(The Palm Beach Post published the following editorial on its website on August 4.)
PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Bush’s idea of running the nation’s passenger rail corporation like a business is on a collision course with the ideal of national intercity rail service. Congress, the switchman at the crossroads, will have to determine whether Amtrak’s network of inherently unprofitable routes finally will get the federal support without which no rail system runs or get broken up into the haves (routes that run through districts of key lawmakers) and have-nots.
“There’s now a sense of urgency in Congress that wasn’t there before,” said Amtrak Vice Chairman Michael Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts. That was a year ago. Since then: Restoration of service along the Florida east coast north of West Palm Beach has been on hold; Amtrak President David Gunn has scrounged to provide maintenance and operate current routes; and Amtrak’s 1971 charter promise of eventual self-sufficiency has continued to prove a mission impossible. None of Amtrak’s routes is generating a profit — not the popular Auto Train from Sanford, northeast of Orlando, to Lorton, Va., nor the busy Northeast corridor from Washington to New York and Boston.
So last week, the Bush administration proposed a six-year transition, during which Amtrak would be dismantled into a network of regional railroads run by private companies. Though Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, a senior member of the House transportation committee, called that a good reform proposal, it isn’t if trains don’t connect efficiently across state lines.
On a better track is Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. “The reason that Amtrak is always coming up short and running to the Congress to say, ‘We need more money,’ is because we have starved them to death,” says Sen. Hutchison. Her bill, which has support from other Republicans outside the Northeast corridor, provides Amtrak the $2 billion in annual operating subsidies it needs but also calls for issuing $48 billion in bonds for repairs and track construction.
Sen. Hutchison is correct that Amtrak “has been a stepchild in the national transportation system,” given government investment in airlines, airports and highways. Now that Amtrak officials have been joined by others saying it’s time to stop pretending that the nation’s railroad can be self-sufficient, the focus should go toward better integrating that system rather than breaking it up.