(The following editorial was posted on the Saratogian website on April 12.)
SARATOGA, N.Y. — Imagine if the government demanded that the cost of maintaining federal roads become the responsibility of the states and the drivers. The toll hike on the New York state Thruway would seem like nothing. Tolls would be added and increased all over the country, including on the local federal highway, Interstate-87, better known as the Northway.
It won’t happen because the public wouldn’t stand for it.
The public shouldn’t stand for unrealistic expectations of the national passenger rail system, either.
Amtrak is a system with problems. But President Bush’s proposal to stop the federal government’s $1.3 billion subsidy, break up the railroad and dump the headache on individual states raises a whole new set of concerns.
Saratoga County and the entire Capital Region has a vested interest in a working rail system. Amtrak had more than a million riders go through the Albany-Rensselaer station in 2004, according to an Associated Press report: 903,000 between Albany-Rensselaer and New York City, and 348,000 to points west of Albany. They brought in more than $51 million in ticket revenue.
That includes plenty of business travelers in addition to people traveling for personal reasons. If you’ve checked out airfares within the state and out of Albany, you know that Amtrak is quite competitive.
Although some states without question have more rail service than others, the national passenger railroad should still be considered a federal entity and funded as such.
Railroads are expensive — an estimated $2.5 billion is needed over the next five years just to upgrade its busy Northeast Corridor. The federal government should not dump the cost on the state. And expecting a multitude of states to jointly oversee railroad service is too cumbersome and unwieldy.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York puts it plainly: ‘We subsidize roads, we subsidize airlines by building airports. How do they expect passenger rail not to be subsidized?’
If one train company can’t make money, how will individual lines? Rather than split Amtrak and create competing train service, let’s just have one that works.