FY 2011 Senate Appropriations Statement

Statement of

Ross B. Capon

President and Chief Executive Officer

National Association of Railroad Passengers

Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies

The Honorable Patty Murray, Chair

Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate
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Fiscal 2011 Department of Transportation Appropriation
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Submitted April 23, 2010

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this statement.  Thank you also for the positive role that you and your subcommittee have played over the years in providing funding for intercity passenger trains. 

Our key requests for intercity passenger trains for FY 2011 are:

• Amtrak’s budget request: $592 million for operations; $1,745 million for capital (including $281 million for Americans with Disabilities Act and $446 million for the fleet strategy); $305 million for debt service; $7 million for FRA oversight
• Capital grants for states: $4 billion, with an appropriate portion designated for rolling stock acquisition
• Any funding needed to restore service to Las Vegas.  Amtrak, as part of its statutorily mandated California Zephyr performance improvement plan is considering restoring Salt Lake City-Los Angeles service.  This would put Las Vegas back on the Amtrak map and restore direct Denver-Los Angeles service.  Around 1996, when Amtrak was considering route reductions, the head of what was then Amtrak’s Chicago-based ‘strategic business unit’ told our chairman, “If I had known Congress was going to put back routes, based on the economics, I would have recommended the Desert Wind (Salt Lake City-Los Angeles) first.”
• Funding needed to restore service between New Orleans and Florida, consistent with the PRIIA requirement that Amtrak by July 16, 2009, submit a plan to restart service;
• Funding needed to restore service between Salt Lake City and the Pacific Northwest and between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest via southern North Dakota and southern Montana, as Amtrak studied in response to the mandates in PRIIA.

Equipping Trains for Growth:  A major factor hurting customer satisfaction and inflating operating costs is the 37-year average age of its locomotives and cars, including 92 long-distance “Heritage” cars that are between 53 and 61 years old. 

Amtrak’s fleet strategy assumes ridership growth of only 2%.  That is too conservative, given the need to increase capacity on existing routes and to add routes.  We appreciate Amtrak’s emphasis on their plan’s “scalability,” that is, the fact that car acquisitions can be increased if the market calls for it and funding is provided.  Indeed, some trains are already outpacing similarly conservative ridership projections.

Nonetheless, this illustrates the financial challenge: failure to meet the funding targets Amtrak identified puts us close to a no-growth scenario regarding both additional capacity on existing routes and expanding the network to parts of the country that are not adequately served, a category that includes some of the fastest-growing regions in the United States.

In addition to funding fleet needs directly, consideration should be given to the use of tax credits and/or asset depreciation benefits to encourage private leasing companies to buy equipment and lease it to states and perhaps Amtrak.  Part of the goal is to reduce the high up-front costs that taxpayer-supported agencies face when procuring new equipment.

Also of critical importance is the $281 million Amtrak request to fulfill its obligation to bring stations into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act – money that is left out of the Administration’s budget.  The Association supports Amtrak’s current ADA policy as set forth in “Amtrak Guidelines on Platform Design” (April 2008).  Previously, we joined with Amtrak, the Class I railroads and commuter railroad agencies in strongly opposing a rule that had been under consideration by U.S. DOT that would have required full length platforms for level boarding.  In Fiscal 2010, Amtrak was instructed to spend the $144 million for ADA which in effect reduced other vital capital expenditures.

The Importance of Trains:  More and better passenger trains and intermodal connections are crucial to maintaining mobility for our citizens, enhancing the quality of life in our communities, bolstering our nation’s economic competitiveness and energy efficiency, providing good jobs for Americans and reducing our transportation system’s negative environmental impact. 

Mobility and quality of life issues become more relevant as the proportion of older citizens dramatically increases, and as young people become more receptive to non-auto transport. 

The national interest is well served by enabling as many people—especially older people—as possible to lead a satisfying life with little or no driving.  This can improve both safety and mental health, as people in auto-dependent environments who cannot drive suffer from the resulting sense of isolation. 

Fewer Teenaged Drivers:  At the same time, the Millennial Generation—people in their teens and twenties—is greatly attracted to a less car-dependent lifestyle.  They increasingly do not view acquiring a driver’s license as a “rite of passage to maturity” for 16-year-olds.  Indeed, my two sons of driving age, now 21 and 19, both got their drivers’ licenses a year or two after turning 16, becoming serious about getting their licenses only after realizing that mass transit served their transportation needs poorly.  Media reports confirm that my sons are not unique, including WRAL.com in Raleigh (January 25), Tampa’s News Channel 8 (February 11), and New York Times (February 25, 2008).

