(The following editorial appeared on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website on June 10.)
MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — Critics of rail who like to argue that people around here just don’t like to ride trains should consider what’s happening with Amtrak’s Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha route. It’s teeming with people and breaking ridership records in the process. Its trains lead the nation in punctuality.
OK. So what’s the problem? Money. As Journal Sentinel transportation writer Larry Sandler reported, the route is caught in a funding squeeze between Wisconsin, Illinois and the feds that could lead to service cuts or fare hikes.
While Amtrak covers fixed costs of the route, such as interest, overhead and depreciation, with federal funds and fares, Wisconsin and Illinois pay for variable costs. The agreement between Wisconsin and Illinois calls for Wisconsin to pick up 75% and Illinois 25%, since most of the riders are from Wisconsin.
But while variable costs for the Hiawatha route are rising, Illinois legislators have frozen their state’s payments. That means Wisconsin would have to make up the difference and, thus, end up with as much as 88% of the bill. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle has proposed doing just that by increasing Wisconsin’s payments by $1.8 million in 2005-’06 and $1.5 million in 2006-’07.
Frank Busalacchi, Doyle’s secretary of transportation, says that because of the link to Chicago, the Hiawatha is worth the extra money. The Hiawatha, he correctly notes, fosters “many economic benefits for southeastern Wisconsin, as well as providing a crucial transportation option for the state’s citizens.”
State Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale) has criticized Illinois for breaking its agreement and says Doyle has capitulated. You can’t argue with Stone on his first point, but his second is open to discussion. If Wisconsin sticks to its guns, as Stone persuaded the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to do this week, and Illinois does the same, something will have to give. And that would be service and/or fares. If that happens, Wisconsinites will feel most of the pain.
The solution? The feds, not Wisconsin or Illinois, should be paying far more of the cost because 1) they have far deeper pockets and 2) as ridership on the Milwaukee-Chicago route clearly shows, passenger rail is a vital interstate service.
Despite what some rail critics would have you believe, passenger trains can’t pay for themselves with fare revenue, not even in Europe. Governments there and in other places, including Asia, recognize that passenger trains are worth subsidizing because of the public service they provide.
If the Bush administration, which doesn’t want to fund Amtrak at all, had the same sense of responsibility about passenger rail, the Hiawatha would be growing, not shrinking.