(The following editorial appeared on the Tomah Journal website on November 26.)
TOMAH, Wisc. — Passenger rail is making a comeback. Ridership at the Tomah Amtrak station soared from 5,339 in 2001 to 8,952 in 2007. Nationwide, passengership hit 24.6 million riders in 2006, the fourth straight year Amtrak set a ridership record. The Empire Builder route, which counts Tomah as one of its stops, enjoyed a 1.6 increase in riders last year.
This is good news for Tomah, Amtrak and the nation’s transportation network in general. For years, Amtrak has been a poster child for a heavily subsidized government enterprise that can’t make any money. That has always been an unfair critique. Airports are heavily subsidized by federal, state and local governments, but few people demand that airlines and personal pilots completely pay their own way. City of Tomah taxpayers, for example, recently invested $350,000 in the airport at Bloyer Field. Property taxes also pay for local streets that are indispensable to our one-person, one-car culture.
As energy prices soar to record levels — both in absolute terms and a percentage of personal income — passenger rail is a critical part of a sustainable transportation network. As a form of mass transit, it’s energy efficient and offers an alternative to increasingly congested and delay-prone air travel. Passenger rail can serve small cities like Tomah in a way airlines can’t.
It’s not just Amtrak that’s leading the resurgence of passenger rail. The Twin Cities recently installed light rail between the Mall of America and downtown Minneapolis, and ridership has exceeded the most optimistic projections (the rail cars were packed during a recent Wisconsin-Minnesota college football game).
There is no such thing as a transportation system that completely pays its own way. Every form of transportation receives some form of taxpayer subsidy, and the real issue is how efficiently and sustainably each one fits into a complex transportation network. The public is embracing Amtrak as a cost-effective and environmentally friendly method of getting from one place to another. That’s good for everyone, whether or not they ever ride an Amtrak train.