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C-SPAN Poll on Amtrak Funding
Monday, October 29, 2007
As the Senate debates S.294, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act that would reauthorize Amtrak, C-SPAN has a poll on its CapitalNews web site asking, “Should Amtrak receive federal funding?” So far, over 1100 respondents have voted, with “Yes” leading “No” by a margin of 74% to 26%.
While this is not a scientific poll, we encourage you to vote and show your support for passenger rail and parity in transportation funding!
Most importantly, please contact your Senators’ offices by telephone tomorrow after 9 AM Eastern time. The Senate should move to a final vote on S.294 by tomorrow, and Wednesday morning at the latest. As was the case last week, the message to your Senators continues to be: Please support S.294 and please vote against any other anti-passenger rail amendment that is offered, especially amendments to cut funding or add micromanaging language to the bill. Press reports today indicate that Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) may offer an amendment to reinstate the disastrous “Self-Sufficiency” language from the 1997 Amtrak reauthorization. (S.294 specifically eliminates this requirement.)
—Matthew Melzer
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Full Text of NARP President Op-Ed in Charlotte Observer
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Why no national train grid?
Federal government inaction blocks creation of nationwide rail service
FOR THE RECORD (Op-Ed)
The Charlotte Observer
Posted on Wed, Oct. 24, 2007
http://www.charlotte.com/409/story/331575.html
From George Chilson, president of the National Association of Railroad Passengers:
The opening of Charlotte’s south light rail transit line next month is one of the nation’s most impressive municipal efforts to give people travel choices that conserve energy, combat congestion and address global warming.
Combined with commuter rail services planned for Charlotte, a strong commitment to pedestrian- and transit-friendly real estate development, and existing and planned intercity train services, the new light rail service symbolizes Charlotte’s emergence as one of the nation’s most livable areas.
Every American city should have a system as comprehensive and coordinated as the one Charlotte will have. Gasoline is approaching $3 per gallon and likely to rise further in the long run. Runways and roadways are more clogged than ever, and getting worse. Study after study predicts crippling gridlock at airports and in the skies, and the American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials anticipates that, by 2020, 90 percent of urban interstates will be at or above capacity. Beyond the local and national concerns are the increasing worries that all those idling cars and planes are hurtling us toward irreversible climate change.
Department of Energy figures show that planes burn 20.5 percent more energy per passenger-mile than Amtrak (a passenger-mile is one passenger carried one mile). And, due to high altitude emissions, planes’ climate change impact is double or triple that of Amtrak’s, depending on length of trip.
The National Association of Railroad Passengers, whose board is meeting in Charlotte beginning Thursday, has laid out a vision for change that would connect Asheville, Hickory and Wilmington to a “grid and gateway” passenger train system networking across America, vastly expanding service between Raleigh, Charlotte and points beyond (including a direct Charlotte-Charleston connection). The major terminals would connect long-distance, commuter and high-speed train services, creating a networked grid connecting the Triad, Triangle and other major cities across the southeast and mid-Atlantic.
The beauty of NARP’s vision is that it is achievable. Almost all the rail lines or rights of way in our vision are already in place. Routes were chosen based on demonstrated demand—either from Bureau of Transportation Statistics data or from demand indications in the establishment of new air routes or roadways.
In fact, not only is NARP’s vision achievable, work has begun in North Carolina and across the country to provide multiple options for short-, medium- and long-distance travelers. Other states with notable intercity passenger train programs include California, Washington, Illinois, Wisconsin and Maine.
What’s keeping the network from happening everywhere? The federal government has failed to demonstrate leadership and commitment to funding an integrated national passenger train system. This shortsightedness has left us with too few passenger trains, serving too few destinations—almost two-thirds less service than America had in 1971 before Amtrak started.
North Carolina and some other states have tried to fill the void, but have been hampered because the federal government provides no matching funds for intercity passenger trains, unlike for highways, urban transit and aviation. It will take federal leadership and funding, in partnership with states and railroads, to create a national passenger train grid. What if President Eisenhower 50 years ago had left interstate highway planning and funding to the states?
For The Record offers commentaries from various sources. The views are the writer’s, and not necessarily those of the Observer editorial board.
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Tracks are for trains!
