Hotline #934 - June 14, 1996

A lot of you have been calling your legislators to complain about the bad appropriations numbers Amtrak got last week from the House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee. Keep it up! We understand that the subcommittee has been hearing a lot of negative comments about cutting Amtrak 28%, while freezing the other programs.

The good news is that the full House Appropriations Committee was given $500 million more for transportation programs. Tell your Representative that Amtrak should get all or part of that money, to make up for the deep cuts the subcommittee gave it. The full committee could act as early as June 19, so make your calls to Congress soon.

It is also important to complain to your Senators and ask them to tell Senators Hatfield and Lautenberg not to cut Amtrak funding. The appropriations process will move over to the Senate once the House DOT funding bill is passed.

The new Senate Majority Leader is Trent Lott (R.-Miss.), who is much more favorable to Amtrak than his predecessor, Bob Dole (R.-Kans.). Hopes are raised that Lott at least can get the long-stalled Amtrak authorization, S.1318, moving again. Lott, after all, was the original sponsor of the bill.

Amtrak has announced that it will reroute the Southwest Chief between Chicago and Galesburg, Ill., on August 1. All Amtrak trains at Galesburg now will use the same station. The Chief will also serve Princeton and Naperville. There will no longer be train service to Chillicothe and Streator and only the St. Louis trains will serve Joliet.

The Federal Transit Administration was unofficially circulating a document earlier this week, attacking the Amtrak half-cent legislation in Congress. It contained a lot of misinformation about the effect on transit programs from Amtrak getting the half cent, and even listed projects that supposedly would lose their funding. The reality still is that no transit program is threatened, because of language that cuts the flow of money to Amtrak if the next year's transit needs can't be covered from the trust fund.

The Senate Finance Committee released a bill yesterday to restore the 10% tax on airline tickets, through the end of 1996. This bill needs to be passed to stanch the flow of funds out of the aviation trust fund. The lapse of the tax several months ago has hurt Amtrak competitively.

The American Automobile Association launched a campaign this week to make highway and aviation trust funds inviolable. They want all taxes collected by motorists and airline passengers to be used exclusively for maintenance and improvement of highways and airports, which the AAA said are deteriorating rapidly. Also, they want trust funds to go off-budget. The AAA argument is shortsighted in part and raises the question that if there are clear alternatives to air and road investment that are cheaper to build and better for the environment, then shouldn't these taxes be spent on them, too. In many cases, rail and transit service makes more sense than just perpetuating the dominance of highways and aviation.

The next DOT ISTEA forum is June 21 at San Diego, on the topic of Innovative Finance. It is at 8:30 am at the Sheraton Hotel and Marina. The next one after that will be July 2 at Portland, Ore., on the topic of the Environment.

There are several rail transit openings happening this month. In Atlanta, MARTA opened a seven-mile branch of its North Line from Lindbergh to Buckhead, Medical Center, and Dunwoody on June 8. New Jersey Transit opened its Kearny Connection on June 10, allowing Morris and Essex trains to serve Penn Station in Manhattan. Today is the opening of the first nine miles of the Dallas light-rail system, from West End to Union Station, with two branches to the southwest. Also this weekend, San Diego opens a three-mile extension of its North light-rail line to Old Town.