IP: Big money fuels scheme to derail Amtrak for good

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Richard Jay Solomon <rsolomon () dsl cis upenn edu>

> Big money fuels scheme to derail Amtrak for good
> By Douglas Turner
>
> March 5, 2002
>
>
>
> WASHINGTON - Just 15 miles south of here, the federal government is building
> a $600 million spaghetti-bowl interchange at just one of the zillion
> intersections of the Interstate Highway System. This follows an investment
> of at least $200 million to add four lanes to Interstate 95 immediately
> south of this crowded interchange.
>
> There is enough spent there to build a great university campus - complete
> with medical school, linear accelerator and chemistry laboratories. This
> mindless splurge, which is being replicated all over the country, will
> accomplish nothing.
>
> The four new lanes are now bumper-to-bumper by 11 most Saturday mornings.
> This is because motor vehicle traffic abhors a vacuum. Buses, cars and
> trucks go where the capacity is. And traffic is expanding faster than road
> capacity.
>
> Despite this investment of taxpayer dollars, the capacity of this particular
> interchange is locked in for the next 40 years simply because of the bridge
> abutments and other built-in arrangements.
>
> State and federal highway agencies throw hundreds of billions around like
> this without blinking, with no public debate and virtually no media notice.
> It's on automatic.
>
> Similarly, federal agencies and airport authorities dump tens of billions
> into new runways, aprons and other projects. That, too, is on automatic.
>
> It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to figure out why. The combination of
> forces favoring sprawl, concrete and steel - automakers, contractors and oil
> companies - is virtually unbeatable here.
>
> The hired guns in pinstripes representing the major airlines are likewise
> unstoppable. Witness last fall's congressional $15 billion bailout of the
> major airlines, whose callous and reckless indifference to security concerns
> played a role in the hijackings of Sept. 11.
>
> These same forces have traditionally thwarted attempts by former Democratic
> Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and other progressive thinkers to
> advance rail solutions to inter-city transportation problems. These
> interests have succeeded in preventing Amtrak from fulfilling the promise
> made when President Richard Nixon created it three decades ago.
>
> Now, with the support of White House Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels
> Jr., this combine has hatched a cabal to kill off Amtrak when it is most
> needed.
>
> This conspiracy - and it is not too strong a term - centers on a report
> concocted by the so-called Amtrak Reform Council. This was a 1997 creation
> of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and then-Senate Majority
> Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi.
>
> This elitist exercise in anti-urban, regionalist bias was forced on Congress
> by those two Republicans as a condition of continuing the modest level -
> compared with the subsidies given the airline and highway businesses - of
> operating subsidies provided to Amtrak.
>
> According to the 1997 law, Amtrak had to show a profit by 2002 or this
> Amtrak Reform Council would call on the passenger system to come up with a
> liquidation plan.
>
> No national or regional passenger system in the world shows a profit, any
> more than the airline or trucking industries could operate without
> government money. All transportation - other than canoes, bikes and scooters
> - is subsidized.
>
> The council also produced a plan to "reorganize" Amtrak. Complaining loudly
> about the modest subsidies Amtrak receives to run a national passenger
> system, the council proposes to break up and sell off the entire system,
> including the only tracks Amtrak owns - the northeastern corridor, running
> from Washington to Boston.
>
> Already under the reform council's pressure to cut costs, Amtrak has
> announced it will cut 18 long-distance trains from service this fall,
> including trains running through the district of New York Republican Jack
> Quinn, chairman of the House Transportation Subcommittee on Railroads.
>
> The reorganization "plan" crafted by the council is a predictable one,
> considering the council's makeup. Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Lott saw to it that
> the panel would be dominated by the most dedicated, right-wing,
> anti-government ideologues they could find - people who would be indifferent
> to the interests of Amtrak's middle-class customers.
>
> The plan the reform council produced is an audacious union-busting grab for
> government property, with a death grip on the public purse. It would sell
> off Amtrak's assets, liquidating some, and offer parts of its system to
> private operators. These private operators would be subsidized, of course,
> according to the reform council scheme. One estimate is $100 billion over a
> decade.
>
> Privatization moves in Massachusetts and Britain have proved disastrous. The
> $100 billion is a good estimate of what Amtrak should have gotten but didn't
> because of its well-heeled opponents. This outrageous plan for Amtrak is a
> classic case study of what can happen when entrenched big money is pitted
> against the common citizen in this town.
>
>
> Douglas Turner is the Washington bureau chief of The Buffalo News. Readers
> may write him at 1141 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045.
>
>
> Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun


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