(The Toledo Blade posted the following editorial on its website on June 17.)
TOLEDO, Ohio — Across the world, from the United Kingdom through Europe to Japan, travelers are whisked to their destinations on trains that carry them with efficiency and in some degree of comfort, depending on which class of travel is chosen.
There usually are opportunities to have a bite to eat, whether from a sit-down menu or a sandwich counter. And at the end of the trip, the train will glide into a station conveniently located near the center of the destination city.
It’s an every-day, matter-of-fact experience. But in this country, getting up to speed on train travel is more difficult than sending explorers to Mars. High-speed service is restricted to small corridors, and transcontinental travel may attract tourists but is no competition for cheap air travel.
Instead of looking to boost rail transit, lawmakers seem intent on slowly squeezing the life out of it. Last week the U.S. House Appropriations Committee signed off on a devastating cut of almost a third in Amtrak’s federal funding, from $1.3 billion to $900 million, as part of a transportation bill.
Amtrak also would be required to cut spending on food and drink service, and first-class services – exactly the facilities and services that ought to be made more readily available to make train travel more comfortable and attractive to new passengers.
Amtrak has its problems. Passengers in this region know that arrival and departure times sometimes appear to be little more than an educated guess. A recent journey from the Detroit area to Chicago took around 12 hours because of sundry delays.
Such horror stories of inconvenience, delay, even the well-publicized derailments are an almost insurmountable image problem for Amtrak. Wedded to their cars, despite gas at over $3 a gallon, most Americans still won’t let the train take the strain.
President Bush should be taking the lead in promoting travel that can be espoused as environmentally friendly and energy-saving; that might reduce congestion on some highways, particularly in urban areas, and be a legitimate competitor to the airlines on some routes.
But instead, he asked for the cut in the federal subsidy of Amtrak.
Perhaps that should have been expected from big oil’s best friend in Washington, but it is nonetheless disappointing.
While Amtrak could certainly be more efficient, and this country’s very size makes more difficult matching the standard of other countries’ rail systems, savaging its budget is counterproductive.
Encouragement and incentives to increase efficiency, and improvement in rail infrastructure are the better way to go. When rail travel can establish a reputation for comfort and on-time performance, there will be people out there waiting to ride the rails.