NARP Congressional Testimony

We appreciate this opportunity to submit the views of our nonpartisan organization, which has worked since 1967 to promote improved passenger rail service for the U.S., and a better understanding of its importance.

Summary: We support the Bush Administration request of $521 million for Amtrak, scored at 100% in the first year, that is, the funds to be conveyed to Amtrak at the start of the fiscal year. This funding served a distinct and separate need from funds that would become available under the High Speed Rail Investment Act.  Public demand for a healthy rail passenger network -- as reflected in Amtrak ridership and opinion polls -- continues to grow stronger. Highway and aviation problems are making more people realize that a transportation system based on "fly/drive" only is not in the national interest.

Amtrak Usage: In FY 2000, Amtrak handled 22.5 million passengers traveling 5.5 billion passenger-miles. This was the fourth consecutive increase for both measures.  Average revenue per passenger-mile ("ticket yield") at 20.3 cents increased for the sixth straight year. Passenger-related revenues rose for the fifth straight year; the FY2000 increase was up 10.3% to $1.277 billion, a level that is up 40% from FY1995.

DOT Inspector General Kenneth M. Mead's testimony before this committee indicates that Amtrak passenger revenues rose another 13% during the first four months (October-January) of FY2001.

To quote from a letter I recently submitted to U.S. News & World Report, "You call Amtrak's mail profit 'small,' yet a 30% profit margin on $96.1 million sent $28.8 million to the bottom line last year.  [By contrast,] Amtrak's express-freight initiative indeed went through a grow-the-revenues-hang-the-costs phase, but Amtrak to its credit last year appointed Lee Sargrad, an experienced rail freight executive, as Vice-President -- Mail & Express. His focus, like Amtrak's general focus today, is on the bottom line."

Polls:  The Ohio State University Center for Survey Research (OSU-CSR) released a poll ("Tracking Ohio") on March 8, 2001, showing strong support for passenger rail. The poll found that 80% of Ohioans want the state to develop passenger rail service. Nearly two-thirds (65%) said state money should be used to attract federal passenger-rail funding to Ohio, if such federal funding were available.  (High Speed Rail Investment Act bond funding would fit that description). More than half (53%) said the best way to relieve road traffic congestion is to "improve all forms of transportation including mass transit and high-speed rail." The statewide poll was conducted January 2-31, 2001, as part of the OSU-CSR's monthly Buckeye State Poll in which 520 Ohio adults were randomly interviewed over the telephone. The margin of sampling error was no more than +/-4.3%.

In 1998, the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion released results of a poll it conducted of New York State registered voters regarding state investment in intercity rail passenger service (trips longer than 75 miles one way). The poll found that 82% of the state's voters believed that having modernized intercity passenger train service is at least as important as having good highways and airports (of this figure, 12% felt rail service was even more important.) It also found that 87% of voters throughout the state favored an increase in government spending for intercity passenger train service, and that voters would support a bond issue for this purpose. The poll was based on approximately 600 responses with a margin of error of  no more than +/-4%.

Operational Self-Sufficiency: We think the 1997 reform law was more a call for reassurance that Amtrak is providing good value for money, than for a precise financial result by a particular date.  Indeed, Senator Lott more than once has suggested that "if they get 80% of the way" to their goal, "we're not going to shut them down." We would add that it makes no sense to deprive future generations of this vital transportation because private manufacturers of the Acela Express train sets have had a tough time manufacturing the world’s heaviest high speed trains in compliance with federal safety regulators that some regard as too aggressive (or too focused on crash survival as opposed to crash prevention).
 
Boston-New York-Washington: The biggest reason that, to quote Mr. Mead, "Amtrak's ability to reach operating self-sufficiency by 2003 is in serious jeopardy" is the delay in full launch of Acela Express service between Boston, New York and Washington. As Amtrak Reform Council Vice-Chairman Paul Weyrich has noted repeatedly, it makes no sense -- given the financial importance of Acela Express -- to pass judgment on Amtrak finances with any sense of finality before that service is fully launched and has had enough time (possibly as much as a year) to demonstrate its viability.

Amtrak is quick to point out that the handful of Acela Express trains running so far are doing quite well; indeed, the same is true of Acela Regional trains, some of which have been running for over a year. The latter trains use completely refurbished Amfleet rolling stock and, on the New York-Boston end, four-hour Boston-New York running times. These trains already are attracting an impressive number of business travelers.

Indeed, there is an international recognition that air congestion has increased the trip times where rail can compete for business travel. With the projected June 10 opening of the TGV Mediterranee segment from Valence to Nimes/Marseille, SNCF will offer Paris-Perpignan [Spanish border] service in 4:45 (down from the present 6:07), and Paris-Nice in 5:53 (vs. 6:31 today). "We thought that three hours was the psychological limit for high-speed rail, but delays to air services have helped rail a lot," said SNCF Director General Guillaume Pepy, quoted in March International Railway Journal.

