U.S.
May Lose ALL Passenger Rail Service!
Amtrak's new president David Gunn announced that unless the carrier
received a $200 million emergency loan, Amtrak would be forced to
stop running ALL service, not just the long distance trains. A
complete report from the Washington Post.
Please contact your congressional representatives and senators
immediately.
A more expansive listing of Kansas and Missouri U.S.
representatives can be found here.
I would also recommend a brief telephone call to Senators' aides
in their local offices. It only takes a few minutes to do. It
could have an impact.
I have sent e-mail messages plus called my senators' local
offices and briefly urged them to support proper funding of
Amtrak. I also urged them to reject
Sen. John McCain's anti-Amtrak amendments to the
Supplemental Appropriations Act.
You can find local office numbers for Wichita, Topeka and other
areas in Kansas and Missouri through the senators' web sites.
In the Kansas City area:
KANSAS
Sen. Sam Brownback 913-492-6378
Sen. Pat Roberts, 913-648-3103
MISSOURI
Sen. Jean Carnahan, 816-421-1639
Sen. Kit Bond, 816-471-7141
I found my contacts with legislative aides positive.
-Doug Ohlemeier
Vice President, MOKS Rail
PLEASE WRITE YOUR
ELECTED OFFICIALS!
THE TIME IS
CRITICAL!
White House idles on Amtrak crisis
The Bush administration and Congress has remained uncertain about
what should happen to Amtrak. Only at the last minute, as if it
had crammed for a test the following day, did the administration
announce its Amtrak reform plan. On June 20, Transportation
Secretary Norman Mineta announced a plan requiring states to pay
more for Amtrak service.
In other words, kiss the long-distance trains, the ones that
serve the majority of the U.S., goodbye. The so-called reform
plan, a code word for gutting Amtrak, involves reducing Amtrak to
corridor-only operations. That is, passenger train service to
only limited areas, such as Chicago-St. Louis, Los Angeles-San
Diego and the money-losing Washington, D.C. to New York and
Boston route. In other words, glorified commuter runs.
Passenger rail supporters should write the president, Secretary
of Transportation Mineta and their congressional representatives.
Tell them that dismantling this nation’s passenger rail
system- at a time when all transportation modes are being
strained due to increases in travel and increasing congestion-
would be a terrible mistake.
Amtrak, despite its many faults and past management mistakes, is
carrying more passengers than it has ever carried. 23 million
Americans took Amtrak trips in 2001
America has a passenger rail system comparable to Third World
nations. Amtrak should be expanded and reformed, not
downsized. That’s all Amtrak has been for the past years
– downsized. Every time an administration or Congress came
along that wasn’t favorable to Amtrak, management was forced
to cut service due to not receiving proper funding. This is a
dilemma that the nation’s air travel system, which has
received increasing amounts of taxpayer subsidy, has never had to
face.
Amtrak already provides short-distance passenger rail
service to the nation’s leading corridors. Most
of these corridor trains are funded by states – which should
properly fund such localized and glorified commuter trains. On
the other hand, it is the federal government’s
role to provide infrastructure funding for national, intercity
passenger trains, as the federal
government does with Interstate highway construction and airports
and the FAA’s expensive air traffic control system.
This country has long had an imbalanced transportation funding
system. Amtrak has been attacked for receiving $25 billion in
subsidies since its 1971 founding. Critics overlook the fact that
highways annually receive $30 billion in federal assistance. In
the year 2001 alone, the airline industry, which received $15
billion in addition to its yearly $15 billion appropriation,
received more taxpayer money than our nation's rail passenger
system has received in 30 years.
Write Your Elected Officials
Please tell your elected officials how you have taken Amtrak
trips for pleasure and business. Please state how passenger train
travel – unlike the cattle-car airline service – is a
comfortable and relaxing alternative to the increasingly crowded
Interstate highway system and delay-plagued air travel system.
Please urge our leaders to fix– not destroy- America’s
passenger rail system. Please work to provide funding for a
system that better serves the need of the traveling public.
Addresses of Kansas and Missouri congressional representatives
and the president and secretary of transportation can
be found here.
FOR UPDATED
LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT
http://www.narprail.org/hot.htm
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