(The Denver Post published the following story by y Kit Miniclier on its website on August 14.)
DENVER — In its heyday three generations ago, Denver’s Union Station hosted 80 scheduled daily passenger trains.
Today there are only two, the eastbound and westbound California Zephyrs. And they are an endangered species.
President Bush is proposing a six-year plan to force cash-strapped states to pick up more of Amtrak’s costs, without providing a price tag.
Proponents of the Bush plan, spelled out in a bill sent to Congress on July 28, say ending Amtrak’s government-authorized monopoly on intercity passenger rail service and minimizing federal subsidies would encourage competition and help cut the federal deficit.
Others, including Zephyr fans, disagree.
“Bush’s plan to terminate Amtrak as we know it is a formula for disaster,” said Jon Esty, president of the Colorado Rail Passenger Association.
Crossing 2,438 miles of prairie and desert and two spectacular mountain ranges between Chicago and San Francisco, the fabled Zephyr traverses Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. If the Bush plan passes, each of those states would be expected to ante up untallied millions of dollars each year to keep the 54-year-old train on track.
“We don’t have the money,” said Tom Norton, executive director of Colorado’s Department of Transportation. And Norton said he isn’t sure the Zephyr is carrying enough passengers to make funding it worthwhile even if the state had the money.
Amtrak ridership on Colorado’s two routes, the Zephyr and the Super Chief, which connects Chicago and Los Angeles via La Junta, Las Animas and Trinidad, amounted to only 203,743 passengers last year – a drop of 50,000 from 2001, according to Amtrak officials.
The Zephyr isn’t the rail service’s only problem. Created by Congress in 1971 from the remnants of private passenger railroads, Amtrak serves 500 communities in 46 states on 22,000 miles of track. Despite years of government subsidies, including $900 million allotted last week for next year’s operations, and efforts to lure Northeast Corridor commuters away from planes and cars, it is not profitable and has less than 1 percent of the intercity travel market.
Amtrak announced Tuesday that it carried more passengers in July – 2,223,358 – than in any other month in its history. But most of the increases were on high-speed coastal routes, which doesn’t bode well for lower-traffic Western services such as the Zephyr.
Zephyr fans, however, say Amtrak’s problems do not warrant what they feel will be a death sentence for their favorite way to travel. They call it a train for all seasons, a service that offers skiers, hikers, surfers and anyone else who has the time a unique ground-level view of the West.
Several among the 120 passengers waiting to board the train recently at Denver’s Union Station said Bush’s proposal could kill long-haul trains and threaten the nation’s passenger rail system.
The Zephyr “is a national treasure that should not be allowed to disappear,” said Roger Rehse of Santa Clara, Calif., as he waited with his wife, Susan, for the train back home.
Bush “is shirking every plausible federal responsibility to make the deficit shrink,” said Steve Doroghazi, of Harper’s Ferry, W.Va., as he waited to board the Zephyr.
Colorado state Sen. Maryanne “Moe” Keller, D-Wheat Ridge, was waiting to board the Zephyr with three relatives. Proposing that the states pick up most of Amtrak’s funding “is just another attempt to get rid of government programs and hand them over to states who are in no position to fund them,” Keller said.
U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Colorado Republican, said Wednesday that he doesn’t think the president’s plan will garner enough votes to pass. “All the states would oppose it. It is a no- starter to pass it (the financial responsibility for Amtrak) on to the states,” he said.
Campbell agrees with Bush that Amtrak needs to be restructured, noting that it has received $26.6 billion in government subsidies during its 32 years.
But the senator said he now prefers Amtrak to flying for trips between Washington, Philadelphia and New York because the time is comparable, “there are fewer crowds, no security checks and it is possible to get up and walk around.”
Amtrak “is an easy target in Washington because it doesn’t have the army of lobbyists that airports and highways have,” he added.
Amtrak supporters note that highways and airports receive a great deal more federal assistance than Amtrak ever received. However, as CDOT’s Norton noted, highway funding comes from a gasoline user tax and user fees help fund airports. Norton said rail passengers aren’t paying user fee taxes as motorists and airline passengers are.
Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, another opponent of Bush’s plan, said, “Either we commit to dramatically improving rail for the entire country or we abandon the pretense of a national system.”
Hutchison introduced legislation July 30 to save Amtrak with an allocation of $12 billion over six years for operating expenses and to create a Rail Infrastructure Finance Corp. to underwrite $48 billion in government-backed tax- credit bonds.
Not all Zephyr fans are critical of Bush’s plan. Kay Ivey of Omaha, who was traveling with relatives and waiting at Union Station recently, was asked about Bush’s plan for Amtrak. “President Bush can’t do anything wrong; we are Republicans,” she said.
But one member of her party seemed to think the train offered something unique. As they prepared to board, Travis McKenna, 9, pointed out, “It’s pretty fun going through the tunnels, and you see stuff you don’t see from cars.”