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Late Monday night, northbound Amtrak Crescent train 20 struck an unoccupied automobile at a grade crossing in Greer, SC. What makes this story remarkable is that the disoriented driver did not escape until the last minute, when she was coaxed out by a Greer Police Officer who happened to pass the crossing. And it was all caught on the dash-mounted camera of the police cruiser. Here’s the astonishing video of how the events transpired, courtesy of Greer PD, via WYFF-TV:
The driver was apparently lost—and distracted by cell phone use. She might be a prime candidate for education by Operation Lifesaver, whose volunteers work tirelessly to fulfill the education aspect of OL’s mission of “ending tragic collisions, fatalities and injuries at highway-rail grade crossings and on railroad rights of way.”
Remember: Tracks are for trains! Stay away and stay alive!
—Matthew Melzer
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Capitalism Guide Author Responds
As a follow-up to our last entry, I can assure you that while author Bob Murphy ostensibly responds to the criticism of his one-sided attack on Amtrak, Murphy artfully dodges any points of substance.
Quoting his own book, Murphy repeats one of the most bunk but oft-repeated talking points against Amtrak:
On one of its worst lines, the Sunset Limited connecting Los Angeles and Orlando, Amtrak lost $433 per passenger. Your tax dollars would have been saved if the line had been scrapped and Amtrak’s customers given plane tickets instead.
Ignoring the fact that per-passenger loss is a meaningless figure relative to actual transportation output, and that the Sunset by virtue of thrice-weekly operation has fixed overhead costs allocated to far fewer operations than most routes, the real foil to Murphy’s canard is that there is little or no commercial air service between many of those cities and to other destinations in the Amtrak system where connecting passengers are headed. Even if there were, according a study cited by the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, 90 million Americans are unable to or refuse to fly. “Let them eat cake” is an irresponsible policy, especially with the coming demographic tidal wave of aging Americans who will be compelled to give up driving or flying.
Even if everyone could fly, I suspect the necessary private charter between Lordsburg, NM and Lake Charles, LA would cost a bit more than $433 per passenger.
But Murphy claims piousness on aviation subsidies:
Of course I oppose subsidies for airlines and every other form of transportation. Indeed, that’s precisely why air service is so annoying.
Great, then I trust that Murphy would be willing to mitigate the effects of a heavily-slanted playing field that has given private commercial aviation an enormous advantage over the past half-century. The only logical way to do that is to make up for lost time in developing other modes, not a pie-in-the-sky dream of walking away from any more subsidies for anyone and expecting the free market to work.
Alas, in Murphy’s world of “subsidies for me, but not for thee,” Amtrak is supposed to be held to a standard not applicable to any other mode:
But now let’s get to the real lesson. In a market economy, a firm will stay in business only if its revenues cover its costs. To a true socialist, this criterion of the “bottom line” is an entirely arbitrary one corresponding to nothing “real.” But the good economist recognizes that this is the market’s way of channeling scarce resources into the most desired ends.
...
If Amtrak can’t turn a profit because “costs are too high,” that simply means that other entrepreneurs are willing to bid more on those same resources than Amtrak can afford to pay. And that means that the customers of those other firms are willing to spend more on those respective products than they are willing to spend on the services of Amtrak.
What it actually means is that the costs of intercity passenger transportation—especially on the capital side—are so great, with such little return, that a market failure comes into play, with no private investors willing to meet the societal need for strong infrastructure. Japan was able to privatize operation of its immensely popular passenger rail operations only after an $80 billion public capital outlay, and substantial tax breaks.
But obviously Amtrak is just giving away the store:
Clearly the people who ride Amtrak benefit from the subsidies: They are able to get their service at a lower price.
In fact, Amtrak charges what the market will bear (except in the few places where states subsidize the fares). Mr. Murphy might not realize that a peak Acela Express ticket between Washington and New York can reach over $300, competitive with air shuttle fares. The biggest hindrances Amtrak has had to operating in a businesslike fashion have been decades of year-to-year funding that has left the organization unable to engage in strategic long-term planning, and politically-based micromanaging language in the annual appropriations bills that have forced questionable business mandates on Amtrak.
And clearly the people who don’t ride Amtrak but pay taxes lose from the whole scheme: They pay taxes for something that they never use.
By that logic, I eagerly await to have my federal taxes not support any more expansions or maintenance of I-24 or I-40 in Murphy’s hometown of Nashville. Hey, it’s my money, right? Subsidies for me, but not for thee?
In a short piece like this I naturally can’t get into all the technical economic arguments.
That would be because there are none, Mr. Murphy.
