(The following story by Dan McLean appeared on the Burlington Free Press website on August 17.)
BURLINGTON, Vt. — More Vermonters are finding the extra time needed to travel by rail.
Nationwide, Amtrak tallied 14 percent more riders in July, compared to July 2007. The 2.75 million passengers who traveled on Amtrak trains last month represented the highest single-month total in the railroad’s 37-year history, the railway announced Thursday.
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The two Amtrak rail lines that serve the Green Mountain State also reported a boost in ridership.
The number of passengers on the Vermonter, which starts in St. Albans, stops in Essex Junction and travels south to New York City and Washington, D.C., totaled 7,961 in July — about 1,500, or 23 percent more than the train carried in July 2007, according to Amtrak data.
The Ethan Allen Express, which travels from Rutland to New York City, had 5,290 passengers in July, 9 percent more than in July 2007.
“Increasing fuel prices, highway congestion, airline issues and environmental awareness continue to make intercity passenger rail extremely relevant and popular,” Alex Kummant, president and CEO of Amtrak, said in a written statement.
Rail travel is relatively cheap and is often considered relaxing.
If Amtrak has a substantial drawback it is travel time.
It takes the “Vermonter” about 9 1/2 hours to go to New York City from Essex Junction. That compares to slightly less than six hours by car and roughly three hours by plane to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, including arriving an hour early for security clearance and a taxi ride to Manhattan.
Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers in Washington, D.C., said the government has mismanaged the system for so long that it is difficult to quickly bolster Amtrak’s service to capitalize on heightened interest in train travel.
“The federal government has been asleep at the switch on policy for decades,” Capon said of maintaining the railroad’s infrastructure.
There is no rail service from Burlington to Boston, for example.
That route would need substantial upgrades, particularly from White River Junction to Concord, N.H., Capon said. “Well over half the line has been out of service for a long time,” he said of the roughly 70-mile stretch from Vermont’s eastern border to Concord.
Vermont’s plan to enhance train service via more frequent service with smaller trains has been delayed, in part because of shortfalls in the transportation budget, said Agency of Transportation spokesman John Zicconi.
The project is estimated to cost $23 million, Zicconi said, noting that Amtrak has offered a $2 million grant to aid in the purchase. The earliest the smaller trains could be placed in service would be the summer of 2010, Zicconi said.
The jump in Amtrak ridership is not sapping much demand from Vermont’s largest airport, however. Burlington International reported a record number of passengers in July, 17 percent more than in July 2007. The airport director attributes much of that boost to the recent introduction of AirTran Airways and a growing number of Canadians who are flying from Burlington.
Amtrak offers rail service to more than 500 destinations in 46 states on a 21,000-mile system.