(The following editorial by Mike Matejka was posted the Bloomington Pantograph website on April 19.)
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Are high gas prices enough to make you scream? Consumers are increasingly fed up with travel expenses, while our highways are increasingly congested.
There is a solution; unfortunately, the Bush administration has painted a target on it.
Rail travel is an environmentally friendly congestion reliever, but slated for extinction if the president’s proposals are followed.
Amtrak is the traditional weak sister in America’s infrastructure.
We have money for highways and failing airlines are subsidized. Yet when Amtrak is mentioned, the free market mantra is invoked and a potentially high efficiency travel system is slated for extinction, starved of the needed dollars to fulfill its potential.
Occasionally I give talks on railroad history. The first question at the end is, “When will we have high speed trains like other countries?”
The only answer I can deliver: “When we have the political will to make it happen. The infrastructure costs are so high and the returns low enough, no private investor will spend those dollars. But a government that wants balance in transportation policy would find this a logical alternative.”
With Normal planning a new multi-modal center, wouldn’t it be sad if there were no trains to stop there?
Yes, Amtrak loses money. O’Hare Field loses money. Yet Chicago makes money because O’Hare Field is there, bringing jobs and business into mid-America.
In the same way, a coherent, dependable rail system through McLean County might lose immediate dollars in operation, but make those dollars back in economic activity and renewed market access.
As gas prices increase, we Americans are getting a taste of what the rest of the world pays. That’s why Europeans don’t balk at tax subsidies to operate rail networks. They know an efficient train saves them money in the long run and allows their nation to function with less congestion.
What does Amtrak need to survive?
• First, we need to accept that this service will, at best, break even.
Cost consciousness is important, but if we used the same logic being applied to Amtrak every highway would be a toll road and every airline would pay for its own terminals and air traffic control systems.
A coherent transportation infrastructure is a basic for a modern economy.
• Secondly, let’s update the service.
Amtrak carried 24 million riders in 2003, a one million gain over 2002. Yet many potential riders are turned away because of equipment shortages.
When Amtrak was formed in 1971 it got an infusion of cash for new cars and locomotives. It’s time for a second infusion.
• Third, let’s develop rail “hubs,” just like airlines have hubs.
If you could take a 120 mph train from Chicago to every major city around it — St. Louis, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Indianapolis — would we need a Peotone airport?
This kind of short-distance, high-speed routing would be quicker than driving and possibly beat air travel.
Freight railroads, which host Amtrak, need financial inducements to give the passenger train priority over their own merchandise trains.
Imagine a day in Chicago three years from now:
You could hop a Bloomington-Normal Public Transit bus, drive your car or even bike on Constitution Trail to the new multimodal center. At the appointed time, a sleek, silver train glides into the station.
After comfortably taking your seat, two hours and 15 minutes later you are in downtown Chicago. You watch the cars backing up on I-55 as you near the city.
After conducting business, shopping or a museum visit, you are on the train back to Bloomington-Normal.
Your seatmate is a commuter, who works in Chicago three days a week, but otherwise lives in Bloomington-Normal. They like our community and have bought a home here and invested. They can do it because the train can whisk them easily to the Loop.
Wow, doesn’t that sound so 21st century? Wait, this is the 21st century! A little political will and effort and this could be a reality.
First we have to make a commitment to balanced transportation and realize the steel wheel has a place in that picture.
Mike Mateka works for the Great Plains Laborers District Council, edits the Grand Prairie Union News and serves as Bloomington’s 2nd Ward alderman. He is a railroad historian who always looks up every time a train passes by.