 12 percent in February.
Demand for all Amtrak trains on the so-called Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington fell 15 percent, Black said. The number of riders fell 14 percent for regional trains on the route.
The plunge in ridership was partly because of the extra day in February 2008, which was a leap year.
Long-distance train service outside of the Northeast Corridor rose 9.2 in February, which Black attributed to better on-time performance on trains running on freight rail lines, where traffic has dropped due to the recession.
“Our long-distance trains are up and have continued to go up even in the midst of the recession and declines in other areas,” Black said.