(The following article by Mark Boxley was posted on the Portage Daily Register website on August 1.)
PORTAGE, Wisc. — As a whole, Amtrak’s passenger train service is in a lot of trouble.
The company, according to documents from the Senate Commerce Committee, currently has $1.7 billion of debt; Amtrak officials have indicated the company needs $1.8 billion to remain in operation; President George Bush has pushed hard for the government to cease all Amtrak subsidies; and he has warned of a veto for any legislation that continues to give money to the ailing company.
The problem with taking away subsidies from Amtrak, politically and socially, is that the company has lines in all but four states. In Portage, more than 5,000 people rode the Empire Builder line, which stretches from Portland, Ore., to Chicago, in 2004.
Some people take the train for the novelty, like Darlene Linsmeyer, of Butternut, Wis., who was sitting at the unmanned Amtrak station in Portage Monday waiting for the train to get to Washington D.C.
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“I wanted to ride the train because I have never ridden on the train,” Linsmeyer said.
Some people use the railway for convenience, like Chloe Fischer, of Wausau, who was waiting at the station with her grandfather Rudy Estrada, on the way to see her brother in Milwaukee.
“It’s just less driving,” Fischer explained, saying otherwise her brother would have to drive all the way to Wausau and back to pick her up and bring her home.
Whatever the reason, more than 500,000 people ride on Amtrak in Wisconsin every year.
In Washington a compromise of sorts has been struck by Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N. J., who have proposed an average of $1.9 billion to Amtrak for six years, while at the same time cutting the company’s operating subsidy by 40 percent during that period.
The bill, called the Passenger Rail Investment & Improvement Act of 2005, was approved out of the Senate Commerce Committee July 28 and awaits action on the floor of the Senate.
“It will be on the Senate calendar and could be brought up whenever the majority leaders chooses to bring it up,” said spokesperson for the Commerce Committee Melanie Alvord.
While Alvord was not able to explain what reducing the operating subsidy by 40 percent would entail or how much per year would be reduced, she did indicate it would be through “cost cutting, restructuring and reform while capital funding is increased.”
One of the areas of reform, according to information provided from the Commerce Committee by Alvord, is in metrics and standards — which would develop standards for measuring “the performance and service quality of intercity train operations,” including, “cost-recovery, on-time performance, ridership per train mile,” among other things.
Fischer, who has made the trip from Portage to Milwaukee before, said the train is not usually on time. The last time she rode on Amtrak it was 20 minutes late; Monday it was more than an hour overdue.
On-time improvements on “long distance trains” like the Empire Builder are cited specifically as points of the proposed bill.
As for Amtrak’s reaction to Lott and Lautenberg’s bill, the company indicated support for the legislation.
“It is heartening to see a truly inclusive and bi-partisan approach to chart the future of passenger rail service in this country,” said Amtrak President & CEO David L. Gunn in a statement. “We look forward to working with these legislators, as well as with policymakers in the administration, the states and elsewhere as the process gets under way with renewed urgency and seriousness.”
It is important to keep the trains running across the country for many reasons, from environmental to social, Lautenberg said in a release.
“National passenger rail service isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity for giving Americans another transportation choice while reducing traffic, air pollution and our dependence on foreign oil,” he said.
It is equally important, Lott indicated, that the way Amtrak does business needs to change to make itself more self-sufficient.
“Our bill improves how Amtrak works and ensures that the taxpayers’ money is used more effectively,” he said. “Amtrak as an organization must change culturally to think and run more like a business. That is why our bill requires Amtrak to develop much better financial systems and be held accountable for its use of federal funding.”