Wrong train of thought

By Adrian Walker, Globe Columnist, 6/24/2002

A few weeks ago, traveling from Pennsylvania Station to South Station, I watched the Connecticut coastline fade into dusk from a train window. Though the Acela I was aboard was nearly full, the journey was something travel seldom is anymore - peaceful.

I was part of a trend, the people who've opted to traverse the Northeast Corridor by rail, instead of plane or car. Amtrak now claims 50 percent of the combined air and rail traffic between Boston and New York, nearly triple its share a year ago.

''You give people good, reliable service and they'll come flocking,'' crows rail's leading local cheerleader, Amtrak board member Michael S. Dukakis. ''I don't know of any company in America that's tripled its market share in a year.''

My recent trip came to mind late last week when I read about the Bush administration's proposed dismantling of Amtrak. Apparently, the White House has decided that the rail system is a white elephant that should become someone else's problem.

The argument is a familiar one. In its 31-year existence, Amtrak has been a consistent money-loser, subsidized by taxpayers. That isn't going to change, according to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta. He proposes gradually handing off Amtrak's routes and facilities to a network of regional authorities.

One problem with his idea is that the interstate bodies on which he'd like to palm the nation's passenger trains don't exist. A larger problem is there's no reason to believe that states - grappling with plenty of fiscal problems as it is - want any part of this, gradually or on any other basis.

Besides that, the trains are subsidized to a far lesser degree than the airlines - to say nothing of the federal highway system. If Amtrak is a welfare recipient, what does that make Delta and United? Has everyone already forgotten about the $15 billion handout the airlines got last fall?

But what's really wrong with the idea is its premise that the rail system is a meaningless anachronism. That may be close to true in some parts of the country, where decrepit facilities and equipment have rendered the passenger rail system inefficient since the Great Depression. But it certainly isn't true in the Northeast, where tens of thousands of people ride trains and commuter rails every day.

Sure, there are options. In my home state of Florida, they deal with mass transit by building more and more highways. Not only has this nonstrategy cost billions, it hasn't worked even a little bit. The current big-ticket project is to widen an 87-mile stretch of highway from Tampa to Orlando at a cost of $3 billion. That's more than $34 million a mile.

As Dukakis points out, by the time they're done five years from now, it'll be a parking lot at rush hour. Gee, do you think they'd be better off with a train?

Amtrak's fiscal needs are considerable. The agency is seeking $200 million in loan guarantees. Earlier this year, Congress approved a $521 million subsidy for the beleaguered agency. Amtrak officials say they need another $1.2 billion to operate another year. They say that without the loan guarantees, parts of the system will start shutting down in a matter of days.

Even if you dismiss their doomsday scenario as political posturing, throwing the system into chaos year after year is foolish. This isn't about money, it's about creating the impression of being fiscally tough - even though the administration's other spending on transportation says otherwise. True, the airline bailout was rightly encouraged by their grounding after Sept. 11. But they would have needed a bailout anyway, because major carriers were already losing big money.

Railroads occupy the place they do in our history because they were the first answer to a fundamental problem: How can you move large numbers of people a long way? It's still a problem, and still critical. Trains are still part of the answer.

This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 6/24/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
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