by Paul Holcomb

This article originally appeared in The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area .

Congress Must Adequately Fund Our National Rail System

It's an odd time to get a death sentence. Just as the public's image of passenger trains improved in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Amtrak Reform Council, a Congressionally-appointed oversight board, has recommended that Amtrak be liquidated.

To be fair, most of the critics aren't calling for the end of passenger rail service in the United States. Some, such as conservative Paul Weyrich, are passionately pro-railroad. They simply believe that this particular railroad can't be fixed.

Yet it is disturbing that there is a widespread notion in Congress that this country ought to be able to operate a passenger train service that is free of government subsidies. It will likely never happen. But that's no reason to mothball our passenger trains.

Why do we expect passenger trains to operate with minimal public subsidies while roads and airports are built and maintained with ongoing public support? Annual federal appropriations from the general fund (the best measure of subsidies from the taxpayers) in 1997 totaled $20.3 billion for roads, $8.4 billion for aviation, and only $867 million for Amtrak, or about 2.9 percent of total federal transportation subsidies. As recently as 1982, Amtrak received 7.2 percent of the total.

It is hard to fathom why some members of Congress can get all worked up over the $27 billion in subsidies that Amtrak has absorbed since 1971, while aviation and highways devour more taxpayer dollars than that in a single year.

Are they upset because Amtrak reduces our dependence on fossil fuels? Even with it's fleet of old, energy-intensive engines and cars, Amtrak is 45 percent more energy-efficient than domestic commercial airline service (2,351 Btu's per passenger-mile vs. 4,304.2) and 76 percent more energy-efficient than general aviation (9,825 Btu's per passenger-mile).

Are they disturbed because a significant portion of Amtrak's clientele have modest incomes and its long-distance trains are transportation "melting pots?" The majority of passengers on these trains ride coach. Surveys indicate that of coach passengers traveling over 12 hours, 30 percent have incomes below $20,000.

Are they miffed because long-distance train travel allows us to experience the great beauty of our nation in a comfortable, relaxed environment? Train trips are the perfect antidote to the utilitarian social engineering forced upon us by an excessive reliance on highways and airplanes.

Are they too proud to admit that trains might actually be faster than airplanes for trips of less than 300 miles? In fact, some in the aviation industry have called for greater use of train service to free airport gates now used for short-hop flights, thereby easing congestion and providing more gates for the more- profitable long-haul flights.

"It makes absolutely no sense to restart the shuttles or to have flights under 500 miles when there is train service," said Clark Onstad, former FAA general counsel and aviation consultant shortly after Sept. 11.

Persuasive as these arguments may be, Amtrak's total annual budget remains below $1 billion, and it's mission is complicated by the fact that congress mandated that it be both a passenger carrier and an owner of railroad infrastructure.

In parts of the northeast corridor, "Amtrak is the rail equivalent of the air traffic control system, airport authorities and airlines," said Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers.

Given its meager budget, the result of this arrangement is predictable. Desperately needed infrastructure improvements are pushed back to cover operating costs. For example, on much of the Washington to Boston corridor, the route of Amtrak's new high speed Acela Express, the train reaches its top speed of 150 mph for only 18 miles of the 452-mile route.

The rest of the way, it pokes along -- sometimes as slow as 15 mph -- impeded by obstacles such as the "S" curve in Elizabeth, N.J., where the track snakes around the county jail. Amtrak officials estimate that the corridor between Washington and New York needs $12 billion for new track, stations, overhead wiring, tunnels, bridges and track connections.

In the big picture, that's not a lot of money. The economic stimulus package recently approved by the House of Representatives includes immediate tax rebates for America's largest corporations totaling at least $25 billion. The $1.4 billion rebate check that IBM alone is slated to get exceeds Amtrak's current budget by several hundred million dollars.

No more excuses. The money is available, and the need is urgent. It's time to get on with the business of rebuilding our railroads.