PITTSBURGH — Rail passenger service in Pennsylvania is not going to go away soon, according to an editorial by Jeremy F. Plant in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The commonwealth boasts the second- busiest Amtrak station in the country at 30th Street in Philadelphia; all or part of two designated high-speed rail corridors — the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston and the Keystone Corridor between Philadelphia and Harrisburg (with extension to Pittsburgh); solid support in state government for financing rail improvements and entering into public/private partnerships to improve passenger service; and a coalition of public and private support for the newest rail technology, Maglev, in Western Pennsylvania.
In recent months, the financial woes of Amtrak have put the future of the federally sponsored rail passenger corporation in doubt. Amtrak was required by the provisions of the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997 to achieve financial self-sustainability by Dec. 2, 2002. To oversee its progress, the bill provided for the formation of the Amtrak Reform Council, a bipartisan, independent federal commission.
The ARC has concluded that Amtrak will not achieve self-sufficiency under the provisions of the act, and recommended that the National Rail Passenger Corp., which now operates Amtrak and owns its real property infrastructure, be divided into two subsidiary entities — one to operate the trains and the other to manage the real property side of the business.
Under the plan recommended by the ARC, NRPC itself would become more of a headquarters operation, contracting with the private sector or state governments for rail operations. While the ARC acknowledged that Amtrak was gaining ridership and revenues, it continued to build up debt, and saw no way it would gain financial self-sufficiency.
Amtrak’s response was to ask for $1.2 billion dollars in federal grants for the 2003 fiscal year, and to cut back drastically on expenses this year. While much of this affects the work force and maintenance levels in the short run, the big news was its intention to eliminate unprofitable long-distance runs (generally those not in the high-density corridors designated for high speed rail service) by Oct 1, 2002.
This would affect Amtrak service in Pennsylvania dramatically. West of Harrisburg, service might conceivably cease if the two current daily trains each way are among those jettisoned. Communities rich in railroad heritage, notably Altoona and Pittsburgh, might no longer have intercity rail service.
It is less likely that service on the Keystone and Northeast corridors will be so direly affected. Probably the most important development in rail passenger service since the 1990s has been the growing partnership between Amtrak and state governments.
States have seen rail passenger corridors such as the Harrisburg-Philadelphia Keystone Corridor as a way to mitigate traffic congestion and highway fatalities, stimulate economic development, invigorate older downtown sections of online cities and meet the demands of a growing body of riders who demand safe, dependable and environmentally friendly transportation.
Even states with little prior history of supporting rail — notably California, Florida, Washington and Texas — have shown increasing support for rail passenger service.
They know the reality of the transportation situation in high-density corridors: demand is increasing, while the capacity of highways and airports remains relatively fixed, with severe environmental, fiscal and political constraints making the old formula of building more or bigger roads infeasible. The rail corridors are underutilized for the most part and can increase capacity by adding more service.
(A modern rail corridor can easily handle a train with a capacity of 1,000 riders on an hourly basis each way.)
Pennsylvania will likely continue to negotiate with Amtrak for improvements to the Keystone Corridor that have been planned for a number of years. The more difficult issues will arise if the commonwealth is forced to subsidize the lower ridership of the runs west of Harrisburg.
It will face a tough choice: allow rail passenger service to die in a major portion of the state, or accept high levels of subsidy for operations that may have less potential to achieve major social and economic results as in the denser corridors. If the recommendations of the ARC are followed, it is likely that the state will contract with the NPRC to run trains on the corridors or be part of a more complicated contracting-out approach involving NPRC and contract operators.
In any event, don’t count out passenger trains in Pennsylvania. There is far too much investment, real and potential benefits, and demand for service for the network of Amtrak lines east of Harrisburg and west and south of Philadelphia to lie silent.
Straddling two major high-speed corridors, Pennsylvania may benefit if a better alternative to the present Amtrak system comes out of the current dilemma, or if the nation’s leaders realize that rail passenger service is the only feasible solution to the problem of growing demand and static capacity in the other major transportation modes.
Jeremy F. Plant is professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg.