AUSTIN, Texas — In 1971, Congress rescued the American passenger train from death by neglect at the hands of its private owners, only to subject it over the next 30 years to a different state of neglect all its own, according to an editorial in the Austin American-Statesman.
In short, Congress ordered its new passenger-train system — Amtrak — to succeed without giving it the tools to do the job. And though Amtrak has survived over the ensuing three decades, its peculiar mandate has never allowed it to thrive.
Now Amtrak has reached a critical juncture where Congress can choose to give the system the financial foundation it needs to be a viable national transportation option, or it can let inevitable economic forces crush Amtrak and leave U.S. consumers a bleak transportation choice of crowded skies or crowded roadways.
Two pieces of legislation are making their way through the congressional committee process, which will spell which way national support for the passenger train will go. One is Amtrak’s appropriation for fiscal year 2003, which supporters insist must be at least twice as large as the amount in the White House’s budget in order for the system to survive, and the other is a bill by South Carolina Sen. Fritz Hollings that not only provides a necessary re-authorization for Amtrak, but expands that re-authorization into a long-overdue comprehensive national rail policy.
The requested Amtrak budget request of $1.2 billion, supporters say, is a minimal amount needed to meet the system’s operating shortfall (an unfortunate but characteristic reality of every rail-passenger system in the world) and to meet immediately pressing capital-investment needs in rolling stock, track and fixed facilities. It wouldn’t be enough to address Amtrak’s backlog of long-term capital spending, or to develop high-speed corridors, but it would give the system a fighting chance to survive and grow. The Senate Budget Committee has made room in its draft budget for the full amount, and the request is on its way to House and Senate appropriations committees for action.
The Hollings bill (slyly invoking the powerful D-word as the “National Defense Interstate Rail Act”) is the more important measure for the long-term prospects of not only Amtrak but also the overall role of rail in the nation’s passenger-transport mix. It would make rail transport a federal priority on a footing with highways and air transport, and provide passenger-rail transport with the long-term, stable funding source that — unlike other transportation modes — it has never enjoyed.
Hollings’ bill aims to bring the United States passenger-rail system back on a par with the systems in every other developed country, through the secure, systematic development of Amtrak, high-speed corridors, short-distance routes and other rail projects, infusing $4.6 billion into the effort every year through fiscal year 2007. One feature of the bill would provide substantial federal grants for state projects such as Gov. Rick Perry’s proposed Trans Texas Corridor. Twenty-eight Senate co-sponsors have signed on to the bill, including Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, always a staunch supporter of passenger rail.
The life-or-death implications of the choices facing American passenger rail will be underlined this week when Amtrak issues a “contingency notice” threatening the abandonment on Oct. 1 of practically every passenger route outside the profitable Northeast Corridor. While the “contingency notice” is just a legal formality giving Amtrak the ability to address its worst-case scenario, it should sound a loud note of warning on how stark the situation has become for passenger rail.
It’s time Congress ended Amtrak’s 30-year starvation diet and time for a comprehensive national commitment to rail as a natural, logical component of the nation’s passenger-transport picture. A system of high-speed and conventional rail, intelligently planned and realistically funded, would be environmentally smart, energy efficient and an option that should be expected by an American traveling public faced with roads and airways stretched to capacity.