(The following editorial by Jon Talton was posted on the Arizona Republic website on November 20.)
TUCSON, Ariz. — On the same day that senators were hurling their telegenic outrage at profiteering oil executives, Amtrak’s president was fired for being too successful.
In one part of Washington, our elected leaders decry the fat cats who allegedly feed on citizens who must drive everywhere, even in the face of record gasoline prices. Across town, cronies of the Bush administration are working to ensure that Americans have even fewer transportation choices. No way to run a railroad, indeed.
David Gunn seems an unlikely man to be suddenly “released” from his job at Amtrak. He came to the national passenger rail system three years ago as the world’s leading turnaround expert in rail transit. Since then, he has improved Amtrak’s finances, management and physical plant. Ridership has soared. Just two months ago, the board chairman who would fire Gunn told a Senate subcommittee that he had done “a splendid job.”
In other words, David Gunn was no Brownie, which obviously didn’t help him with the White House. Why was he fired? Gunn told the New York Times, “Obviously their goal is, and it’s been their goal from the beginning, is to liquidate the company.”
Extermination is the more accurate term. Behind the talk of “injecting competition” into rail service, the administration would essentially eliminate it for most of the country.
The plan, to use a generous term, would involve breaking off the high-density Northeast Corridor, Amtrak’s lifeblood. Long-distance trains would be eliminated, so Arizona would lose its two highly popular trains, the Sunset Limited and Southwest Chief. Whether trains survived would be left to states already suffocating under costs “devolved” from Washington without the means to fund them. The president signaled his commitment to passenger trains with a 2006 budget that would have provided no funding for Amtrak (Congress didn’t go along).
Behind this is a fetish on the part of some Republicans against rail transportation. I don’t get it, doing away with trains is hardly conservative. Much of the enmity is based on myth and falsehoods. For example, Amtrak has been hounded for years to be self-supporting. But every form of public transportation is subsidized, especially airlines and highways (and highways are subsidized way beyond the money raised by gas taxes). Or the idea that “nobody uses Amtrak.” In fact, Amtrak competes very well against cars and airplanes in the regions with intense service, such as the Northeast Corridor.
But the Democrats have handled the issue little better. When they held congressional majorities, they did little to invest in the rail system. As a result, Amtrak was doomed to failure from its birth in 1971. Now, while they whine about oil profits, environmental degradation and a free pass for the auto industry on fuel economy, Democrats do little to provide an alternative that is well within our capabilities.
That’s too bad, because there couldn’t be a worse time to be neglecting this critical part of our transportation system. Trains appeared to be a nostalgic luxury when Amtrak was created to take over the passenger routes of private railroads. Now they’re badly needed to relieve congestion in our burgeoning urban areas and provide an alternative to an airline dependency that became only too clear on 9/11. Rising oil prices and the inevitable need to reduce fossil fuel consumption because of climate change will only add the pressure for trains.
It’s past time to constitute a 21st-century rail system. It doesn’t require the name Amtrak, or even one system. Indeed, paying subsidies for the private railroads to return to the passenger business might be preferable to the current practice of Amtrak running its long-distance trains on these “foreign” rails. Let’s have real competition.
Meanwhile, the corridor concept, which works so well in the northeast, as well as in California and the Pacific Northwest, should be expanded. Imagine fast, regular rail service between Phoenix and Tucson and Los Angeles. And bullet train programs in such states as Florida and California need to be fast-tracked.
All of this will cost a good deal more than the piddling (in federal terms) $1.5 billion or so that Amtrak now consumes. But there’s no free lunch, or free ride. It cost to build the great railroad system of the mid-20th century, which we then foolishly neglected. It cost to build the interstate highway system, which is hitting its natural limits, if not its obsolescence.
It’s the price of a future worth having, and a bargain.