(The following article by Raju Chebium was posted on the Cherry Hill Courier Post website on February 19.)
WASHINGTON — President Bush is no longer threatening to shut down Amtrak trains that carry 68,000 passengers a day. But critics say the passenger railroad still isn’t getting enough money to become a strong alternative to airplanes and automobiles.
Bush proposed giving Amtrak $900 million for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. That’s $900 million more than he proposed last year, when an outraged Congress ended up giving Amtrak $1.3 billion.
This time, Bush administration officials say they’re funding the nation’s passenger rail service because it’s on a self-improvement track.
In the short term, they want Amtrak to save on food service — the railroad says it lost $120 million on it last year — and cut losses on 15 cross-country routes. New Amtrak Chairman David Laney said the railroad is working on those and other issues.
In the long term, the quasi-public company must wean itself from taxpayer subsidies and allow private rail operators to compete with it, said Jeff Rosen, the top lawyer for the Transportation Department and a member of Amtrak’s board of directors. The administration also wants states to pay more for passenger rail.
Amtrak wants states to match federal funds like they do for highways, but many aren’t eager to add that cost to their budget. Although a private company or two has expressed interest in acquiring short-haul routes, no company has the cash or expertise to take over the national passenger rail network, said David Johnson of the National Association of Rail Passengers.
Passenger Dahlia Smith said she’s tired of politicians beating up on Amtrak.
“Leave ’em alone,” she said shortly before boarding a train to Richmond, Va., at Washington’s Union Station. “There are so many things they can be messing with. I don’t understand why they’re messing with the train.”
Rosen dismissed suggestions that the administration is unfriendly to passenger rail.
“We don’t dislike trains. We want trains to participate in the economy . . . in a way that’s responsive to real people’s needs,” he said. “One of the key reforms is for this private business to function like a private business.”
Of the $900 million in proposed federal money, $500 million would go toward improving tracks, wires and other infrastructure along the Washington-to-Boston Northeast corridor, one of a handful of Amtrak’s moneymaking routes where the railroad owns most of the track. Freight companies own just more than 21,000 miles of track elsewhere in the United States and Amtrak runs its trains on those rails.
Bush officials want to give the remaining $400 million as grants to operate the trains, but there’s no guarantee Amtrak would get all of it. The checks wouldn’t be cut unless Amtrak shows it’s turning things around, Rosen said. Amtrak and the administration are working on criteria to judge progress.
“One of our goals is to get Amtrak to be more responsive to customers,” Rosen said.
Customer Fred Orelove, for example, said he doesn’t take the train as much as he used to because he has run into delays as long as two hours.
“At the same time, the fares have gone up,” Orelove said while waiting at Union Station. “Clearly you can’t have both: more expense and poor service.”
Laney said Amtrak crews are being retrained to focus on customer satisfaction. And a leaner and more efficient Amtrak continues to cut costs and train-operating losses, which totaled $474 million in fiscal year 2004, the latest year for which complete financial information was available.
Laney said the $1.3 billion Congress gave Amtrak for this fiscal year is “adequate,” though some supporters say closer to $2 billion is needed to repair aging tracks and bridges along the Northeast Corridor.
Chances are Amtrak will get more money than Bush proposes. It has bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and lawmakers likely would not cut funding for a popular service during an election year. Champions include liberal Democrats such as Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, moderates such as Sen. Thomas Carper of Delaware, and Republicans like Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi.
A Lott-sponsored measure — approved 93-6 in November — would provide Amtrak $11.4 billion over six years.
A House bill sponsored by Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, would provide $2 billion a year for the railroad.
Both measures are pending.
Lautenberg blasted the administration’s funding request as inadequate.
“They would not mind seeing Amtrak go bankrupt and parcel it out to the various states and have them pay for it,” he said. “We cannot afford, from several standpoints, to be without Amtrak, not the least of which is (national) security.”
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which temporarily grounded planes nationwide, Amtrak ridership surged.
Lawmakers should spend what it takes to expand rail service everywhere, especially in the congested Northeast, “so that this country can move away from such a reliance on the car,” said Clifford Davis Jr., a lifelong Amtrak rider who takes the train out of Philadelphia about 50 times a year.
“It would be a huge mistake for this country not to have a train transportation system,” Davis said. “I am 100 percent behind it and I am in favor of using tax dollars to support it.”