Consider Total Transportation Options
Include Increased Funding for Passenger Rail

By Thomas McCann

In the wake of the horrific terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, our airline system shut down. NOTHING flew. A look at any air traffic control screen showed no vast sea of electronic traces, each displaying an aircraft aloft.

If you were stranded here in the U.S. or abroad, unable to fly home, or on business, or on vacation, you know full well what it was like to scramble for alternate transportation, or not scramble at all and resign yourself to staying in place until the planes flew again.

But when the airlines had to shut down, another form of intercity transportation kept right on going. Amtrak - our sometimes creaking, often much maligned, always inadequately funded national rail passenger system -- ran when the airlines could not.

Amtrak added cars to many regional and national trains. It honored the airline tickets for many stranded air travelers seeking to use it to get from one place to another. It provided a special train to the American Red Cross to carry emergency supplies and personnel from Washington to New York.

Amtrak trains ran full; Amtrak trains ran late, including circumstances when they were slowed for security reasons; but the bottom line is that they RAN.

The airline industry, reeling from its losses, subsequently received $15 billion in emergency funding from the Federal government. Make no mistake; the airlines should get help. They are an integral part of our economy and our national transportation network, and to not assist them in this time of crisis is to set them up for massive failures that have already rocked our economy in the past weeks and threaten to do so in the future.

However, we must finally understand that passenger rail is also an integral part of this national transportation network. Railroad lines reach every corner of our country. Passenger trains, from workaday commuter runs to the sleek new high speed Acela trains on the Northeast Corridor, carry millions of people daily.

Amtrak's daily ridership in the first week after the attacks increased an average of 20,000 a day, from 60,000 to 80,000. Nearly eight months later, it continued to carry larger than normal crowds.

Yet Amtrak continues to survive on a paltry appropriation from Congress - paltry, that is, compared to the billions provided to the aviation and highway interests through their trust funds and through the largesse of the federal government.

For the 2001-2002 Fiscal Year, Amtrak was expected to operate with a $521 million appropriation, all while aviation and highway spending increased significantly more. And Amtrak was threatened with dismemberment and privatization because a partisan "reform council" decreed that it could not meet a Congressionally-imposed self-sufficiency deadline.

Now, the Bush administration wants to completely eliminate federal funding for Amtrak in the 2005-2006 Fiscal Year, leaving it entirely dependent on operating revenues or state support. Such a move would decimate our intercity rail passenger network when we can least afford to do so, and it would fly in the face of the record 25 million passengers who rode Amtrak in the last fiscal year.

The events of 9/11 have shown us the absolute need for an integrated transportation system that uses all forms - rail, air, highway, water, etc. - to complement one another.

Think about it. With tighter security already implemented at our airports and more on the way, many people have changed their minds about flying. The tragic events of September 2001 have made others fearful of flying, lest they too wind up as unwilling pawns on an airliner suddenly transformed into a guided missile.

We have the opportunity and the resolve to help correct some of the inequities of our transportation network. We must fund Amtrak at a much higher level, to help it improve its system, add new routes, acquire new equipment and improve its business structure.

We must urge our elected representatives to support initiatives at the national, regional and state level to create high-speed rail routes and improve existing networks.

Legislation to establish and maintain high speed rail lines and improve existing rail routes is before our Congress. We must urge its prompt approval and implementation. And maybe now is the time to seriously think about sharing highway trust fund money, or to set up a trust fund specifically for passenger rail.

Many of the air corridors that suffered were shorter ones connecting smaller, regional cities, or routes such as the East Coast air shuttles. These are areas that passenger rail can serve best.

We can and must also integrate transportation modes so, for example, a passenger flying into a major airport need only walk down the concourse, pick up his or her bags, and board a commuter train to arrive home, or a high-speed intercity train to continue the journey.

Many European cities do this, and do it quite well. Yet of all the major airports in the U.S., only three -- Baltimore-Washington, Newark and Milwaukee -- have stations located on main passenger rail routes. And even here, you must transfer to a shuttle to get to the terminal.

Philadelphia, Pa. and South Bend, Ind. are the only U.S. airports that have regular train service to and from the terminal concourses; both are served by commuter rail lines. Several others, such as Portland, Ore., San Francisco, Calif., Atlanta, Ga., New York JFK, and the O'Hare and Midway airports in Chicago, Ill. have light rail or rapid transit lines into their main terminals.

The events of 9/11 have opened up our eyes to many things. Improving our total transportation network should and must be up toward the top of the list.

Thomas McCann is a freelance web site developer, transportation writer and passenger rail advocate from Gresham, Ore.