Ridership and Polls:  Americans’ desire for improved train service is demonstrated through increasing ridership on Amtrak and rail transit systems nationwide.  Amtrak gained riders for six straight years—from 2002 to 2008.  The 2008 run-up in gasoline prices was a big factor in ridership growth of 11% from 2007 to 2008.  While Amtrak and transit ridership fell in 2009, due in part to the recession and lower gasoline prices, Amtrak ridership still was 5% above the 2007 level.  Amtrak ridership through the first half of FY 2010 (October-March) was 4.3% above the year-earlier level (long-distance trains were up 5.2%).

For years, polls have consistently shown strong support for increased investment in passenger trains.  A recent one, by Kelton Research—taken February1-7, 2010 for HNTB Corporation—showed 88% “open to high-speed rail for long-distance travel within the U.S.,” according to a February18 report in Metro Magazine, which also cited 83% support for increasing the share of federal funding that goes to public transit and high-speed rail infrastructure.  HNTB’s Peter Gertler said, “The pain we felt when gasoline was hovering near $4 a gallon has receded, yet we can’t stand by for the next crisis to hit to address the underlying issues of congestion and our dependence on limited fossil fuels.”

Amtrak’s Funding Request:  We are concerned that reducing Amtrak’s other capital items to make way for the “full ADA funding,” which in effect happened this year, damages the overall system, with detrimental impact on all passengers including those with disabilities. 
Shorting the capital request creates a problem for the effort to let passenger trains assume their rightful place as a primary mode of transportation providing a desirable travel choice for all Americans – as envisioned by President Obama. 

Grants to States:  We strongly support the general approach that U.S. DOT took in awarding the $8 billion in capital grants announced January 28.  I commented on NBC Nightly News on January 30 that I was impressed both with “the amount of funds involved and the intelligence with which it was distributed.”

Operating Grant:  This is critical, in part because the big increase in the capital budget (including Recovery Act funds) drives up operating costs, as not all personnel costs associated with capital projects can be capitalized.  Moreover, the mandates of PRIIA also create upward pressure on operating costs.  The organization is handling more than twice the amount of work of five years ago.  This underscores the urgency of maintaining Amtrak’s operating grant at the full requested amount of $592 million.

The Transportation for America Coalition’s “United States of Transit Cutbacks” map vividly portrays the irony of transit agencies from Philadelphia to Phoenix receiving new federal capital funds while withering operating support is forcing consideration of unacceptable service cuts – including the elimination of all service on certain days of the week, bus route terminations, station closures, and dramatic frequency reductions.  As Secretary LaHood put it, it doesn’t make sense to buy so many new trains and buses when we can’t afford to pay operators to run them.  On the intercity side, consideration should be given, at least in emergency situations, to allowing operation of state-supported intercity trains on a 50/50 matching basis, without making Amtrak swallow the difference.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Statistics:  The following table, showing 2007 data, comes from the annual Transportation Energy Data Book (Edition 28, released in 2009), published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy:

Mode                         BTUs per psgr-mile*
Amtrak                         2,516
Commuter trains               2,638
Certificated air carriers         3,103
Cars                               3,514
Light trucks (2-axle, 4-tire)         3,946

* BTU = British Thermal Unit; passenger-mile = one passenger traveling one mile

Overnight Trains:  We support Amtrak’s initiative, discussed in the release, to combine the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited into a daily, full-service Chicago-Los Angeles train via St. Louis, Dallas/Fort Worth, San Antonio, El Paso and Tucson.  A connecting daily train between San Antonio and New Orleans via Houston is also planned, and we understand that some through New Orleans-Los Angeles cars will be restored if demand is strong.  Currently, New Orleans-San Antonio-Los Angeles service runs tri-weekly.

Hudson River Tunnels; North Station-South Station Rail Link:  We continue to be concerned about the construction of Hudson River rail tunnels that will not connect to Penn Station but only to a dead-end, deep cavern station under 34th Street.  We continue to discuss this with New Jersey Transit.  We support the $6 million that Massachusetts requested to complete environmental work on a potential rail link that would unify Boston’s commuter rail networks and connect Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor to northern New England.

Northeast Corridor Fares:  At an April 10 NARP membership meeting in Philadelphia, Dr. Vukan Vuchic of the University of Pennsylvania said trains “should play a maximum role in society, and not just serve businessmen.  Students, tourists, young and old, should be able to ride.”  Amtrak’s current fares don’t support that.  This may be partly due to faulty judgments by Amtrak, but relentless pressure to reduce the operating grant is probably the bigger cause.
 
Thank you for considering our views.

National Association of Railroad Passengers—505 Capitol Ct., NE, Suite 300; Washington, DC 20002-7706—Phone 202-408-8362, FAX -8287—Web: http://www.narprail.org; E-mails: narp(at)narprail.org" _mce_href="mailto:narp(at)narprail.org">narp(at)narprail.org; rcapon(at)narprail.org" _mce_href="mailto:rcapon(at)narprail.org">rcapon(at)narprail.org