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V.P. Biden: Amtrak is “powerful and indespensible” vehicle for the future
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Vice President Joe Biden penned the following column for publication in the January/February 2010 issue of Arrive, Amtrak’s on-board magazine geared towards Northeast Corridor travelers. It is reprinted in the Huffington Post.
Why America Needs Trains
One of the Capitol Hill newspapers estimated that I’ve taken more than 7,000 round trips on Amtrak over the course of my career. But the one I made on Jan. 17, 2009 was a bit different. When I got there, there were 8,000 people standing in the freezing cold. And I wasn’t racing to reach the 7:46 a.m. Metroliner (later, the Acela) that I had taken thousands of times before.
I was meeting up with the train that would carry President Obama and me to our inauguration.
That day, Gregg Weaver, a conductor who started riding Amtrak the same year I did—1972—introduced me to the crowd. As Gregg spoke, it struck me that over the years, Amtrak provided me with more than a way to get to Washington to serve the people of Delaware every morning and a way to get home to my family each night. It has provided me another family entirely—a community of dedicated professionals who have shared the milestones in my life, and who have allowed me to share the milestones in theirs.
And it has provided me with one thing more, an understanding of—and a respect for—the role of rail travel in our society and our economy.
Though I don’t get to ride the train nearly as much anymore, those were the lessons I brought with me on that final trip to Washington as a United States Senator.
I began making the 110-mile commute shortly after I was sworn in as a Senator. It was the only way that I could have been a Senator at all. I had to be able to get home to spend evenings with my two sons after we lost their mother and sister in an auto accident a month earlier.
Since then, on those many trips down to Washington, I got into a routine. From Wilmington to Baltimore I’d read the papers and make phone calls. At Baltimore, I’d start preparing for that day’s hearings, amending my opening statement or going through the list of witnesses. And by the time I arrived in D.C., I’d be ready to jump right in.
Getting home was sometimes a sprint, too. One year, on my birthday, my daughter had planned a party for me. She really wanted to give me a gift and blow out candles. Senator Bob Dole was the Majority Leader at the time, and we were voting that night. I told him that I really had to be home for my daughter, which meant that I needed to catch the 5:54 p.m. train. Senator Dole backed up the votes until 9 p.m. I boarded the train and, in Wilmington, my daughter was standing there on the middle platform. She and my wife sang “Happy Birthday,” I blew out the candle, took a piece of cake, opened her gift, gave her a kiss, and caught the 7:23 p.m. going south—and managed to be there for the 9 p.m. vote.
Amtrak doesn’t just carry us from one place to another—it makes things possible that otherwise wouldn’t be. For 36 years, I was able to make most of those birthday parties, to get home to read bedtime stories, to cheer for my children at their soccer games. Simply put, Amtrak gave me—and countless other Americans—more time with my family. That’s worth immeasurably more to me than the fare printed on the ticket.
When I took the train every night—and I still do whenever possible—I always noticed the lights on in the houses flickering in the passing neighborhoods, dotting the landscape speeding by my window. Moms and dads were at their kitchen table, talking after they put their kids to bed. Like Americans everywhere, they were asking questions as profound as they are ordinary: Should Mom move in with us now that Dad is gone? How are we going to pay the heating bills? Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care? Now that we owe more on the house than it’s worth, how are we going to send the kids to college? How are we going be able to retire?
I would look out the window and hear their questions, feel their pain. And every time I made that trip, it would inspire me to get up the next day, head back down to Washington, and give them the answers they’re looking for. Those moments looking out the window and seeing the lights on, they told me things that the briefing folders in front of me never could. They gave color and meaning to the problems I’ve spent my career trying to solve. They reminded me why I made that trip back and forth 7,000 times.
But my support for rail travel goes beyond the emotional connection. With delays at our airports and congestion on our roads becoming increasingly ubiquitous, volatile fuel prices, increased environmental awareness, and a need for transportation links between growing communities, rail travel is more important to America than ever before.
Support for Amtrak must be strong—not because it is a cherished American institution, which it is—but because it is a powerful and indispensable way to carry us all into a leaner, cleaner, greener 21st century.
Consider that if you shut down Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, it is estimated that to compensate for the loss, you’d have to add seven new lanes of highway to Interstate 95. When you consider that it costs an average of $30 million for one linear mile of one lane of highway, you see what a sound investment rail travel is. And that’s before you factor in the environmental benefits of keeping millions and millions of cars off the road.
In 1830, the first steam-engine locomotive, the Tom Thumb, graced America’s railways. Its first run was a rickety 13-mile trek from Baltimore to Ellicott Mills, Md., but it became much more than that. It marked the beginning of a new journey, heading straight into a better, more imaginative American future.
We are on a similar journey now. We are at the dawn of a new age, where the very best ideas of today will shape our tomorrow, where renewable clean energy and new transportation systems and more efficient technology will revolutionize American life the way the Tom Thumb did some 180 years ago.
On Jan. 20, 2009, pulling out of the Wilmington train station, embarking on that same short trip I made thousands of times before, I thought again about the journey America was about to take as a nation. And I saw our future the same way I always did: looking out Amtrak’s windows.
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: acela, amtrak, biden, future, green, obama, passenger, senate, train, vice president,Flag Stops: Making No Small Plans
Friday, February 26, 2010
Reasons to be hopeful, to be concerned, and to take action.
As we have reported, the jobs bill passed by the Senate on Monday contains no investment in 21st-century transportation alternatives like trains. Our partners at Transportation for America are calling on everyone to write Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and ask that he include investment in better transportation in a future jobs package, as more appear to be in the works. Please join us in taking action.
