IP: Amtrak is about to be run over

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Richard Jay Solomon <rsolomon () dsl cis upenn edu>
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 10:35:36 -0400

 From the Boston Globe

> Amtrak is about to be run over
>
>  By Derrick Z. Jackson, 6/21/2002
>
>  THROWN INTO the caboose at birth, shuffled around Congress as an
> unwanted foster child, and
>  abandoned by the absentee fathers of public policy, Amtrak is now 31, a
> product one would
>  expect from the crumbling stations of the transportation ghetto. The
> same forces of willful neglect
>  now condemn the rail company for looking for handouts. Unlike the
> damsel in distress pulled off the
>  tracks just in time, Amtrak is about to be run over as if it were just
> another welfare mother.
>
>  Amtrak's new president, David Gunn, has said that the latest shortfalls
> of the passenger rail
>  company are so severe that the system will be shut down in July unless
> it receives a loan guarantee
>  of up to $200 million. Gunn has tried to win support by being candid
> about Amtrak's past.
>
>  ''The company had lost credibility on many fronts, and its management
> structure was ineffectual,''
>  Gunn said. ''The company made bad decisions while pursuing an
> impossible goal of
>  self-sufficiency.''
>
>  The response from the White House was to pour more coal into the
> locomotive and come around
>  the bend at full speed to bear down on Amtrak. It wants to break up the
> company altogether. The
>  Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington would become its own
> line in a state-federal
>  partnership. Other routes might either be privatized or require states
> interested in maintaining
>  service to provide the operating funds.
>
>  For a split moment after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, it looked
> as if Americans, through the
>  momentary fear of flying, might explore the possibilities of better
> rail service between big cities.
>  Fear turned into an obsession by the nation to get back to ''normal,''
> with Americans soon
>  complaining more about airport check-in times than whether the random
> checking of people's shoes
>  has anything to do with security.
>
>  The obsession for normality meant that Amtrak was sent back to the
> waiting platform of double
>  standards. Last year alone the nation's highways and roads received $32
> billion from the
>  Department of Transportation, more than the $24 billion Amtrak has
> received in its entire 31 years.
>  Air travel, at $13 billion last year, receives more funding in two
> years than Amtrak has in its three
>  decades. The General Accounting Office this year said the cost of
> modernizing America's
>  passenger rail system would be $30 billion over the next 20 years. That
> is still less than what
>  America spent last year on highways.
>
>  In its budget request for 2003, the Department of Transportation spent
> most of the section devoted
>  to Amtrak complaining about the money it has lost, $20.4 billion since
> 1971. The White House
>  says that Amtrak has ''utterly failed.'' The White House says that
> Amtrak's stupid mortgaging of
>  Penn Station in New York to cover losses was a ''financial absurdity.''
> It concluded that Amtrak is
>  ''clearly in desperate financial condition.''
>
>  Amtrak is so beaten down by this bad-mouthing that it has asked for
> only $1.2 billion next year,
>  less than half of what GAO says it would take for modernization. There
> is no such bad-mouthing
>  for highways and airlines.
>
>  The roads get their money even though last month Kenneth Mead, the
> inspector general of the
>  Department of Transportation, reported that the amount of money
> recovered from highway
>  construction fraud has tripled in the last three years to $43 million.
> The Big Dig will get finished by
>  the feds and Massachusetts taxpayers even though a project that began
> with a projected pricetag of
>  $2.5 billion will now cost about $15 billion.
>
>  Airports get their subsidies, and the nation's airlines got a $15
> billion Sept. 11 bailout even though
>  they, too, suffer from ineffectual management that barely cared about
> passenger security. The major
>  American airlines lost a combined $7 billion last year and $2.4 billion
> in the first quarter of this year.
>  In 15 months, the airlines have lost nearly half of what Amtrak has
> lost in 31 years.
>
>  The proposal by the White House to foist the cost of Amtrak on the
> states is the real financial
>  absurdity, given that they are reeling from more than $40 billion in
> revenue shortfalls. There are
>  some efforts in Congress to get Amtrak its $1.2 billion, but nothing
> like the lobbying for the roads.
>  Bush's proposal to cut roads down to $23 billion has been met by a
> Congress that has all but
>  insured appropriations of closer to $30 billion.
>
>  The highways and airlines did not need to wait until the nick of time
> to be saved. The damsel
>  representing Amtrak is still wriggling on the tracks. She can see the
> cowcatcher coming at her head.
>
>  Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson () globe com.
>
>  This story ran on page A15 of the Boston Globe on 6/21/2002.
>  © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.


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