Good news from Washington and Oregon, not-so-good news from New York and Florida, and more subsidies for automobile use, both explicit and disguised.
Good news: The Canadian customs agency has cleared the way for the long-awaited second daily Amtrak round-trip from Seattle to Vancouver, a route with high ridership potential.
Bad news: Due to New York State’s severe budget shortfall, Amtrak’s Adirondack, one of the most scenic routes in the US, may be in jeopardy. Despite Amtrak’s stated interest in maintaining the service, the state (which provides $5 million each year for its operation) has only guaranteed enough funds to operate the train until Sept. 30 of this year. The Adirondack represents a crucial link in the national system, connecting one of Canada’s largest cities to Albany and New York City, and by connection, to Boston, Chicago, Washington and other points. It also shows a great potential for higher ridership with modest trip-time improvements. If you live in New York State, be sure that your legislators and Governor Paterson’s office know that keeping the Adirondack running is a priority, even with limited resources.
Vermont journalist Caroline Abels would like to take the train from Vermont to Florida, but the schedules don’t quite work for her, a sad condition experienced by even the staunchest rail advocates. But she remains hopeful: “Vice President Joe Biden, who used to commute ... on Amtrak, could be a real advocate for trains in Congress. But so must we.” She calls on readers to become activists and organize for expanded service, which is precisely NARP’s raison d’etre.
The United States isn’t the first country to offer its residents incentives to trade in older cars for new ones. European and Asian predecessors to our “cash-for-clunkers” program have given a significant boost to car markets (French new-car registrations went up by 7.1% in June), and many are pushing their respective governments to continue the incentive. Meanwhile, the US car scrappage plans amounts to a very generous subsidy to automakers (and, by extension, to car travel) with very little impact on overall fuel economy and emissions, given that an improvement of as little as 2 miles per gallon qualifies a consumer for $3,500 in taxpayer money. At least some of the other countries with such schemes are balancing them with significant outlays for alternatives to the automobile.
Another, largely-unreported, auto-related general-taxpayer subsidy looms, according to “independent pension consultant” John Ralfe. GM’s restructuring has left in place pension plans for both hourly workers and salaried employees. Thus, the “new [GM] is still liable to fund the huge pension deficit, so its pension problems will continue,” Ralfe writes in the Financial Times. “As long as GM’s pension plans continue, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) remains on the hook to insure them.” He calls GM’s government-backed pension plans “a hidden transfer of $3.5 billion a year from the federal government, backing the PBGC, to GM’s 670,000 plan members.”
While we mourn the loss of the monorail engineer who died on Sunday, it’s a good time to think about what it means that the Walt Disney World monorail is the ninth most-used “rapid transit system” in the country and how experience with it shapes people’s expectations about public transportation.
LCL: Transportation for America (and NARP) applaud the completion of the first rail transit vehicle in decades to be assembled in the US by an American-owned company and hope that the continued growth of rail and transit networks keeps generating American jobs; British Prime Minister Gordon Brown makes electrifying rail lines a key point in his green initiative; the sale of Amtrak’s 30-year-old Turboliners is symbolic of the company’s handicapped condition; and as Amtrak moves towards paperless ticketing, a reminder to be careful with your tickets.
I decide to check out one of Amtrak’s competitors in the Northeast.
Perhaps not surprisingly for someone in my position, I almost always prefer to take the train when given the choice. This past Saturday, however, for a day trip to New York City from Washington, I decided to take a ride with one of the many motorcoach companies that compete with Amtrak along the Northeast Corridor. I had heard good things about these buses and wanted to see for myself how they compared to the trains to which I am accustomed.
The main factor that draws so many riders to motorcoach services—each bus I rode was completely full—is price. The bus fare that I paid, $25 each way, was about half of what the lowest Washington-New York fare would have been on Amtrak’s Northeast Regional—$49 one-way under the current promotion, which would have required booking a ticket at least three weeks in advance. For $50 round-trip, I got a reasonably comfortable nonstop ride up I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike. But there’s a lot I didn’t get.
For one thing, there is no cafe car on a bus. I could have brought my own food, but I couldn’t simply get up and grab a snack if I wanted one. I also missed out on the opportunity to sit and chat with fellow travelers. On the bus, you can only socialize with those sitting next to you, who may or may not be in the mood for conversation. I found the motorcoach privy to be very small and difficult to use while in motion. There was no running water for hand washing (something I take for granted on a train), only hand sanitizer gel.
Though my seat on the bus was fairly comfortable, coach seats on Amtrak are more accommodating than those on most motorcoaches, offering more legroom and greater reclining capability. A train ride is generally less bumpy than a bus trip, depending on the condition of the track, roads and shock absorbers. Additionally, although I enjoyed the change of scenery, the relative monotony of the interstate paled in comparison to all that can be seen from a train window as it travels through the center of cities and towns and across the countryside.
Above all, I missed the conductors and attendants who are there to make a train trip as enjoyable as possible. The driver was the only employee present on the bus, and he or she could only attend to passengers’ needs so much while keeping his or her eyes on the road.
There are several reasons why intercity bus travel is so much cheaper than rail travel, which may be the subject of a future blog post. But the train costs more mainly because it offers a higher-quality experience. Next time you are thinking about taking a motorcoach to save money, remember that the train fare is a truer reflection of the cost of your safe, comfortable transportation than a bargain-basement bus fare. As long as your pocketbook is not your sole concern, you will enjoy a more relaxing and civilized travel experience when you ride the rails.
