(The following Associated Press article was published in the January 6 issue of the Seattle Times.)
EUGENE, Ore. — Although most of the travel industry is moving at barely a crawl, ridership on Amtrak’s Cascades regional line connecting Eugene to Vancouver, B.C., is chugging along just fine.
The number of riders increased on the line for the second straight year in 2002.
About 577,000 riders used the service last year, a 3 percent increase from 2001, when train travel rose dramatically nationwide after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast.
The Eugene-to-Portland section saw just a 1 percent increase from 2001, with about 120,000 trips, said Bob Krebs, intercity passenger-rail coordinator for the Oregon Department of Transportation. The trip costs about $20.
But any increase is welcome, Krebs said.
“We’re pleased, with the way the economy’s going, that we’ve maintained a marginal increase this year,” he said.
During the Amtrak Cascades run from Eugene to Salem on Friday, a few business travelers could be found, along with those heading north to visit friends.
Also aboard were a lot of people who just don’t like to drive.
“If it wasn’t for the train, I’d lose my job,” said Neal Terry, a mechanic who commutes by train from Salem to Springfield. “My boss thinks I’m crazy,” said Terry, who likes his graveyard shift, and the pay, too much to look for work in Salem.
So every night he hops on the train and heads south, then returns the next morning to greet his wife, and often some of the couple’s eight children, at the stately, 85-year-old train station in Salem.
The fate of federally supported Amtrak still is up in the air. In 1997, Congress gave it a five-year deadline to become self-sufficient or liquidate. But then Congress infused Amtrak with about $500 million in 2002 to keep it from going bankrupt, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon said Friday.
The success of the Cascades run, launched in 1993, is proof that Congress should support Amtrak, DeFazio says. The service is operated by Amtrak, but Washington state owns two of its five trains and Oregon owns one.
Both the House and Senate most likely will revive debate on whether to OK a long-term federal package to save Amtrak. “We’re in the middle of a pitched battle to save the national rail system,” DeFazio said.
DeFazio, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, recently showed his colleagues numbers from the Northwest, as compared with the rest of the nation, “and they were astounded,” he said.
In the Northwest, people have a strong interest in finding alternative transportation sources, DeFazio said.