(The following article by Rick Armon was posted on the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle website on March 29.)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — About once a month, Eastman School of Music student Dave Richardson hops aboard an Amtrak train and heads home to Albany.
He could take the bus but opts for rail instead.
“It’s the easiest way to get back to Albany and the most comfortable,” the 18-year-old said last week while waiting for a train at the Central Avenue station downtown.
That option, though, may disappear. President Bush’s proposed 2006 budget doesn’t include a taxpayer subsidy for Amtrak — a decision that, if approved by Congress, could bankrupt or even shut down the national rail service.
The ongoing debate has major implications for New York state, where the company has 2,000 workers. More than 10 million passengers each year ride Amtrak trains in the state, representing about 40 percent of its total ridership in the United States. In Rochester, ridership — which counts people both getting on and off — was 84,111 last year.
“The future for New York without Amtrak would be devastating,” said U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., in a statement. “Amtrak is an essential component of our transportation network that provides irreplaceable capacity and mobility to New York and the nation.”
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the president’s proposal is “another slap at New York. The good news is that his plan is not going over well.”
The Amtrak system was supposed to be self-sufficient but has collected about $29 billion in federal subsidies since it was formed in 1971. Critics charge that it’s a financial disaster and that it would be less expensive to buy airline tickets and hand them out for free instead of subsidizing train rides.
This year, the company received $1.2 billion from the federal government, about a third of its $3 billion operating budget. Amtrak’s five-year strategic plan calls for $1.8 billion next year.
The Bush administration wants Congress to adopt a plan that would limit Amtrak to owning and operating trains, while state and local governments take over the rails, stations and physical property. Similar threats about cutting funding have been made in the past, but Congress always supported Amtrak.
Earlier this month, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said that Bush wanted to “get Congress’ attention” for rail reform by cutting its subsidy, although he included $360 million to operate some trains in case of a shutdown.
Ongoing debate
Amtrak President David Gunn has called the Bush proposal “irresponsible and a surprising disappointment.” But it does have supporters, who hope it leads to either the end of the company or real reform of how Amtrak operates. “We’re all missing the point that Amtrak’s direst days are ahead,” said Joseph Vranich, who helped create Amtrak and is the author of End of the Line: The Failure of Amtrak Reform and the Future of America’s Passenger Trains (2004, American Enterprise Institute).
“I think (Bush is) on the right track,” he added. “Removing this infrastructure from Amtrak’s incompetent hands and putting it into a regional agency of some sort operated by people closer to the region’s needs could have a major benefit to train service.”
States should be allowed to accept bids for train service, and many successful foreign companies would jump at the chance, Vranich said. Competition would force better and more innovative service, he added.
That doesn’t mean train service would be self-supporting, though, and Vranich recommends that the federal government provide matching subsidy grants for states.
Not everyone agrees. Schumer and others say the Bush plan is a way to push costs onto states already burdened with their own financial problems.
Gov. George Pataki supports reform but is concerned about any cost that New York may have to bear, said spokesman Todd Alhart. State officials are studying the potential “cost impact” here, he added.
Amtrak has struggled because the government has failed to provide enough financial support as it does for roads and air travel, supporters say. As skies and airports get more crowded, the government should invest more in the rail system, especially for shorter commutes in the Northeast, they add.
“We strongly feel there is a need for a balanced public transportation system,” said Bruce Becker, president of the Empire State Passengers Association, a rail advocacy group in New York. “Air travel has its place. Rail travel should have its place.”
John Stratton, an Amtrak fan and professor of electrical engineering technology at Rochester Institute of Technology, added, “Amtrak is broke only because the feds won’t let it survive.”
The 63-year-old Henrietta resident expects the rail service to run out of money and shut down.
“I almost hope it does,” he said. “It’s important to realize what could happen.”
Ridership down
But even supporters concede that Amtrak has done a poor job of attracting passengers. The company doesn’t market itself well, hasn’t upgraded its trains and equipment and often doesn’t run on time, they say.
“People think of railroads as obsolete technology, and really it is not,” said Karl Greenhagle, 67, of Gates, the local coordinator for the Empire State Passengers Association. “It just needs to be updated to meet our standards, and that’s why it’s a dying type of transportation.”
The number of people using Amtrak in western New York is falling. While ridership in Albany has increased — likely the result of a new $5 million train terminal — it has dropped in Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse over the last two years.
In Rochester, ridership plummeted from more than 122,000 passengers five years ago to 84,111 last year. Meanwhile, the New York City-to-Buffalo line took in $45 million last year but cost $75.5 million to run.
Amtrak and rail advocates blame the arrival of low-fare airline Jet Blue, which offers cheap daily flights to New York City. For comparison, there were 104,502 passenger boardings in January alone at the Greater Rochester International Airport.
The Genesee Transportation Council, which oversees federal transportation spending in the region, has recommended building a new Amtrak station here, but it shelved the plan in 2002 because of the uncertain future of the rail company.
Riders waiting to catch Amtrak last week at the Rochester station said they don’t want to see an end to rail service.
“I’m not a regular rider, but I do appreciate the fact that the service is here,” said Debbie Gaudion, 54, of Perinton. She was headed to New York City with her 17-year-old daughter, Kristen, to visit a friend.
Others agreed with Becker that there needs to be more travel options than just airlines and buses, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“There’s a lot of people who travel upstate New York, and it’s super simple for them to hop on the train,” said Dionne Orr, 27, of Rochester.
Orr, who had just seen her mother and daughter off to Philadelphia, admitted she has never ridden Amtrak.
“I definitely plan to ride the train soon,” she added.
It just may not be an Amtrak train.
“I feel confident that at the end of the legislative year Amtrak won’t look like it will now,” Vranich said. “I just don’t know what it’ll look like.”