—Malcolm Kenton
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: amtrak, budget, congress, gulf coast, investment, jobs bill, legislation, new orleans, new york city, passenger trains, rail planning, ray lahood, ridership, senate, sunset limited, take action, transportation, west virginia,Grassroots Pressure Gets Results
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Friends of the Cardinal, a route support group composed of active train advocates (many of whom are NARP members) based in Charleston, West Virginia, issued the release below today. The story of the introduction and passage of Senate Bill 527 in the West Virginia legislature is a great model for grassroots advocacy—showing what we are all capable of, with a little time and energy, as citizens in a republic.
For Immediate Use, March 10, 2010:
By a vote of 97-0 the West Virginia House of Delegates passed a Bill which mandates that the West Virginia Rail Authority must “establish a state plan for transportation and local rail services.” The legislation requires that this plan meet the Federal requirements necessary to capture and administer Federal monies “for rail transportation, local rail services, and inter-modal facilities. . .” Further, the act allows the Authority to seek input from “freight and rail passenger associations.” The same Bill had already passed the WV Senate by a vote of 32-0 earlier in the session. The Bill now goes to the Governor Joe Manchin’s desk for his signature.
This legislation was developed in response to concerns expressed by many individuals about the lack of adequate planning for a passenger rail system for the state of West Virginia. The Friends of the Cardinal, a Charleston WV-based “Route Support Group” affiliated with the National Association of Railroad Passengers articulated these concerns to various members of the legislature. The National Association of Railroad Passengers is the largest citizen-based advocacy organization for train and rail transit passengers in the nation.
J. Charles Riecks, Chair of the Friends of the Cardinal, said: “I was very pleased with the overall positive response that passenger rail received in the West Virginia Legislature this year. Hopefully, this bill is just the beginning of a new day for transportation in the state of West Virginia.”
In speeches before several committees, and also on the floor of both legislative bodies, several members of the legislature spoke to the long overdue need for West Virginia to begin supporting a modern, customer-focused national passenger train network that provides a travel choice Americans want.
Friends of the Cardinal, particularly Riecks and Bonni McKewon, participated in the legislative process from start to finish, corresponding with nearly every legislator and calling upon other West Virginians to contact their Representative and Senator. As soon as Gov. Manchin signs the bill into law, the state Department of Transportation will begin work on the rail plan, an essential first step towards better train service in the state and a process in which NARP and Friends of the Cardinal will continue to be involved. With a strong plan and agreements with Amtrak, MARC and the host railroads in place, West Virgnia stands a much better chance of winning future federal funds to improve existing service and potentially to add new routes.
Check out this video of the passage on the House floor.
—Malcolm Kenton
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: accomplishment, advocacy, grassroots, improvement, legislature, lobbying, passenger trains, rail plan, senate, victory, west virginia,Congress protects state-supported trains, slashes Amtrak operating funds, and kills high-speed rail
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
House and Senate negotiators last night agreed on a fiscal 2012 “minibus” spending bill that includes transportation.
The bill funds Amtrak at $1.42 billion and protects short distance services from the attack in the House subcommittee’s bill. But there is no new funding for the High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Program of grants to states for infrastructure and equipment investments. The Senate had included $100 million for this, the House nothing.
The Amtrak operating number is alarmingly tight at $466 million, which is $95 million (or 17%) below the 2011 level.
The bill is expected to pass both House and Senate this week.
In a victory for passenger train advocates, negotiators eliminated language from passed by a House subcommittee that would have prohibited the use of federal operating funds on state-supported routes. This targeted such popular services as California’s Capitol Corridor and Pacific Surfliner, the Midwest’s Hiawatha and Heartland Flyer, and Maine’s Downeaster—among many others. Passage of this provision would have eliminated 150 weekday trains and stranded more than nine million passengers each year.
Amtrak capital funding was increased by negotiators above the Senate’s $936 million and the House subcommittee’s $898 million.
But the offsetting price is heavy. Amtrak Operating was slashed to $466 million. While well above the House subcommittee’s proposal of $227 million—which NARP believes would have forced a system shutdown—this was well below the Senate’s $544 million and the 2011 level of $561 million. The $466 million figure is slightly more than the $457.5 million Amtrak needed for 2011.
The new operating level presents a bigger problem than may first appear. Amtrak cannot count on record revenues every year, or on besting the bottom line in its budget (which it did for 2011 by $30 million). A major economic downturn or accident could wreak havoc in fiscal 2012. Legislators, it seems, are looking to provide the bare minimum to keep existing trains running or, as some observers would put it, giving Amtrak “just enough to fail.”
Negotiators also included a provision encouraging Amtrak to build up an operating reserve account:
“The conferees encourage Amtrak to carry $200 million in reserves within their Operating account, and encourage use of any favorable ticket revenue to get to this amount before using this favorable ticket revenue on Capital expenses unless such Capital expenses are necessary to ensure the safe operation and maintenance of the passenger rail system.”
Given the very tight operating grant level legislators have just provided, it is not clear how they expect Amtrak to build up its reserves. This language perhaps is intended as advance warning that appropriators will continue to look at ways to eat away at Amtrak’s grant in future budgeting cycles.
The news was also bad for the High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Program, which saw all funding eliminated. This comes as a disappointment, following a successful summer and fall by the Federal Railroad Administration. The FRA made great strides in clearing the way for states to request bids, hire engineers and workers, and begin upgrading tracks around the U.S. This zero-out could also negatively impact California’s Los Angeles-to-San Francisco high-speed rail project, which has been caught in turmoil over a new business plan which increased the final price tag of the project. Nonetheless, funding already in the pipeline will provide a lot of jobs and service improvements over the next few years—if Congress does not continue to ratchet Amtrak funding down to the point where the trains stop running.
Posted by NARP
Tags: amtrak, appropriations, california, congress, fy 2012, house, hsr, senate, state-supported routes,©2010 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website
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