Hotline #130 - March 17, 2000

S.1144 is being held back from a Senate floor vote by two key Senators, according to our latest information. This is the flexibility bill to allow states the choice of spending some of their federal transportation funds on intercity passenger rail.

The House on March 15 passed the aviation reauthorization bill, 318-102, a week after the Senate. President Clinton will sign it. It adds aviation to the list of transportation programs with protected funding (like highways and transit). This puts an even bigger squeeze on programs left out (like Amtrak and Coast Guard) and makes it even more important that the first step of the budget process -- development of a budget resolution by the House and Senate Budget Committees -- include enough money to protect Amtrak.

Amtrak's Southwest Chief derailed at Carbondale, Kans., early March 15. The westbound train derailed about 18 miles south of Topeka about 2:00 am. Six passenger cars, including two sleepers, derailed and were on their sides. There were 29 injuries, all from the two sleepers, one of them critical. Also, ten mail and express cars (behind the passenger cars) derailed. A National Transportation Safety Board official said there were two rail fractures at the site, but that it was too soon to say whether the fractures caused the accident or were caused by it.

To make matters worse for the stranded passengers, a school bus carrying some of them to a hotel broadsided a car that was in its path in Topeka -- no one on the bus was injured, but they had to be transferred to another bus.

The House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee held its annual hearing on Amtrak funding March 15. Amtrak President George Warrington discussed Amtrak's financial performance and National Growth Strategy. However, DOT Inspector General Ken Mead and Phyllis Scheinberg of the General Accounting Office questioned Amtrak's capital spending plans. Mead said that new services and equipment upgrades were good but that there were higher priorities for Amtrak's limited capital resources, pointing out particularly what he called "alarming" safety problems in New York City river tunnel emergency exits and ventilation systems.

Scheinberg echoed Mead's observations on Amtrak capital priorities and outlined a recent GAO report on how Amtrak has spent its Taxpayer Relief Act (TRA) money so far. The report says that through June 1999, Amtrak had spent $1.3 billion of the $2.2 billion, with two-thirds ($804 million) going to capital improvements (including almost $400 million for the high-speed rail program), with the rest for equipment maintenance ($427 million) and debt servicing ($48 million). The report notes that Amtrak reviews programs receiving TRA funding to be sure they are eligible, but asks that Amtrak also review eligibility of individual expenses within programs.

The Vermont Agency of Transportation and Guilford signed an agreement February 25 that would allow a rerouting of the Ethan Allen, which currently runs New York-Schenectady-Saratoga-Rutland. Instead, Vermont, which pays part of the operating cost of the Amtrak train, would prefer a New York-Schenectady-North Bennington-Rutland routing, using Guilford and Vermont Railway tracks. The new route, which could start next winter, would be 17 miles longer than the current route, but the state claims it will cut a half-hour off the total running time. A cost report for capital improvements is due in August, and then Amtrak and the two freight railroads would have to negotiate an operating agreement.

A new San Diegan station opens March 18 at Surf, Cal., between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.

Signals at an Illinois highway crossing where a fatal accident occurred last fall may actually have been turned off, according to the March 14 Chicago Tribune. An Amtrak train hit a car and killed two teenagers at the US 136 crossing in McLean on September 26. Witnesses had reported that the lights and gates had not been working, and the Tribune says videotape supports that. This crossing also has an experimental "dragnet" system that had been turned off for about two months for road construction. The Tribune says it has information that a Union Pacific signal maintainer had turned off the gates and lights without notifying the control center in Omaha, without posting warning signs at the crossing, and without checking his work before leaving the site. The paper also said state and local investigators are convinced the worker returned after the accident to reconnect everything and thus conceal his role in the accident. The worker was later fired by the Union Pacific.

Phoenix voters approved Transit 2000 on March 14 by an overwhelming 2-to-1 margin. The vote raises the sales tax from 7.1% to 7.5%. This should mean $2.9 billion over 20 years. Two-thirds of the revenue will go to expand the bus system; one-third to building a starter light-rail line. Among other things, this will allow the first Sunday bus service in Phoenix in perhaps 60 years, in August.