Corridor Services Elsewhere: Amtrak -- especially where strong state partnerships exist -- continues to show that major ridership increases can be realized long before world-class speeds are achieved, simply by increasing service frequency and providing attractive new equipment and stations. Two noteworthy examples are discussed below.

Along the Cascadia corridor linking Eugene, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver (BC), ridership grew from 226,000 in 1993 to 640,000 last year. (1993 was the first year of the Amtrak/State of Washington partnership). During this time, the average Seattle-Portland speed of the line's fastest trains rose only from 47 to 53 mph (trip times on the 186-mile segment falling from four to 3-1/2 hours).

On the Capitol Corridor, which links Sacramento with the Bay Area, ridership for the 12 months ending in February, 2001, was 934,040 -- a 54.2% increase over year-earlier figures. (For February alone, ridership was up 60%.) The Capitol Corridor is controlled by an independent local agency, and operated by Amtrak over Union Pacific tracks. This reflects in part the work of one of our association's energetic board members, Eugene K. Skoropowski, who is Managing Director of the Capitol Corridor service. He is actually a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) employee and has been instrumental in negotiating agreements with UP under which, in return for state-funded investment to improve track capacity, the state is guaranteed the right to run an increased number of passenger trains at an increased speed.

Separate and Distinct Funding Needs: The High Speed Rail Investment Act (HSRIA) -- which we hope will be enacted this year -- is a state corridor development program. It fills the embarrassing gap in federal matching funds that until now has given states a disincentive to invest in rail, as there generally is no federal match for state investments.

(While a large portion of highway and aviation investment is supported by user payments, including virtually all federal highway investment, the mode-specific highway and aviation trust funds really are subsidies since:
[a] the user cannot direct his or her payment to a different, less-developed mode -- even if it might solve his transportation problems more efficiently than more highway or aviation investment; and
[b] no rail passenger trust fund was established back when the industry was still very large.)

We do not share the concern expressed by others that the HSRIA is problematical because it is generating unrealistic expectations of 150 mph service everywhere. Particularly where service already exists, any improvement is important and visible to the public. There are extensive opportunities to improve existing running times simply by ending very slow running. For example, Seattle-Portland trains -- the same trains that have experienced the good ridership increases outlined above -- generally must stop while a crew member throws a hand switch at the south end of the Seattle station.

While the HSRIA will over time improve Amtrak economics by strengthening several potentially air-competitive rail corridors, this will take time. Amtrak has an immediate, continuing need for funding to keep its basic network running -- including the high-speed corridors-to-be. This includes continuing the broader definition of capital (maintenance of way and equipment) until Amtrak meets its operational self-sufficiency target.

Long-Distance Services: These "inter-regional" trains provide a vital service, especially  for smaller communities with limited alternatives and for people who fear flying or are medically unable to. These trains also are transportation's "melting pots," since long-distance coach passengers (the majority of passengers on these trains) have the lowest average incomes of any Amtrak market segment, while the train also caters to relatively affluent sleeping-car passengers, and people from coach and sleeper often share dining car tables with each other. The long-distance trains also offer the opportunity to people of moderate means to reconnect with the geographic and cultural diversity and physical beauty of our nation. As our nation's population ages, the proportion of people who want to travel but cannot or should not drive will grow.

Since I drafted this statement while riding from Chicago to Seattle, it may be useful to note the three coach passengers with whom I shared a table at lunch -- a woman from Helena, Mont., and her two children. They were on the return leg of a Shelby, Mont.-Fargo, N.Dak., round-trip, whose purpose was a family reunion in Fargo with relatives from nearby Cambridge, Minn. They drove up to Shelby from Helena. The woman indicated that they probably would not have made the trip if the train didn't exist, because driving takes too long and flying to the Twin Cities is expensive and would have made it difficult for the Cambridge relatives to pick them up. They had used the train for roughly the same trip a couple of times previously.

Boston's North Station-South Station Rail Link: We continue to believe that this project is vital both to connect points north of Boston to the Northeast Corridor and to avoid gridlock at South Station, where planned intercity and commuter rail expansion is rapidly outstripping the capacity of a stub-end terminal. We hope that the committee will look favorably on any request you may receive from Members for funding to continue to advance work on the Rail Link, which extends the benefits of Amtrak’s successful Northeast Corridor service through Boston to Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

Amtrak Reform Council Second Annual Report: Our initial reaction to the ARC proposal is that we wish they had spent more time discussing funding issues and less time on redrawing organizational charts, which we do not think will solve any significant problems.

In conclusion, we thank the Committee for this opportunity to present our views.  Please let me know if we can provide any additional information that would be helpful to your work.