(Bloomberg News circulated the following story by Angela Greiling Keane on December 6.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. should spend $353 billion through 2050 to expand intercity passenger rail service and ease highway and airport congestion, a transportation advisory panel urged.
The investment would help create routes between cities such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and Cleveland and Cincinnati, according to a report today from the panel, part of a federal commission studying the future of U.S. surface transportation.
Even spread over 42 years, such a sum would dwarf the U.S. subsidy for Amtrak, the national passenger railroad, which received $1.3 billion in the last fiscal year. President George W. Bush wants to cut spending to $900 million in fiscal 2008.
“You get the same type of request from people doing military hospitals and food and drug safety reviews,” said Stanley Collender, managing director of Qorvis Communications in Washington and a former congressional budget analyst. “It’s one of a gazillion domestic functions that are going to have to compete for dollars that are increasingly hard to find.”
Expanding the U.S. passenger rail system would help the environment by curbing emissions from autos and airplanes, and accommodate a growing number of aging travelers who will prefer rail to flying or driving, the report’s authors said.
`Extremely Expensive’
Such a shift also would be difficult, the authors said. “Passenger rail must find capacity on freight rail lines; infrastructure is extremely expensive; and added to this challenge is the inclusion of commuter rail in the mix,” they wrote.
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is leading the full commission. Department spokesman Brian Turmail said Peters “will review this and all other reports submitted to the commission for consideration.”
Wisconsin Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi, who chaired the rail panel, said he hopes the report will mobilize voters to push Congress and the White House to fund “a big and bold plan, on the scale of construction of the interstate highway system.”
“We understand the philosophy of some people in the administration, but they’re not going to be there forever,” Busalacchi said.
Price of Inaction
“The price of not acting, the price of not going down this path, is probably significantly greater than the price tag you see here today,” Amtrak Chief Executive Officer Alexander Kummant told reporters today in Washington, where he joined the report’s authors at a news conference.
In most of the U.S., Amtrak operates on freight rail lines owned by Union Pacific Corp., Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. and other large U.S. railroads. Amtrak has its own tracks between Washington and Boston and near Chicago’s Union Station. Burlington Northern Chief Executive Officer Matt Rose, a commission member, wasn’t part of the rail panel.
Separate rail networks for moving people and freight may be needed if the U.S. opts to boost passenger service, said Peggy Nasir, a spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads in Washington, which includes Amtrak and freight carriers.
“Piggybacking on freight rail assets will not give us the best passenger rail system or one that is the best for passengers or one that is competitive with air and auto,” Nasir said.