—Matthew Melzer
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Capitalism Guide Ignores Inconvenient Truth About Transport Subsidies
Thursday, October 11, 2007
In an otherwise glowing review of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism,” Editor David Kinchen of the Huntington News Network (WV) takes author Robert Murphy to task for myopically singling out Amtrak as a wasteful excess of the public purse:
What about Amtrak and why does Murphy hate it so much? On pages 128-30, he says that Amtrak benefits from generous federal subsidies, while providing no service to major cities like Nashville (where he lives), Phoenix and Las Vegas. He makes the outrageous statement that few people use the intercity trains like my beloved Cardinal line and that Amtrak an example of pork that should be abolished. Yes, abolish Amtrak, however limited its service is, and we’ll be worse than a Third World country, at the mercy of airlines that delivered the most miserable service in their history this past summer, according to official statistics and news reports.
Dr. Murphy, sir, I know you can’t board a train in Nashville as I can in Podunk, er, Hinton (Pop. 2,800), but the nation as a whole – especially those of us living in areas far from major airports—benefits from Amtrak service. Furthermore, the train was packed in both directions with smart consumers who don’t want to do the airport strip-tease or spend all their traveling money on gasoline and parking fees once they get to the big city.
Founded in 1971, after the failure of capitalism in the form of private ownership of rail service, Amtrak is well worthy of the relatively meager federal subsidy it receives. Nobody loses his or her luggage on Amtrak, because there is no checked baggage! The train attendant on my recent trip warned us about keeping an eye on our belongings. And what about the EAS (Essential Air Service) subsidies for small airports like the ones in Beckley, Bluefield and Lewisburg, which Dr. Murphy doesn’t mention. Yes, Dr. Murphy, we subsidize airports, too.
Indeed, Amtrak Cardinal service in West Virgnia, while marginal by many standards, provides a lifeline for the region. It represents one of many ways Amtrak provides for mobility needs in rural and urban America, at a bargain to the taxpayers.
More importantly, a true self-described conservative or libertarian wishing for less government intervention in any market would naturally call for a level playing field. Decades of bias on the federal level towards direct and hidden subsidies for aviation and roads have placed passenger rail and other modes of transportation at a distinct disadvantage, and have hamstrung state governments wishing to diversify their transportation investments.
It’s a myth to say that current transportation outcomes reflect the Invisible Hand; they reflect market distortions of the worst kind, courtesy of Uncle Sam.
—Matthew Melzer
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David Johnson, Married Man
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Dave and Amanda (photo by Taisie Berkeley)
NARP Assistant Director David R. Johnson and Amanda M. Bechtel, were wed at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on October 6. Culminating a four-year courtship, Amanda and Dave were joined by family from across the country, friends from around the world, and, of course, by the entire NARP staff. The reception was held at the Phoenix Park Hotel, across the street, naturally, from Washington Union Station. In 2003, Amanda and Dave met through a mutual friend (who Dave had originally met on a MARC commuter train). However, shortly thereafter, Amanda moved to Milwaukee to earn her Masters of Science in Art Therapy from Mount Mary College while Dave lived in DC and continued to work at NARP. Amanda returned to the area last year, becoming an Art Therapist in suburban Baltimore. The happy couple were reunited. Dave proposed on December 19, 2006 while they celebrated Christmas early. Since then, they both worked extremely hard (and presumably lost plenty of sleep) to plan their wedding. Fortunately, the ceremony and festivities were executed beautifully, and a grand time was had by all. The NARP staff wish Amanda and Dave a successful marriage and much happiness. Congratulations to both of you! —Matthew Melzer
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Congestion, Highways, and Transit
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Some critics of transit, and especially rail, argue that “reducing congestion” is a main reason for building rail transit. When they see that congestion isn’t reduced, or isn’t reduced noticeably, they then attack transit as wasteful. (They ignore building new roads as a failed strategy for reducing congestion.)
The real justifications for rail transit are:
- (1) to give individuals the choice of a pleasant ride instead of a nerve-wracking drive;
- (2) to give developers an incentive for transit- and pedestrian-friendly development;
- (3) to add substantial capacity to the transportation system—thereby facilitating economic development—with minimum use of land and minimum environmental damage.
While road congestion certainly has an economic cost, it can also be seen as indicative of a strong economy; conversely, a devastating recession would reduce congestion. The other ways to reduce congestion are: (a) severe congestion pricing on roads; (b) massive commitment to transit and transit-friendly development. The latter is probably essential before the former could be politically doable.
Conclusion: it is a classic “straw man” argument to say that eliminating or dramatically reducing congestion is a (or the) main justification for introducing rail transit. Some transit critics use this argument to get their readers to ignore transit’s real benefits.
—Ross B. Capon,
NARP Executive Director
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