(The Seattle Times posted the following article by Alex Fryer on its website on September 29.)
SEATTLE — It’s a precarious time for the nation’s passenger rail system.
President Bush wants to dismantle Amtrak, and the House recently passed a spending bill that will force it into bankruptcy, say Amtrak officials. One angry congressman suggested the federal government should buy plane tickets for rail travelers, since subsidies cost more than $300 per passenger on some routes.
Top among those fighting for Amtrak’s survival is Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who says she believes trains provide a critical alternative to cars. Her legislative maneuvering this month added more than $430 million for Amtrak in the Senate transportation bill.
Unless Murray and Amtrak’s other supporters are successful in keeping the extra money in the final bill that goes before Bush, rail stations across the country will begin to shut down, says Amtrak.
Critics don’t believe such dire predictions, contending Amtrak is playing its perennial game of chicken with Congress to eke out more money.
It’s a loud debate, and since Murray became the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate transportation-spending subcommittee in 2001, this state’s senior senator has had an influential voice.
“Her role in the process has been critical to Amtrak’s survival,” said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black.
Formed in 1971, Amtrak is a private company that serves 500 communities in 46 states. The most heavily used runs are in the Northeast.
Despite hopes that the system eventually would be self-sufficient, Amtrak has never operated in the black. It has received $26.6 billion in federal money in its 32-year history.
A Bush administration plan would dismantle Amtrak, leaving states to decide whether to fund local- and long-distance rail service.
Congress has not acted on the proposal, and Murray opposes it, saying states don’t have the money to operate the nation’s rail system.
According to Amtrak statistics, King Street Station in Seattle is the nation’s 15th-busiest, with roughly 580,000 passengers annually. Yet all of the routes through Seattle lose money.
Amtrak estimates that it loses about $15 per passenger on the Vancouver, B.C.,-to-Eugene, Ore., route via Seattle. It loses about $116 per passenger on the “Empire Builder” from Seattle to Chicago. The “Coast Starlight” from Los Angeles to Seattle costs about $79 per passenger.
By comparison, the Los Angeles-to-Orlando route is subsidized at $332 per passenger.
Murray says the level of federal assistance is acceptable. “You cannot have a transportation system that is not publicly funded. I don’t care if you’re talking about airlines or buses or anything,” she said.
“(The plan for self-sufficiency) was a lesson in failure. We asked Amtrak to do something that wasn’t possible.”
This year, negotiations on Amtrak funding went down to the last minute.
On the morning of Sept. 3, Murray met with Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., in the Senate cloakroom to present her funding ideas about Amtrak.
Shelby is chairman of the Senate transportation-spending subcommittee, and they worked closely to put together the $91 billion transportation-spending bill. The bill also funds several government agencies.
Shelby has been a longtime opponent of Amtrak funding, contending the service is too heavily subsidized. He intended to put forth a budget proposal that afternoon that would set aside $900 million for Amtrak next year.
The White House sought the same figure in its proposed 2004 budget. But railroad officials say $900 million would not be enough to run the system.
Murray’s aides scoured the spending proposal, looking for places to divert money to Amtrak, and the cloakroom meeting was the first time Murray presented her proposal to Shelby face to face.
There wasn’t much time to hash out details; Shelby was set to convene a meeting of his subcommittee to pass the spending bill that afternoon. Murray proposed a patchwork of savings to pay for an added $434 million, including cutting nonessential travel and office supplies for federal employees ($128 million), taking money from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and the IRS ($105 million), diverting unspent highway funds ($156 million) and saving rent on government offices ($60 million).
Just minutes before the Sept. 3 subcommittee meeting, Shelby’s office gave word that he agreed to Murray’s proposal.
Murray’s aides were rewriting her statement as she made her way from the Senate floor to the packed committee room where Shelby unveiled his transportation bill.
“This (funding) level is not as high as I would like to see it, but it certainly is a level that is higher than the Chairman (Shelby) would like to see,” she said at the time. “We have gone about as high as we can go in meeting Amtrak’s needs.”
The full Senate Appropriations Committee later approved the bill calling for $1.34 billion for Amtrak. It now goes to the Senate floor. A vote is expected in the next few weeks.
“The Senate hasn’t completed its work, but Sen. Murray has played a central role in keeping Amtrak from getting a shut-down figure,” said Scott Leonard, assistant director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, an advocacy group that supports Amtrak.
Amtrak had a much rougher time in the House.
The chairman of the House transportation-spending subcommittee, Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Oklahoma, proposed only $580 million for Amtrak. Istook is also opposing a $500 million federal grant for Sound Transit’s light-rail project.
The House eventually passed a bill that included $900 million for Amtrak, but not without critics taking to the floor to blast the service.
“They want taxpayer money for their long-term, capital investments because they have handled their system so poorly that they find it difficult to attract private dollars,” said Istook. “We should not accept their ‘sky is falling, Chicken Little’ arguments.”
Another Republican congressman, Thomas Tancredo, said with as many people walking to work as taking the train, “It makes as much sense for Congress to subsidize Nike sneakers as it does for them to subsidize rail service.”
Murray will be part of the House-Senate conference convened to hammer out a final transportation-spending bill. Istook will also take part in the conference.
And that sets the stage for another congressional showdown over Amtrak.
“Amtrak has said that the funding level approved by the House will cause bankruptcy,” said Murray. “Whether House members can get Istook to move to the Senate number, we’ll just have to wait and see.”