The New York Times is a fine newspaper, but it has its blind spots. Its reporting on energy is often incomplete or downright wrong. The latter sin was not in evidence when it finally reported on the popularity of Amtrak. What's frustrating is what the article left out or left unsaid, which makes it harder to achieve some results beyond our transportation system frozen in 1965 (and we had more trains then).
From the article:
Amtrak set records in May, both for the number of passengers it carried and for ticket revenues — all the more remarkable because May is not usually a strong travel month.
But the railroad, and its suppliers, have shrunk so much, largely because of financial constraints, that they would have difficulty growing quickly to meet the demand.
And:
The problem is that rail has shriveled. The number of “passenger miles” traveled on intercity rail has dropped by about two-thirds since 1960, and the companies that build rail cars and locomotives have also shrunk, making it hard to expand.
Only late in the story is a glancing reference made to Amtrak's fate being tied to the whims of the federal government, and late late in the story the Times admits their boy crush President-elect McCain "was a staunch opponent of subsidies to Amtrak when he was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee." Indeed he wants to abolish it.
Let's fill in some of the blanks so Americans might have some options beyond expensive and congested driving, and airlines that treat passengers like cattle.
Amtrak was created by the government in 1971 to preserve a national rail system. Private railroads could no longer afford passenger trains. Since then, the system has struggled under successive budget cuts and demands that it "make a profit" and become "self-sustaining." Europe was never under any such delusion, so it has the world's best train network. What's so sad is that as late as the early 1960s, that title belonged to the United States.
In fact, few if any transportation systems can stand on their own, and certainly not weather the increasing demands of Wall Street. Thus, since deregulation, the airline industry has lurched through one crisis after another. And this atop a host of hidden and not-so-hidden subsidies. More about that in a moment.
A couple of pieces of history are worth pondering. First, America's railroad system in the 19th century was built with a huge amount of government intervention and support, at the state and federal level. This was especially true of the vast land grants given to the western railroads. It's a myth that the railroads were works of rugged individualists in an unfettered market. Second, Washington might have done better in 1971 to have simply paid the private railroads to maintain service (and continue the mail contracts mostly canceled in 1967). The point: private-public partnerships built the rail system from its inception.
Our free-market churchmen have sold us a bill of goods. Freeways weren't built by elves, and airports weren't erected by tree nymphs, and all of this paid for by "the hidden hand." From the 1920s on, government used tax dollars to build roads and airports, vastly accelerating the pace and scale with the Interstate Highway System begun in 1956. Meanwhile, it taxed railroads at confiscatory levels. Thus, this vast and now largely urbanized nation deliberately used public policy and public dollars to limit its transportation options.
That might have seemed defensible when gasoline was cheap and 130 million fewer people lived here. (Even now, every car ad shows the vehicle speeding down an empty street or highway -- the American dream of mobility -- instead of the reality of clogged streets, long commutes, road rage, dirty air and climate change). Now those decisions seem tragically, if not criminally, short-sighted. In the future, the need for rail -- more fuel efficient and greener than cars and planes -- will only grow.
Amtrak has long been a political hostage. Arrayed against it are many Republicans (though not all) and free-market ideologues, but, more potently, the vast lobbying power of the automakers, roadbuilders, oil companies etc. Each year of inadequate funding has caused service to suffer, and critics create a self-fulfilling cycle of "failure." This, again, as most advanced nations have leaped ahead with high-speed trains and extensive service. Switzerland even penalizes trucks, essentially forcing that freight onto rail, to ease congestion and be more green.
Congress appears to have a veto-proof majority to begin improving Amtrak funding. There's a years-long hole to dig out of. We especially need to focus on expanding service in dense corridors and between large pairs of cities. The existing corridors -- Northeast, Midwest, West Coast and even the single train from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City -- are wildly popular and effective. Long-distance trains should be maintained; we need a national system and rural communities depend on them. And we should move ahead quickly on high-speed rail. Whether this is all Amtrak, the private railroads, regional systems or a hybrid of all this doesn't matter, as long as we return to leadership in rail transportation.
Who will pay for this? We the people, as we always (really) have, contrary to myth. There's a role for the private sector, but only as a partner. We don't need to make Amtrak a rail version of our pathetic airlines. Success will mean jobs and transportation options worth far more than the investment to make the trains run on time.
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