The sudden firing by the Amtrak board of David Gunn, the best president in years of the nation's only passenger railroad, was a body blow to anybody who cares about long-range passenger trains.
Mr. Gunn has done a masterly job in the last three years of holding down costs without dismantling the railroad. That, apparently, was his problem. Mr. Gunn was trying to save Amtrak, but the Bush administration wants to privatize it, bit by bit.
The battle between Mr. Gunn and Amtrak board members - all of them appointed by President Bush - intensified in recent weeks when the board took steps to break off the more profitable Northeast Corridor, putting it into its own division and sharing its control and costs with the states. Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, called it a "fire sale" intended to break up the nation's railroad system.
So last week Senator Lautenberg and Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, managed to get a 93-to-6 vote to authorize $11.6 billion for passenger rail service in the next six years - as close to an all-out endorsement of Amtrak as you can get.
But while senators were trying to help Amtrak move forward, its board took a step backward. It complained yesterday that Mr. Gunn - who has greatly increased ridership, improved management and upgraded equipment - was moving too slowly. After his firing, Mr. Gunn said, "Obviously what their goal is, and it's been their goal from the beginning, is to liquidate the company."
For Amtrak's 25 million passengers, this should be a call to arms. Amtrak should be a public transportation trust. It will never be self-sufficient, nor show a conventional profit, any more than the airline industry can fly without federal help. The Bush administration long ago threatened to disassemble Amtrak. Yesterday it began at the executive suite.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
strangers on a train
if there was ever a time to support cheap, efficient forms of transportation, you'd think now is the time. Apparently, the administration doesn't think so. From the New York Times editorial today:
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2 comments:
It really bugs me when people complain about Amtrak not having earned a profit. My old boss likes to rail against the light rail here in the Silicon Valley because of its cost, and he likes to rail against Amtrak and its "subsidies." While I have to admit that light rail is dismally slow, it definitely has picked up quite a few riders (and in fact, I use it exclusively to get to work).
It's also ridiculous to suggest that Amtrak needs to be profitable (or even self-sufficient). And any calls for that are purposeful attempts to set the system up for failure. Like all infrastructure, Amtrak needs continued support from the public. Claiming Amtrak needs to be self-sufficient is like claiming that public highways need to turn a profit. Or hey, how about that bridge to nowhere, favored by certain Congressmen? Will that be self-sufficient? Let's see, the Federal government would contribute $941 million, and it benefits 50 residents. Assuming that each resident takes a separate car over the bridge daily for commute purposes, that's an optimistic 36,500 annual trips. I say we charge those suckers a $10 toll per trip. At that rate, it'll only take 2578 years to pay it off. And then the bridge will finally start turning a profit!
right-o. when you look at how much we subsidize highways, freeways, bridges, and roads, not to mention the overhead involved in car production, maintenence, and recycling, trains are damn cheap. and that's not to mention the oil impacts ...
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