(The Associated Press circulated the following story by Tim Talley on May 18.)
OKLAHOMA CITY — A grass roots alliance wants to launch passenger rail service between Oklahoma City and Kansas, a move they say would make Amtrak’s existing Heartland Flyer service between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth, Texas, a more effective transportation option.
But are transportation officials in Oklahoma and Kansas on board?
The Northern Flyer Alliance, a conglomerate of cities, civic organizations and businesses interested in expanding passenger rail service across the region, has convinced 23 cities and towns in the two states to endorse the idea of carving out a new northern route for the Heartland Flyer that would eventually lead to Kansas City, Mo.
With gas prices above $3.60 a gallon and travel by car and commercial airlines becoming more expensive, state officials need to explore alternative, affordable ways for their citizens to travel, said Evan Stair of Norman, executive director of the alliance in Oklahoma.
“If we are to remain a mobile society, we have to turn back to more efficient forms of transportation,” Stair said. “This is a fiscally efficient method of transportation, both in fuel savings and cost.”
“It’s something that is needed,” said Autumn Heithaus of Wichita, Kan., the alliance’s overall executive director.
Heithaus said the elderly, handicapped and those who refuse to fly — including her — are looking for alternative forms of transportation to visit relatives and travel to vacation destinations.
“I, too, would like to travel across the country and visit large metropolitan cities,” she said.
Passenger rail service is an economic boon to communities it serves, Stair said. A 2005 study commissioned by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation indicated a six-year, $23 million economic benefit for Oklahoma communities served by the Heartland Flyer.
“Amtrak returns money into the communities. It’s an economic development tool,” Stair said.
But some state lawmakers have opposed passenger rail service in the past because of the level of state government subsidies it requires.
The Texas and Oklahoma transportation departments each pay about $2 million a year for the Heartland Flyer service and expansion northward would require additional subsidies by the states of Oklahoma and Kansas, officials said. One-way tickets for the Heartland Flyer currently cost $24.
Government subsidies for transportation are not unusual, Stair said. The government subsidizes vehicular and air travel when it appropriates tax dollars to build and maintain roads and runways, Stair said.
“All forms of transportation are subsidized in this country,” he said.
Upgrading and expanding the nation’s rail system is one of the most economical ways of tackling the nation’s fuel crisis, said Matthew Melzer of the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Railroad Passengers, the largest advocacy organization for train and rail transit passengers.
“Rail is by far the most attractive alternative,” Melzer said. “They provide a very unique kind of mobility.”
Trains are 20 percent more fuel efficient than cars and will be a vital tool in strategies for coping with expensive and scarce oil supplies in the future, he said.
Melzer said the number of rail passengers has risen along with fuel prices. Amtrak broke a ridership record last year with 26 million passengers and has set new ridership records five out of the last six years.
The Heartland Flyer, launched in 1999, has also seen record ridership, said John Dougherty, assistant director of rail programs for the Oklahoma Transportation Department.
A total of 68,000 people rode along the Heartland Flyer’s 206-mile route last year, a 6.5 percent increase from the previous year, and an average of 5,500 people climb aboard the passenger train each month. The Heartland Flyer has set new ridership records five out of the last six months.
“We see this increase and it’s exciting,” Dougherty said. “We’d like to see an expansion of the Flyer. We feel like this is the direction that we’re all going to have to go to.”
The agency is awaiting a report from Amtrak on the feasibility of expanding passenger rail service between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Dougherty said. But early cost estimates for upgrading the tracks between the state’s two largest cities are not favorable.
A January letter by David Streb, director of engineering for the agency, said improvements needed for a modest level of passenger service between the two cities are in the $110 million range, according to a 2001 study by the agency’s rail division.
Ron Kaufman, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Transportation, said his agency has asked Amtrak for a separate feasibility study of expanding the Heartland Flyer’s route from Oklahoma City to Kansas City through Wichita.
The expanded route would connect with the existing Southwest Chief service at Newton, Kan., north of Wichita, which operates between Chicago and Los Angeles. Heartland Flyer passengers can currently connect with the Texas Eagle, which operates between Chicago and San Antonio.
Stair said it will cost an estimated $5 million to upgrade railroad tracks for passenger rail service between Oklahoma City and Newton, a distance of about 200 miles, including $2.9 million for the tracks in Oklahoma.
The Kansas study is scheduled to begin this summer and be complete in 2009, Kaufman said.
“It’s designed to give us numbers specific to our state,” he said. “This comes at a time when the state of Kansas is needing to take another look at a funding program for transportation in the future.”
The study, which will cost up to $200,000, was ordered as interest in passenger rail rises in Kansas with high gas prices and growing interest in restoring passenger rail service in areas that were formerly served, Kaufman said. Passenger rail service in Wichita ended in 1979.
“It’s an interesting confluence of events,” Kaufman said. “It’s one of several transportation options we need to take a look at.”