The first installment of an occasional blog feature reporting interesting news from NARP’s state-level cousins.
Maine: Gov. John Baldacci (D) presented a strong vision for the future of passenger trains in his state in the pages of TrainRiders/Northeast’s Summer 2009 issue of TrainRider. The Governor’s statement acknowledges the advocacy group’s hard work, calling it a “critical force in the December 2001 commencement of the Downeaster service.” “Without TrainRiders, there would be no Downeaster,” he proclaims, “and passenger rail service in Maine might be a dead issue even today.” Baldacci, who has ridden the Downeaster on various occasions, announced the state’s submission of pre-applications for Recovery Act high-speed rail funds to extend service north to Brunswick through Freeport, and to upgrade track on the existing line to increase speed. He also promised to seek extension of the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ, pronounced SEE-mack) money on which Downeaster relies, and noted the legislation he signed to dedicate half of the revenues from the state’s car rental tax to an account for non-highway transportation projects. “I understand that all modes of transportation, including road, aid and water travel, require government subsidies to continue in operation,” Baldacci explains. “Passenger rail is no different, and should be treated no differently.”
New York: A bill has been introduced in the New York state legislature to establish a state Rail Authority, reports the Empire State Passengers Association in The ESPA Express (July/August). “The new public authority would be independent of the State Transportation Department and outside the normal budget process,” similar to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an independent agency funded by both states that runs ferries, PATH trains, the tunnels and bridges across the Hudson into Manhattan, and the city’s bus terminal. The legislation intends the Rail Authority to be the operator of “an affordable high-speed rail network across New York State” and to finance incremental improvements to existing service. Funding for the Authority would come from a variety of public and private sources. Also noteworthy is that the bill stipulates that one of the members of the Authority’s 17-member governing board be “a member of a statewide rail passenger advocacy organization.”
New York: Also from ESPA comes news that the Finger Lakes Railway, operator of freight and excursion passenger trains in the west central part of the state, is advancing a proposal to extend Amtrak service to and from Geneva via Syracuse, using a currently out-of-service ex-New York Central line that splits from the CSX main line at Lyons. The company envisions an existing New York City-Albany Empire Service train being extended west to Geneva (home to 13,000 residents and two colleges), providing an early morning eastbound departure from Geneva and a late evening westbound arrival. Finger Lakes Railway will provide a station and overnight servicing facilities at Geneva.
New Jersey: Two major sports arenas around New York City, Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and the Meadowlands complex in East Rutherford, NJ (Home to the New York Giants and New York Jets (NFL football), New Jersey Nets (NBA basketball), New York Red Bulls (MLS soccer) and a horse racetrack), now have direct commuter rail service. As ESPA reports, the “Yankees - E. 153rd St” station on Metro-North Railroad’s Hudson Line, which opened on May 23, allows residents in the outlying areas served by all three Metro-North lines to go to Yankees baseball games and other stadium events without having to drive all the way into the Bronx, and has been well-used so far. Meanwhile, the Delaware Valley Association of Railroad Passengers (DVARP) announces that, on July 20, New Jersey Transit (NJT) inaugurated train service to the Meadowlands via a 2.5-mile branch of the Pascack Valley Line from Hoboken Terminal. Trains will only be run during football and soccer games, concerts and other large events at the Meadowlands, with a bus connection to all NJT lines at Secaucus Junction available for all other events there.
North New Jersey’s The Recordran a piece by Editorial page editor Alfred Doblin on December 21 of last year which offers a refreshing corrective to New Jersey Transit’s new interstate rail tunnels, planned to run under the Hudson River.
It’s no secret that NARP—along with a number of other groups, including the Lackawanna Coalition and the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club—has been a vocal opponent of this project, also known as the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC). Not because there is not a need for the tunnels. Rather, it is because the need to expand the rail capacity of the region is so dire; the New York City region remains one of the nation’s most congested train, automotive, and air transit hubs, and solutions are desperately needed. And with more than $9 billion in Metropolitan Transit Authority, New Jersey state, and federal funds needed to bring this project to completion, the stakes are too high to settle for not-good-enough.
Doblin does an excellent job of explaining why the ARC, as presently conceived, is not the solution (bold added):
The new tunnel under the river makes sense. Bringing more New Jersey commuters into Manhattan makes sense. Building a deep-tunnel train station a block from Pennsylvania Station and just footsteps from an existing PATH station makes no sense to the commuters who – well, commute.
... New Jersey commuters will end up where they always have. NJ Transit cannot take its trains to Grand Central because it would have to bore below a massive tunnel supplying water to Manhattan. Until an additional water tunnel is operational, there will be no NJ Transit trains to Grand Central. This should be the deal-breaker for the project as planned. It makes little sense to expend billions and billions of dollars for a less-than-perfect solution.
... The Hudson River tunnel project is monumental. But if it isn’t done right, it’s a monument to excess. The advocates for building it now, regardless of where it terminates, are not the everyday people who have to travel back and forth on the trains. Exactly where are the thousands of new commuters going to go after they arrive at 34th Street? Can all those new commuters be absorbed into the existing subway infrastructure at 34th Street? Not likely. It should be Grand Central or bust.
NJ Transit continues to award contracts—two and counting so far, adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars—and the window to correct the flaw of the deep cavern terminal is closing. Transit advocates will have to hope that Governor-elect Chris Christie is paying attention to the voices of reason.
—Sean Jeans-Gail
Learn more about NARP’s proposed fix for the ARC project.
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