(The following report appeared on the Albany Democrat-Herald website on July 30.)
ALBANY, Ore. — In a departure from the last few legislative sessions, this year there was no last-minute nail-biting over the funding of state-supported passenger trains in the Willamette Valley.
That’s because starting this month, Oregon buyers of custom license plates are helping to pay for the operation of one of the two daily trains that stop in Albany on their round trips between Eugene and Portland and points north.
On the strength of mostly Democratic support, the legislature passed a bill (HB 2982) that channels income from the sale of the custom plates into a new passenger rail account for the Department of Transportation.
The plates cost $50 for two years, and the income is expected to total $4.3 million, nearly enough to pay the $4.5 million Amtrak charges for running one of the trains, according to Kelly Taylor, administrator of the ODOT Rail Division.
The custom plates used to pay for litter pickup, a program that will continue with support from the general fund._
Taylor requested the change after promising legislators in 2005 that a different way of paying for at least part of the train operation would be proposed. The rest of the $10 million two-year train budget still comes from the general fund.
The state pays Amtrak about $9 million over two years to operate the two trains. The passenger rail budget also supports a number of “Amtrak Thruway” bus connections.
The Oregon Cascades trains counted 102,031 passengers in 2006, up 2.9 percent from the year before._
Ridership keeps rising. Last month, the state reported 8,977 train riders, up nearly 10 percent over June 2006. During the same month, ridership on the Amtrak buses rose nearly 16 percent to 3,130.
Cascades trains stop in Albany three times daily in each direction.