(The following article by Beth Fitzgerald was posted on the Newark Star-Ledger website on May 5.)
NEWARK, N.J. — A coalition of business groups is focusing on Amtrak’s role as the transportation backbone of the Northeast, and will lobby for increased public funding for a rail system that carries 35,000 passengers a day between Boston and Washington.
Union Station in Washington, D.C., will see the official launch this morning of the Amtrak Business Coalition, a group of 50 business organizations that includes the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce and the Regional Business Partnership. The coalition says it will work with Congress “to secure the federal funds needed to complete overdue improvements to Amtrak’s infrastructure and avoid future service failures or shutdowns.”
“It’s hard to put a dollar value on it, but Amtrak is a critical part of the state’s economy,” said Joan Verplanck, president of the state chamber. “It’s by far the fastest way to get to Washington. By the time you drive to the airport, you’d already be halfway there by train. Unfortunately, we only seem to look at this asset when it’s in crisis and Congress is looking to clip corners and Amtrak gets thrown on the table.”
Chip Hallock, president of the Regional Business Partnership, said the coalition “will try to ensure that we don’t have those headline- grabbing problems — delays, derailments, accidents — many of which are avoidable with the proper level of investment in the infrastructure.”
Hallock said Newark, Trenton and Princeton Junction are three of Amtrak’s 10 busiest stations in the country, with a combined 1.5 million boardings per year. About 440,000 New Jerseyans take Amtrak to Washington each year, about twice the number who fly, he added.
“Amtrak isn’t some transportation system of the future, a pipe dream that we’re sitting back and speculating about,” Hallock added. “It’s a proven way to move hundreds of thousands of people through New Jersey.”