(The following column by Lyle V. Harris appeared on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website on July 16.)
ATLANTA — Across the country, the overall use of public transportation has shown considerable gains. According to the American Public Transportation Association, an industry trade group, Americans took more than 10 billion trips on buses and trains in 2006, the first time that’s happened in nearly 50 years.
The strongest growth in ridership was for “light rail,” which includes streetcars and trolleys, the likes of which have been proposed in Atlanta for the Peachtree Street Corridor and the Belt Line. Some cities with existing light rail systems saw double-digit increases in ridership, including San Jose, Calif. (37 percent), St. Louis (16 percent) and Salt Lake City (14 percent).
The ridership for heavy rail, such as MARTA trains, rose about 4 percent. The systems with the biggest increases were Los Angeles (11 percent), New Jersey (10 percent), Atlanta (6 percent) and Chicago (5 percent). Commuter rail systems also had notable increases in ridership, with passenger boardings rising about 3 percent overall.
Even Amtrak, the nation’s perennially underperforming passenger rail service, is attracting new riders and, more important, new investment. Despite intractable delays and other service problems, Amtrak has had a steady uptick in ridership for each of the last four years. Amtrak serves about 800,000 passengers during weekdays, mostly in the heavily traveled Northeast corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston.
Last week, Amtrak officials announced they had struck a deal with GrandLuxe Rail Journeys, a private company that will pay an undisclosed amount to retrofit ordinary coach cars with mahogany interiors and baby grand pianos and spoil passengers with five-course meals, butler service and other high-end amenities. Tickets for the service, which will start in the fall, will cost $789 to $2,500 for a two- or three-day trip.
In addition to earmarking $1.5 billion next year to keep Amtrak rolling, Congress is examining the untapped potential of high-speed trains that could travel in excess of 90 mph.
Fourteen high-speed rail corridors have been proposed, including a line connecting Atlanta to Washington. Preliminary environmental impact studies for the Southeast high-speed line are under way.
In a recent hearing of the House Transportation Committee, chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) complained the U.S. had “regressed instead of progressed” compared with Europe and Asia, where high-speed trains capable of going faster than 100 mph have complemented commercial air travel.
Amtrak’s luxury service isn’t slated for Atlanta; high-speed rail connections could still be decades away, at best. Meanwhile, more practical local rail initiatives are getting a much-deserved second look.
The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce has just hired a consulting firm to study the viability of commuter rail projects in the region. More than a decade ago, the Georgia Department of Transportation had identified promising commuter rail lines, but the agency has failed to launch any of them. The chamber expects to have the study completed by mid-September.
Rail alone can’t solve all our transportation problems, of course. But as the economic and environmental consequences of our car-centric lifestyle become more acute, rail travel is poised for a timely renaissance.