(The Albuquerque Tribune posted the following story by Frank Zoretich on its website on August 1.)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The plan President Bush sent to Congress this week for the reorganization of Amtrak passenger rail service over the next six years is “unrealistic and bad for New Mexico,” Gov. Bill Richardson says.
“We will fight it,” the state’s Democratic governor said in a terse statement issued through a spokesman Wednesday.
But U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, an Albuquerque Republican, says change is needed.
“I have not had an opportunity to review and evaluate the Bush administration’s new Amtrak proposal, but I believe there is a real need to reform Amtrak,” he said in a statement issued from his office in Washington, D.C.
Bush’s plan, sent to Congress on Monday, tries to create a competitive marketplace for passenger rail service, where the states decide if they want to support routes.
The federal government would no longer pay for operating costs under the plan; that would be up to the states. But the federal government would pay for 50 percent of infrastructure costs.
The passenger rail line lost a fraction more than $1 billion in fiscal 2001, the United Transportation Union said, of which $340 million was operating losses. It is not known how the charges for operating losses would be allocated across the states under the Bush plan, nor how the states would be expected to pay for them.
Two Amtrak routes cross New Mexico with one train in each direction daily.
The Southwest Chief, on the run between Chicago and Los Angeles, makes stops in Raton, Lamy, Albuquerque and Gallup.
The Sunset Limited, between Orlando, Fla., and Los Angeles, makes stops in Deming and Lordsburg.
Fred Friedman, chief of the New Mexico Department of Transportation’s Rail and Intermodal Management Bureau, said 86,028 passengers either boarded or got off an Amtrak train in the state in 2001.
In 2002, he said, the total was 78,163 passengers boarding or detraining in New Mexico.
So far in 2003, from January through June, 23,653 passengers got on or off an Amtrak train in New Mexico, Friedman said.
“Raton has the second highest ridership after Albuquerque, even greater than the El Paso ridership, principally because of the number of Boy Scouts who take the train to and from the Philmont Scout Ranch every summer,” Friedman added.
A reorganization of Amtrak could open “some interesting possibilities, especially for the Southwest,” he said.
Amtrak’s two routes through New Mexico primarily provide east-west service.
If the states were in charge of rail passenger service, Friedman said, it might be possible to create a north-south linkage, with trains running on an El Paso-Albuquerque-Denver line.
“It would really be a regional project if it involves Texas and Colorado, and an international project if taken a step further and some type of service was extended to Juarez in Mexico,” Friedman said.
Bruce Rizzieri, associate director of the Albuquerque Transit Department, said it’s too soon to say what Bush’s proposed Amtrak reorganization might mean for Albuquerque.
“We need to wait to see what will happen,” Rizzieri said. “We can’t plan until Congress votes to do something. But I can say we value the passenger service Amtrak provides and we want to see Amtrak continue through Albuquerque and New Mexico.”
Amtrak’s long-distance trains are profitable in terms of operating costs, but the system has consistently needed federal subsidies because of high administration and other overhead costs, said Jon Messier, a transportation planner for the city of Albuquerque.
Messier said he is a member of the United Rail Passenger Alliance, which he described as a national group of “only about two dozen people” who have attempted for many years, with limited success, to influence Amtrak policy.
“We’re not Amtrak cheerleaders,” he said. “Amtrak has spent money like a drunken sailor. It’s not surprising Congress is reluctant to give it a lot of money. Amtrak has not ever achieved the financial goals that Congress set for it, to operate as if it were on a for-profit basis. Costs have gotten out of control. Amtrak is like a fully stocked department store that’s open only two days a week.”
But the Bush reorganization plan is “based on an ideological position and assumptions,” Messier said. “It’s really not a plan.”
He said his group had confidence in David Gunn, who recently became president of Amtrak.
Gunn, he said, “told Congress the truth about Amtrak’s level of reliability, that there would have to be some long-term capital investment, about $1.8 billion for five or six years, to get everything up to a state of good repair, for deferred maintenance on equipment and facilities.”
“Basically it doesn’t look good for long-distance haulers like the Southwest Chief and the Sunset Limited,” said Orville Pratt, chairman of the Bernalillo County Transportation Development District.
The elimination of either, Pratt said, “would really be a blow for all ground transportation in New Mexico.”