(The Utica Observer-Dispatch posted the following article by Bill Farrell on its website on May 12.)
UTICA, N.Y. — Calling Amtrak a “resource-starved” agency, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New Hartford, said he supports its efforts to obtain nearly $1.8 billion in federal aid through 2008 for infrastructure improvements.
“If we want to have a viable rail system, government’s got to give (Amtrak) the resources it needs,” Boehlert said, pointing out that rail travel is more energy efficient than other modes of transportation and “friendly to the environment.”
Boehlert, senior member of the House Transportation Committee who has sat in on numerous hearings on rail passenger service over the years, said he’s written to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee about the need for Amtrak funding.
“We’re not where we want to be,” he said.
While the Albany to Buffalo corridor of the rail system is always in need of money for operations and maintenance, Boehlert said there is no great need for an infusion of money into the Utica-Rome area to make the service faster or safer.
“The problems are not in our area,” he said.
Boehlert has obtained millions of dollars in federal money to help renovate Utica’s Union Station and to build an enclosed pedestrian walkway from the station to the trains.
Interviews with passengers waiting to board trains at Union Station indicate that while they do have complaints about Amtrak, the complaints had less to do with the need for infrastructure repairs than with improvements in service.
“I just wish I could check in this luggage,” said Theresa Halkovitch of Yorkville as she was preparing to board an Amtrak to New York’s Penn Station, then take another train south to visit her daughter and family in Jacksonville, Fla., for Mother’s Day.
Halkovitch rides the rails twice a year to visit family. There have been times, she said, when the train approached her station but never announced it — not a good thing if you’re in the middle of a conversation with another passenger.
Other than that, she said, her trips have been fine. There was one trip five years ago when she was coming back to Utica from Poughkeepsie in July and the air conditioning was off. “But they refunded my money,” so she had no complaints.
Lons Dale Fredericks, who’s studying for a master’s degree in accounting at SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica-Rome, calls Amtrak service “miserable.”
That comment came soon after he was told that the train he expected to board at 8:50 a.m. wouldn’t be leaving Union Station until 10:30 a.m. He bought his ticket online several weeks ago.
“There’s almost always some kind of delay, usually 10 or 15 minutes, but it’s never been this delayed,” the Brooklyn resident said. He would have taken another train out at 9:56 a.m., but his luggage was already checked in, and he was told it would be arriving in New York on another train, so he’d have to wait anyway.
Despite Amtrak’s flaws, Fredericks said he thinks Congress should approve the agency’s request for the $1.8 billion.
“It’s always good to have a rail system as a different method of transportation,” he said.
Amtrak figures show that ridership in Utica dropped to 47,402 during the fiscal year ending last Sept. 30, after being at 51,403 for the same period a year earlier.
Throughout the Empire corridor (New York to Buffalo) as a whole, ridership dropped from 614,454 between October 2001 and April 30, 2002, to 592,009 during the same period a year later, a decrease of 3.7 percent, said Dan Stessel, spokesman for Amtrak in Washington, D.C.
“It’s due to ongoing economic unrest, the threat of war with Iraq, the ongoing war with Iraq and the fear of terrorism,” Stessel said.
He said it’s important for Amtrak to get the funding it’s requesting.
“We argue we haven’t gotten adequate funding in recent history to reverse the trend of infrastructure decline before it impacts rail operations,” he said.
Fredericks suggested that Amtrak consider bringing its fares down as a way to attract more riders and boost revenues.
“They should do a cost-benefit analysis,” he said. “Their revenue stream isn’t strong enough to cover costs and this is why they have to turn to government for money. It’s a shame that this country has a rail system in such desperate need of money.”