(The following story by Michael Cabanatuan and John Wildermuth appeared on the San Francisco Chronicle website on March 31.)
SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta brought a nationwide campaign promoting President Bush’s Amtrak reorganization plan to the Bay Area on Wednesday, delivering his message aboard a Caltrain Baby Bullet.
He rode the specially scheduled train from Millbrae to San Francisco and back with a crowd of Amtrak officials, reporters and photographers, using the media opportunity to fire back at Sen. Barbara Boxer, who earlier in the day called for his resignation.
Boxer, during a San Francisco press conference hours before Mineta’s, criticized the transportation secretary for his support of the Bush administration’s reorganization plan that calls for eliminating federal funding for Amtrak.
“I do wish Norm would consider resigning,” she said. “I don’t understand why someone who has been an advocate for transportation for so many years can do this.”
Boxer promised to help beat back the effort to cut the federal money, arguing that subsidized passenger rail service is a boon to the economy, travelers and the environment.
“To see Norm Mineta change his colors like this is rather sad,” said Boxer, who served with him in Congress.
When reporters informed Mineta of Boxer’s remarks at his press conference at the Caltrain station in San Francisco, he responded: “Oh, good. Does she have any other requests of me?
“I haven’t reversed my position at all. If I wanted to kill Amtrak, I’d do nothing.”
Last month, President Bush proposed slashing the $1.2 billion in federal funds Amtrak is receiving this year to zero in the budget year that begins in November. The administration’s reform plan would shift the responsibility for operating the national passenger rail service to states. The federal government and state or local governments would, however, split the cost of rail improvements, station construction and other physical improvements.
The administration first made that proposal in 2003, Mineta noted, but Congress has ignored it and continued to fund Amtrak operating subsidies. Which, he said, is cause for Boxer to be the one to step down.
“She should resign,” he said. “She hasn’t taken up the reform legislation.”
The zero budget for Amtrak is a Bush administration effort to get Congress’ attention and force action on the reorganization legislation, Mineta said. Despite the plan to shift funding to the states, he said, the Bush administration strongly backs a national intercity passenger rail system.
“We want a national intercity rail service with sustainability,” he said. “One that makes economic sense, that makes transportation sense.”
Critics say states cannot afford to pick up the full expense of passenger rail operating subsidies and that it makes no sense to dismantle the existing national system at a time when it is gaining ridership.
Mineta spent the 17-minute duration of each ride questioning Caltrain officials about details of the Baby Bullet service, which has boosted ridership 17 percent since it was started last July.
Although he wasn’t able to sit back and relax, Mineta said he enjoyed the ride much more than the days when he used to commute from San Jose to his San Francisco insurance job on the old Southern Pacific Peninsula commute line that preceded Caltrain.
“We’d always be swaying back and forth, bouncing up and down,” he said. “Today’s ride was really smooth.”
The express service, which relies on new passing tracks that allow speedy trains to pass slower one, makes it possible for the trains to travel from San Jose to San Francisco in less than an hour. Mineta praised the service, saying it demonstrates that local operation of passenger rail works.
“It’s a good example of what happens when you have a governing board scheduling its service to meet the demands of the people,” he said. “A good example of what local government can do.”
Mineta takes his Amtrak reform campaign to Sacramento today. Passenger rail advocates have planned demonstrations.