(Bloomberg News circulated the following by Chris Dolmetsch on November 12.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ridership on Amtrak’s trains between Boston and Washington, including its high-speed Acela line, fell 5 percent in October from a year ago as business travel declined.
The drop came as the U.S. economy slumped and gasoline prices approached a two-year low. Regular gasoline at the pump fell 1.8 cents to a nationwide average of $2.202 a gallon, its lowest since February 2007, said AAA, the nation’s biggest motoring group, on its Web site today.
President-elect Barack Obama may inherit the worst U.S. recession in three decades, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, as more than $918 billion in credit losses hinder global growth.
“Business travel is down because of the economic situation, business commerce in the Northeast and on Wall Street,” Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said today in a telephone interview. “I don’t know how many thousands of people have lost their jobs, but a lot of the people who ride those trains in the Northeast are business travelers.”
Amtrak said last month that annual ridership rose to a record for the sixth year in a row as higher gasoline prices led more travelers to use trains. The railroad’s passenger loads were up 14 percent in July to a monthly record as U.S. regular gasoline prices reached a record $4.114 a gallon on July 17.
The number of trips taken last month on the Acela declined 6.3 percent to 304,577 from October 2007, while trips taken on Northeast Regional trains dropped 4.5 percent to 621,694, according to figures provided by the national passenger railroad.
Ridership Up Overall
Overall, Amtrak ridership rose 4.4 percent in October from a year earlier, and there were more travelers on almost all of the railroad’s routes outside of the Northeast. The Piedmont, which runs between Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, had the biggest jump, with passenger loads rising 53 percent.
The number of trips on the railroad’s short-distance lines rose 10.1 percent, while ridership on its long-distance trains increased 14.8 percent.
“The long-distance trains are still substantially up despite declining gasoline prices,” Black said in Washington. “While we don’t have a clear explanation for it, we can speculate that people were driven to try the train because of high gasoline prices, liked it and stayed.”
The exceptions were the Pacific Surfliner between San Luis Obispo, California, and San Diego, where ridership fell 3.2 percent, and the Palmetto, between New York and Savannah, Georgia, down 5.9 percent. Passenger loads on Amtrak’s Empire Service between New York City and the state capital of Albany also decreased, by 1.7 percent.