(The following article by Sylvia A. Smith was posted on the Fort Wayne News Sentinel website on June 17.)
WASHINGTON — Hoosiers who prefer to travel by train rather than by car or plane would lose all their options under legislation Congress is considering. The line that Fort Wayne residents catch to go to Chicago or the East Coast is on a list of proposed cuts, as are all but a few of the 14 routes that originate in Amtrak’s Chicago hub.
Chicago is the closest Amtrak hub to northeast Indiana.
Members of a House subcommittee voted to cut all Amtrak lines that require federal subsidies of at least $30 per passenger per ride. The Capitol Limited, which runs between Chicago and Washington, is subsidized at $165 per passenger. The closest Capitol Limited stop to Fort Wayne is Waterloo.
Sixteen routes have subsidies of $30 or more per passenger. In addition to the Capitol Limited, the Hoosier State from Indianapolis to Chicago is on the elimination list. Its subsidy is $116 per passenger.
“Thirty dollars sounds like a lot unless you figure out that we subsidize other methods of transportation, too,” said Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd.
More than half of the routes the House subcommittee wants to eliminate originate or end in Chicago, including lines that go west (to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle), south (to San Antonio and New Orleans) and east (to New York, Boston) and north (to Pontiac, Mich.).
The subcommittee chairman said states could allocate money to keep the lines running.
President Bush proposed killing Amtrak in his 2006 budget proposal, suggesting the train service should be taken over by a for-profit, private business. Instead, the subcommittee voted to allocate $550 million, less than half the $1.1 billion Amtrak received this year.
A $550 million budget would be the same as killing Amtrak, said president and chief executive officer David Gunn.
“It can’t run a single train from point A to point B – not on the Northeast corridor and not anywhere. The practical impact of $550 million in federal support would be the same as zero funding for Amtrak, and (lawmakers) know it,” he wrote in a letter to employees.
The only lines that are profitable run along the East Coast. But Dunn said Amtrak couldn’t operate only those lines.
Historically the Senate has been more supportive of Amtrak than the House, and the rail line’s advocates hope the Senate will insist that Amtrak’s budget be restored.
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta issued a statement saying the subcommittee’s action “sends the same signal as that of the administration: Amtrak must reform.”
Souder said he has “real concerns” about the proposed Amtrak reductions.
On the other hand, he said, “they’ve degraded service so much to our district, I’m not sure that many people use it anymore. We have to come up with a long-term rail strategy. I’ll investigate and see how much it actually impacts the district versus how much it actually saves the taxpayer.”
The Capitol Limited had 180,800 passengers in 2004, less than 1 percent of Amtrak’s total ridership. The 16 lines on the elimination list had nearly 4.9 million passengers, 19 percent of the 25.2 million riders.
Four routes from Chicago – to Milwaukee; to Quincy, Ill.; to St. Louis; and to Carbondale, Ill. – lose less than $30 per passenger and so are not on the elimination list.
Amtrak’s only money-making lines are a Washington-to-Boston fast train and a route between Washington and New York. Together, they account for nearly 12 percent of Amtrak’s total passengers. The most subsidized line – at $304 per passenger – connects Los Angeles to Orlando. It had 96,400 passengers last year.