(The Charleston Gazette published the following editorial on its website on July 24.)
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — No one expects the nation’s highways to operate as a profit-making business. At every level of government, funds are set aside without question for the maintenance of existing roadways and for building new ones. Why, then, do Americans hold railroads to a different standard?
Each time an appropriations bill comes up in Congress, a predictable chorus picks up the self-righteous refrain: Amtrak doesn’t deserve to exist because it costs money to run. Each year, it seems, the beleaguered system gets the same dispiriting message from many Congress members: We’ll give you just enough money to limp along for another year or two, but if you don’t get your act together fast and start operating as a business, that’s it.
But never, in the history of American railroads, have passenger trains operated at a profit. As America expanded westward, the government subsidized railroads that brought new settlers to populate the land. Profits were in freight, not people. Always were, even in the days when train travel was the only form of long-distance transportation.
In 1971, in an effort to create a transitional structure for the waning railroads, Amtrak was born. No one expected it — or the passenger railroads themselves — to last. They were meant to die a genteel death, supplanted by air and automobiles. To guarantee it, Congress decreed that Amtrak should operate, like the automobile industry, as a business. Amtrak, however, had some handicaps the auto industry didn t share.
For one thing, Amtrak is expected to maintain and upgrade its own tracks, while the government generously subsidizes the infrastructure for car travel. Without generous funding from the federal government, the interstate highway system would still be a wistful blueprint.
When Americans travel to Europe or Japan — countries with efficient, clean, reasonable passenger rail service — they return filled with admiration, wondering why America can’t do likewise. But no government in Europe expects its public transportation to make a profit. As Amtrak’s then-president, George D. Warrington, told Moody’s Investor Services back in 2001: “In terms of per-capita spending on passenger rail, the United States is not only far behind such giants as France, Britain, Canada and Japan, it actually ranks among such poor countries as Estonia and Tunisia. Most First World countries view their trains as an obviously useful and necessary service. Like roads.”
For those who scoff at railroad boosters and view train service as an anachronism that survives only because of a combination of misplaced sentimentality and pork-barrel politics, here’s a two-word argument: Sept. 11.
In the days after the disaster, with the airways shut down, many Americans rediscovered rail travel and were grateful that an alternate form of transport was available. Amtrak reported its revenues went up 40 percent in the following week.
Despite the huge disparities in funding, Amtrak’s passenger revenues grew by 26 percent between 1997 and 2001. In 2000, the federal government s investment in highways amounted to $33 billion, while $12 billion went into aviation. Passenger rail received approximately a meager half-billion, adding up to less than 1 percent of all federal spending on transportation — and that doesn’t include the emergency bailout of $15 billion Congress gave the airlines after the terrorist attacks.
A House transportation subcommittee approved an Amtrak budget earlier this month of $580 million for 2004. The Bush administration requested $900 million, and Amtrak itself believes it needs $1.8 billion just to continue at today’s level. Amtrak officials warn that without that amount, more services will have to go.
America without rail travel would be a more vulnerable society. If Amtrak must cut back, cities like Charleston, off the lucrative East-coast routes, will be vulnerable to losing their passenger rail service.
Anemic funding fulfills the prophecies of the anti-rail lobby, forcing Amtrak to shrink routes and charge more for the unsatisfactory service it still provides. Travelers are not impressed; sympathy for the railroads’ plight wanes further.
The solution isn’t to starve Amtrak into oblivion. The United States can afford a decent rail system and can do better than to offer its citizens the kind of service they might expect in Tunisia.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., has been a faithful supporter of Amtrak and will have a voice in this fight when the Senate resumes in the fall. We hope that body will undo the House’s mischief and restore Amtrak to the health it deserves.