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Vote on S.1516 next week; defeat three bad amendments!

Friday, September 15, 2006

Debate and a vote on S.1516 has been pushed back to the middle of next week. Please read details about three bad anti-Amtrak amendments that will be offered when the bill is considered at our Action Alert Center. Your Senators need to be told to vote NO on both Sununu amendments and the Sessions amendment. A detailed description of why each amendment is bad is also available on our website. Contact your Senators!

-Dave Johnson

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NARP President on DOT nominee

Friday, September 08, 2006

I commend the Bush Administration for nominating Mary Peters to lead USDOT. Her comprehensive vision of transportation makes her an excellent choice.

I had the pleasure of working with her when she was director of the Arizona Department of Transportation. I found her to be smart, creative and action oriented as well as open minded and willing to listen. I was most impressed by the fact that she had a strong belief in multi-modal transportation.

I believe she understands that rail will become an increasingly important component of our transportation system as we confront the dual challenges of intractable congestion and rising oil prices. Rail represents a strategic solution that will help preserve America’s mobility, quality of life and competitive position in a global economy as we adapt to new realities.

If confirmed as Secretary of Transportation by the Senate, she will have an important opportunity to broaden the scope of federal transportation policy beyond its traditional emphasis on highway & air transportation. Her talent for finding common ground among competing and diverse interests makes such an important change possible.

There is increasing recognition that public investment in rail infrastructure is essential just for freight railroads to maintain their existing market-share, much less increase it as most Americans including DOT officials would like. Maintenance and growth of rail’s market share is critical for maximizing safety, fluidity and energy efficiency of our national transportation system, and for minimizing that system’s environmental impacts.

The Alameda Corridor in southern California and the CREATE project in Chicago are happy exceptions to an overall pattern of federal non-involvement in rail infrastructure investment. Railroad trackage in the New Orleans area has needs similar to those in Chicago. One of Peters’ challenges will be to make critical investments in rail the rule rather than the exception. We look forward to working with her on this.

If Mrs. Peters succeeds in finding ways that incorporate rail within the scope of federal transportation policy and planning—as I believe she will—her appointment will prove to be a transforming event that will serve the American people well for generations to come.

—George L Chilson
NARP President

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Comments on Criticism of NARP by Joseph Vranich et al

A number of long-time critics of Amtrak put out a September 5 news release, which included a letter to the NARP Board of Directors, and a note promoting Joseph Vranich’s latest anti-Amtrak book. This diatribe contains several factual errors and misrepresentations, as discussed below.

(1) It is true that NARP has a contract to provide administrative support for Amtrak’s Customer Advisory Committee. This was reported in our July 1996 newsletter when the committee was formed, and has been reported to the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure in their “Truth in Testimony” form when I have testified there.

(2) The contract is break even for us, so it is not accurate to characterize Amtrak as a contributor to NARP.

(3) We billed Amtrak for $34,464 in 2005, not the $42,000 stated in the letter. The amount we billed represented about 3.5% of our gross receipts for the year, but—as noted in (2)—was used to provide the services for which Amtrak contracted.

(4) The issue of this contract has not arisen in any discussions by the NARP board or staff about whether to criticize Amtrak on any issue.

(5) It is false to say that “NARP has opposed any form of ‘privatization,’ contracting-out, competitive franchising or devolvement of any portion of Amtrak’s system.” Indeed, NARP’s statements this year to the House and Senate appropriations committees implicitly endorsed outsourcing the same aspects of mechanical work that major freight railroads outsource.

(6) Far from being “little more than a cheering section for Amtrak,” NARP has opposed Amtrak service cuts, policy changes, fare increases, among other issues that adversely affect passengers. We routinely disagree with Amtrak and offer constructive criticism to improve service; these expressions frequently are made privately. Given the hostile climate Amtrak has often faced, there have been times when it appeared that public criticism would backfire and be used to fuel attempts to shut down the system.

Note: The release was sent to the media before it reached NARP. Mr. Vranich e-mailed me on September 6: “This attached message [release+letter without book promotion] was intended to get to you several hours prior to the public release of the letter. As you can see in the attachment, it didn’t go through because it was mistakenly sent to NARP at a .com instead of a .org. I regret the error.”

—Ross B. Capon
NARP Executive Director

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Heritage Foundation at it again

Ron Utt of the Heritage Foundation has issued another anti-Amtrak diatribe. One new element in his pitch is an unfounded attack on S. 1516, the bipartisan rail passenger reauthorization bill. Utt says S. 1516 would “interrupt the management and operational reforms now underway, or promised, by Amtrak’s new management” and “limit the extent to which Amtrak could engage in such promising reforms as competitive contracting, concessions, and public/private partnerships.”

