(The following editorial appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on October 30.)
PHILADELPHIA — Here’s a question that Northeast Corridor commuters should ask themselves in the voting booth Tuesday: Which presidential candidate is more likely to improve the rails to make your train rides safer and smoother?
Probably not Sen. John McCain, who has been an outspoken critic of Amtrak and a persistent obstacle to its being adequately funded. “Amtrak is a failed experiment,” McCain said six years ago.
Try telling that to the record 28.7 million passengers who used the rail service in the fiscal year that ended four weeks ago. It marked the sixth straight time that Amtrak has exceeded the previous year’s passenger gains.
Not only did Amtrak experience an 11 percent increase in ridership, but its ticket revenue in fiscal 2008 also increased, 14 percent to $1.7 billion.
The passenger rail line has become even more vital as the economy and high gasoline prices have led commuters to look for cost-effective modes of transportation other than their automobiles.
But McCain, forever showing his disdain for Amtrak, again sought to cripple it earlier this month when he voted against bipartisan legislation sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.) that would increase Amtrak funding to about $14 billion over five years. Lautenberg’s successful bills, the Passenger Rail Investment Act and the Rail Safety Improvement Act, will increase Amtrak funding and require new safety controls on trains.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama voted with the majority for the legislation that – for the first time since 2002 – authorizes funding for Amtrak, so it doesn’t have to beg for a handout each year. McCain instead offered counter-legislation to privatize Amtrak’s successful routes and abandon those that don’t generate a profit.
Again and again, McCain has ignored that some of the most-admired, well-run rail lines in Europe and Asia don’t generate a profit. They are heavily subsidized by their governments as a public necessity that must be run efficiently. Nothing unique about that approach – it’s also the way this country runs its highway system.
The federal government finances highways to the tune of $40 billion annually without expecting the roads to produce a profit. But when the roads are well-maintained and take people and freight where they need to go, profits are made.
The same goes for railroads, yet throughout the Bush administration, McCain has blindly led the charge to scuttle Amtrak.
The rail service does deserve criticism for past inefficiency and wasteful spending. But under CEO Alex Kummant, it is correcting its course to take full advantage of America’s desire for alternatives to the car.
Amtrak ridership for its Northeast regional service jumped 9.5 percent in the last year. The Keystone Service linking Harrisburg, Philadelphia and New York saw ridership increase 20 percent.
Now is the time to invest in Amtrak for its continued growth. But with the wrong president, that’s unlikely to happen.