(The following story by Anthony Flint appeared on the Boston Globe website on March 9.)
BOSTON — The goal of a three-hour train trip between Boston and New York has not been achieved because Amtrak mismanaged the ambitious initiative, according to a report released yesterday by the General Accounting Office.
Amtrak officials acknowledged problems in the planning and execution of the $3.2 billion high-speed rail project, but also point out that adequate funding was not made available to make key improvements to tracks, bridges, and overhead electrical wires.
The three-hour trip, seen as the only way a high-speed train can be competitive with airline shuttle service between Boston and New York, was set as a goal when Congress first authorized the track improvements in 1992. But the best time the high-speed Acela trains making the run have been able to make is 3 hours and 24 minutes.
The European-style high-speed service debuted in December 2000. While the trains are capable of reaching speeds of 150 miles per hour, the Acela frequently must travel more slowly, because of track and infrastructure problems.
Amtrak did not tackle the infrastructure issues realistically and failed to work effectively with other governmental entities, such as regional commuter rail agencies, to make sure the tracks could handle the higher speeds, the GAO report says. Two-thirds of the goals in a 1994 master plan for the project remain unmet, the report says.
“Amtrak’s management was not comprehensive, and it was focused primarily on the short term,” the report says. Amtrak concentrated on the electrification of the track between Boston and New Haven and the acquisition of high-speed trains, “and did not sufficiently address major infrastructure improvements needed to attain the trip-time goal.”
The Federal Railroad Administration, which served as the conduit for federal funds and developed the master plan for the initiative, did not help Amtrak do a better job, the GAO report says, although it did not have the resources or the authority to oversee Amtrak’s management any more closely.
Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said that the GAO report is accurate but that Amtrak has since completely overhauled the way it manages major capital projects. “We’re not saying we’d be perfect if we were running it today, but we have instituted many of the things the GAO recommends, as it relates to project planning and management,” Black said.
But a significant problem has been “inconsistent federal support,” Black said. “Adequate funding was not available for all aspects of the project, including track reconfigurations at various locations, particularly between New Haven and New Rochelle [N.Y.].” Black added that a three-hour trip is not possible at the moment because of work being done on the 50-mile stretch of track between New Haven and New York owned by Metro North, the regional commuter rail agency for New York and Connecticut. The overhead wires are being replaced in that segment, and two of the four tracks are blocked off as a result, Black said.
Former Massachusetts governor and Amtrak board member Michael S. Dukakis said the Metro North tracks are “the fundamental problem and the real reason we’re not going to be able to hit that three-hour mark.”
“It’s the thing that plagues the national rail passenger system: We haven’t invested in the infrastructure,” he said. “You can’t run at top speed, because the wires overheard are 80 years old.”
Dukakis said that “if the GAO says that segment should have been worked on, I don’t disagree, but it’s another entity that owns those tracks, and it takes money.”
If the trip to New York can be reduced to three hours, “there would be no reason to take the plane,” Dukakis said, because getting to Logan, flying to New York, and getting into Manhattan from LaGuardia takes about that amount of time.
In a letter to the GAO, Amtrak president David Gunn said that the report did not acknowledge the problems Amtrak has been having with its contractors on the project, which in one case has triggered a Justice Department investigation into possible fraud.
Gunn also says that some people believe a three-hour trip would only be possible by making it nonstop from Boston to New York. Currently the Acela begins at South Station and stops at Back Bay station, Route 128, Providence, New London, New Haven, Stamford, and then Penn Station in New York City. Acela service continues to Washington, D.C.
Acela service briefly suffered shortly after its debut in late 2000 when a mechanical issue arose in the suspension of train cars, but the problem was fixed. Amtrak says Acela ridership enjoys a steady increase in ridership. Amtrak, or the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, has struggled to get its $1 billion-plus budget from Congress year after year. The Bush administration has a proposal to break up Amtrak into smaller pieces to make it less dependent on federal funding.