In fact, S. 1516 incorporates many of the statutory reforms that Amtrak sought to advance its strategic reform initiatives. They include:

a federal capital matching program for state investments in passenger rail (Sec. 301);
provisions that would specifically authorize (not limit) competition on both long distance and state supported routes (Secs. 211, 218);
provisions to improve on-time performance of Amtrak trains on tracks of host freight railroads (Sec. 209);
provisions that would facilitate (not limit) public-private partnerships (Sec. 301);
NEC cost sharing provisions that eliminate current disparities in what different users pay (Sec. 214); and
authorization to the Secretary of the Treasury to restructure Amtrak’s debt where restructuring will reduce federal funding requirements (Sec. 215).

Utt makes clear what has been obvious to many: he would dump all long-distance trains. He says “a good place to begin would be the Sunset Limited” but continues “this should be followed by the Silver Service.”

This makes the true intentions of anti-Amtrak pundits clear: killing the entire national network.

-Ross Capon

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First-Hand Take on DOT Appointee

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Mary Peters is a very strong rail supporter. I first encountered Ms. Peters at a meeting of the Arizona Department of Transportation [which she headed], where she said that the Department would find a solution to buying the West Line. Shortly afterwards, she was appointed to her first position in the federal government. Unfortunately, her successor did not share the same enthusiasm for railroads.

(Ed Note—The “West Line” is the Phoenix-Welton line formerly used by the Sunset Limited to access downtown Phoenix. Its early 1990’s downgrade by Union Pacific forced the Sunset onto a parallel route that passes 30 miles south of Phoenix.)

I was not surprised by the appointment. She is a solid Republican, and as far as I know she has no baggage that has ever surfaced. She had considered running for governor, but I think she made a wise choice not to do that now, because the Democratic incumbent (Janet Napolitano) is very popular. Peters would have won the primaries but would have had a tough race to win the Governor’s race.

All in all, I think we may have a Transportation Secretary that may have a positive and unbiased outlook on passenger rail, which may be the best thing that has happened to us. Additionally, the current Administration is in need of positive press, so finding a good way to operate Amtrak in an efficient manner may be one remedy the doctor prescribes.

I would encourage all State ARP’s and individuals to write the President and to Ms. Peters, congratulating both of them.

—Michael Garey (of Peoria, Arizona)
Member of the NARP Board

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DOT Nominee Seen As Positive Step

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

President Bush deserves credit for appointing Mary Peters, a respected transportation professional, as DOT secretary. He also deserves credit for doing it now, since there had been much talk that a new DOT secretary would not be appointed until after the election, when it would be known which defeated Republican needed a nice job. While Mineta issued a congestion paper in which the word “rail” was not mentioned, Peters pointedly mentioned rail yesterday: “We are experiencing increasing congestion on our nation’s highways, railways, airports and seaports and we’re robbing our nation of productivity.” Peters, currently national director for transportation policy and consulting at HDR Inc., an Omaha-based architectural, engineering and consulting firm, had been Federal Highway Administrator. Before that, she headed Arizona DOT. In the past, she has made positive impressions on both NARP and Amtrak people.

—Ross Capon

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STB’s New Chairman Might Be Good News for Amtrak On-Time Performance Issues

The Surface Transportation Board got a new member and chairman when President Bush made the appointment and designation on August 14: Charles D. Nottingham. He had been the Federal Highway Administration’s Associate Administrator for Policy and Governmental Affairs, but he served from 1999 to 2002 as CEO of the Virginia Department of Transportation. In that capacity, he gained some familiarity through Virginia Railway Express with issues involving CSX handling of passenger trains. This could be good for the issue of Amtrak on-time performance. The previous chairman, W. Douglas Buttrey, seemed to readily accept CSX and Union Pacific arguments that, well, really, they were doing the best job they could of handling Amtrak trains. Nottingham has the advantage of being appointed just before receiving detailed rebuttal letters from Amtrak Acting President and CEO David Hughes. Fortunately, Nottingham is not handicapped by quickly having written a letter to NARP (as Buttrey did) accepting CSX and UP’s arguments, and that he has that Virginia experience.

Hughes in his two letters (one dealing with CSX and one with UP) noted that some other railroads “indicate that when Amtrak is running on time, it is a sign their network is functioning well. Operating Amtrak on time is not a zero-sum game where other traffic must suffer if Amtrak does well.” Hughes also noted that “none of the capacity investments specifically cited in CSXT’s letter is on lines used by Amtrak,” and that “UP’s efforts have been ineffective in reducing slow orders faster than new slow orders have appeared.”

The best news of all would be enactment of S.1516, which explicitly gives STB powers regarding Amtrak’s legal right to priority dispatching.

—Ross Capon

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