The National Network Will Help Us Build The Vision

Political support exists for retaining Amtrak largely because there is a national network, skeletal though it is. Abolition of Amtrak and its existing but grossly inadequate service network would almost guarantee that few members of Congress from states and districts outside the NEC would find any reason to vote one dime for intercity rail passenger services. The NEC service would be in danger of collapse without national funding because it is so costly to operate and maintain that the directly benefiting states and cities could not afford it.  But neither the NEC’s direct beneficiaries nor the nation as a whole can afford to let the NEC service collapse because that service is crucial to that region’s continued mobility and economic viability.

This marriage of convenience has kept the trains running, but getting adequate resources for the train system we really need will require a nationwide brain transplant on the subject of transportation planning and funding!!

By that I mean national recognition—by Congress, the federal bureaucracy whose various potentates appear to believe they best justify their continued employment by cranking out factually challenged but politically appealing anti-Amtrak diatribes, and all succeeding U.S. presidents—that this nation needs a comprehensive, heavily used rail passenger and freight network that is funded in much the same way as the national highway network is funded – and that is fully integrated into the national transportation matrix. The NARP Vision is an attempt to begin a dialogue about the details of such an expanded national system. S. 294 is a baby step toward the needed federal funding.

—Howard Harding
NARP Region 6 Director
Akron, OH