(Gannett News Service circulated the following article by Ledyard King on January 26.)
WASHINGTON — Last year more travelers climbed aboard Amtrak than ever before, but supporters still expect a bumpy ride over continuing federal subsidies.
Company President David Gunn credits lower fares, restructured routes and more convenient schedules for helping draw 600,000 new travelers, a nearly 3 percent rise over 2002.
But he said the reason Amtrak should top 25 million riders this year has as much to do with traffic jams and air security checkpoints as with changes he has made.
“The basic congealing of airports and highways has driven people to us,” Gunn said this week. “As the system gradually grinds to a halt, you only need a small increment of people to say: ‘I’ve had it. I’m going to take the train,’ for that to have a big impact on us.”
Much appears to have improved since Gunn took over in May 2002 and immediately had to deal with a financial crisis that nearly shut down service.
In his effort to run a back-to-basics railroad company, he’s restructured routes and ticket prices, eliminated administrative positions, beefed up production lines at maintenance shops and abandoned the company’s unprofitable venture in freight shipping.
The result: Amtrak finished its last quarter $40 million under budget.
Despite the progress, most expect Amtrak will not come close to getting the money it says it needs when President Bush releases his 2005 budget next month.
The White House last year included half of the $1.8 billion the company said was necessary to operate its trains and make needed repairs. It also proposed weaning the company off federal subsidies.
Congress approved $1.2 billion, enough to keep trains running but forcing Amtrak to defer maintenance.
Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, a former Amtrak board member, said he thinks Congress has grown more supportive of passenger rail.
“The thing that’s different this year is that there is a growing recognition that Amtrak is better managed and is the choice of travel by more and more Americans,” said Carper, who takes the train from Delaware to Washington every day.
Even with ridership gains, rail carries only about 1 percent of those traveling at least 50 miles ? trailing personal vehicles (90 percent), airplanes (7 percent) and buses (2 percent), according to federal statistics. And critics point out that many of its long-distance trains continue to lose more than $100 per passenger.
“When you have rail traffic that requires subsidies of hundreds of dollars per passenger, you’ve got a huge problem,” said Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., who chairs a House Appropriations subcommittee on transportation. “It would be cheaper to buy someone a chauffeured limousine to take them to another city.”
Ridership on 24 of Amtrak’s 43 routes rose last year, including nine of 16 long-distance trains. Amtrak officials attributed the gains to a wide array of reasons including fare cuts, targeted marketing campaigns and improved food service on long-distance trains.
“They’ve made some fairly significant attempts to improve the user-friendliness of the system,” said Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Rail Passengers.
For Alice Peter of Turner, Mont., Amtrak is the only way she can visit her husband at his nursing home more than 300 miles away in Whitefish. Waiting Friday at the Havre, Mont., station for Amtrak’s Empire Builder, Peter, 76, said she’s too old to drive long distances and Amtrak is reliable enough to take her where she needs to go.
“Winter is iffy,” she said of snowfall that can delay the trains. “The rest of the time I don’t worry about it. Usually during the summer, unless there’s a breakdown, it’s always on time.”