(The following story by Stephanie M. Peters appeared on the Rutland Herald website on January 24, 2009.)
RUTLAND, Vt. — Public forums that this week gave Amtrak supporters opportunities to speak out against the Douglas Administration’s proposal to convert the Ethan Allen Express from passenger rail to bus service left more questions lingering in the air than they provided answers.
From state subsidy figures to the finer details of how the “premier coach” bus service would be operated, the public pointed to what they perceived as a lack of forethought and a shortage of publicly disseminated information about the plan.
Posed with many of these questions Friday, representatives from the Agency of Transportation assured that this proposal hasn’t been “taken lightly.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time on this,” said John Zicconi, the agency’s communications director. “The object is not to give shoddy service to the people who are affected. We understand all of Rutland’s concerns and what we’re trying to do is provide a service that takes care of the needs of Rutland.”
According to Zicconi, the service will entail once-a-day in either direction, Amtrak-provided premier coach bus between Burlington and Albany. The bus is planned to depart Burlington around 7 a.m., and then make stops in Middlebury, Rutland, Manchester and Bennington before connecting to Amtrak train service in Albany. Later in the day, it will pick up Amtrak passengers in Albany traveling in the opposite direction and return to Burlington by about 7 p.m.
This proposed route represents a change from the one the Ethan Allen currently takes from Rutland to Fair Haven and into New York, where it stops in Fort Edward, Saratoga Springs and Schenectady before reaching Albany. In 2008, those New York stops accounted for about 28,000 passengers of Ethan Allen’s 46,881 total ridership — a point that has caused some confusion in recent weeks as the state has focused on the number of passengers who either board or depart in Rutland or Fair Haven. In 2008, the state placed that number at 18,931. Using the fiscal instead of the calendar year, Amtrak has placed the 2008 ridership at 19,314.
Robert Ide, rail director for the agency, said he broke down the ridership, and with it the subsidy the state pays per rider, this way at the request of the House Transportation Committee. He presented the information to the committee Wednesday afternoon, prior to a public hearing before the committee at the State House.
“I think what they were trying to see, for whatever reason, is how many Vermont riders they’re affecting here, people getting on or off in Rutland or Fair Haven,” he said. “At a previous meeting, Chairman (Richard) Westman said that he really had no interest in the riders between Saratoga Springs and Schenectady.”
With a state subsidy of $1,276,662 and a ridership of 46,881, in 2008 the per-passenger subsidy for the Ethan Allen was $27.23, according to Ide. By comparison, in 2008 Vermont paid a subsidy of $36.66 for each rider of Amtrak’s Vermonter, which services the eastern corridor and does not face the budget scalpel.
When the state began considering the viability of converting the Ethan Allen to a bus service, Ide’s division partnered with Amtrak, which operates services similar to what’s being proposed in other regions of the country, to formulate cost and ridership projections, Ide said.
Although a bus company has not been contracted to provide the service, Amtrak has projected the cost of a contract to be about $686,000 with an additional $86,000 in other expenses. It also projects ridership of 25,900, which will generate $645,000 in revenue, according to figures Ide presented the House Transportation Committee. If those figures prove correct, the average subsidy for passenger on the bus service would be about $5.
What if ridership were to actually exceed the one bus the service currently calls for? Through the technology of online, advanced ticketing, whenever a bus reaches a level of 85 percent reserved, the bus company will automatically be told to dispatch an additional bus that day, Zicconi said.
There are still many unknowns in the plan, however, that won’t be ironed out until the Transportation Committee makes a decision in the next few weeks, including whether the bus service would continue to use Rutland’s train station, whether it will be possible to obtain a ticket by way of a station kiosk or at-home printing or how pricing will work when riders have the ability to get on or off at points in between Burlington and Albany. If the plan is adopted, however, the state will have 60 days to implement it, according to Ide.
One thing he is insistent about – this proposal would only be a temporary conversion to coach bus service.
On Thursday, the Douglas Administration released its proposed budget for fiscal year 2010, which overall features a $59 million – or 14 percent – increase for the Agency of Transportation. Included in the $475.5 million budget is $20.1 million for rail – a $3.6 million increase over the current year’s budget.
While the proposed budget doesn’t find the funds for the preservation of the Ethan Allen Express, instead budgeting for the service under the proposed bus plan, money has been budgeted for rail upgrades on the western corridor between Rutland and Burlington. If additional federal stimulus dollars can be procured for the project, Ide said the state will direct those funds to that stretch and shift its money toward improving the rail on the western corridor south of Rutland in the hope of shortening the period of temporary bus service.
To those who claim that Amtrak equipment will immediately be reassigned if the conversion is made, Ide adds that it’s been the intention of the state to purchase its own equipment, which would allow it to operate a train at a much lower cost. He’s spoken with vendors as recently as last week and may soon take a trip to Canada to view equipment, he said.
“We have never in any way indicated that we were committed to anything but extending rail service through the entire western corridor,” Ide said. “This substitute proposal is a step toward achieving that while saving dollars in the short term.”