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TechnoratiTime's Right for Rail
The impossible happened this week -- the U.S. Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to fully fund Amtrak for the next five years. There's even some matching money to help states set up or expand rail service.
It's amazing what four-buck-a-gallon gas will do.
Amtrak's funding package even got the votes of some of its biggest critics, like Florida Republican Rep. John Mica, who admitted for the first time that Americans need some transportation choices.
"Nothing could be more fitting to bring before Congress today, on a day when gasoline has reached $4.05 a gallon across the United States on average," he announced on the floor.
The two houses need to patch over some minor differences in the bills they passed, but Amtrak backers are confident that won't be any trouble.
The biggest trouble, though, may still come from the White House. President Bush, who has attempted to dismantle the national rail system throughout his presidency, has pledged to veto the bill. Fortunately, both the House and Senate passed the funding by veto-proof margins. Unless Republicans switch because they don't want to "embarrass" their president, Bush's veto will be moot.
Frankly, the president should be embarrassed. His stand on public transportation has marginalized him on the issue. He continues to insist that Amtrak should be dismantled and pieces of it turned over to private companies to run short-line routes. That might work in highly urbanized areas, but without government subsidies the vast expanse of America would be left with no rail service of any kind.
But Bush has been far from alone. There has long been a mind-set against subsidizing rail transportation. Politicians from both sides of the aisle have never had trouble subsidizing the building of more and bigger highways and underwriting the cost of airports and sleek terminals, but when it came to rail, they sang a different tune.
Had we adequately funded Amtrak so that it could have improved trackage in congested areas and run more than one train a day between big cities like Chicago and Minneapolis, for example, the country would today have a reasonable alternative to $4 gas and gridlocked and unreliable airports. We might even have had rail service to Madison.
And now that Congress appears to be finally seeing the light, let's hope that Wisconsin does too, and scraps its plans to eventually spend nearly $2 billion to widen I-94 between Milwaukee and the Wisconsin-Illinois state line, ostensibly to relieve congestion in Racine and Kenosha counties.
The DOT has been relentlessly moving ahead with the project despite an outcry from area citizens that what's really needed is commuter rail, which would cost a fraction of what it would take to expand the interstate.
If ever there was a time not to encourage yet more travel by automobile, this is it.
Americans are at a point where they're looking for alternatives. At $4 a gallon for gas, they'd embrace rail transit if only it were available. That's not to mention the environmental benefits that come from people riding in train cars rather than spewing carbon into the air while driving and idling in traffic.
It's beyond time for our governments -- federal, state and local -- to come to grips with the future of higher-priced and less-available oil.
That future doesn't involve building more superhighways.
© 2008 Capital Newspapers
11 Comments so far
Show AllInside the Memphis train station, framed on the wall, is a 1964 schedule. At that time a traveler could take any of several trains a day to Chicago, Louisville, NYC, New Orleans, St. Louis and Kansas City.
Today there is only one train that goes through Memphis, the City of New Orleans train, that runs between Chicago and NOLA.
It would be great of they could go back to the old 1964 schedule.
I have been riding the rail for years and love the experience much. However it has taken 30 to 40 years for these republicans to destroy this infrastructure. Like wise with the attempt to privatize everything including the U.S Postal service.
Our rail system is in ill repair and has struggled for enough financing in all this time, in the attempt to get this thing self supporting. This direction has really brought down what was once a very good transportation system.
america's nightmare of a transportation 'system' is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that the free market (for the ruling class) economy does not work.
bchil -- i grew up in Seattle but bailed many years ago and won't even drive down there when visiting, it is crazy. . . there was a big movement in the 1960's to go with light rail for Seattle, the project was called Forward Thrust if i remember right, my dad was very involved with it but it didn't go anywhere because the auto industry was adamantly opposed . . .
opeluboy -- haven't been to Hawai'i in a long time but it seems that rail transit around the islands would be such a nice way to see them ! Remember thinking that as we barrelled across Oahu in our rental car on the ten-lane freeway that suddenly turned into a two-lane road . . .
About twenty years ago there was a visionary guy in California named Christopher Swan who came up with a whole system of shuttle vans and light rail for suburban/urban areas, all powered by hydrogen fuels. He called his system SunTrain and wrote a book called SunCell. Don't know if he's around anymore, but he had definitely thought everything through . . .
We definitely need a rail link from Alaska south, everything has to be barged/trucked or flown in and costs are way high, even tho we're used to higher costs than elsewhere . . .
I took the 5:08PM Amtrack from Chicago to Milwaukee last (Friday) night, a train that usually is about half full (meaning most everyone gets the two seaters all to themselves).
I originally tried to buy my ticket at lunch but the line at the ticket counter was so long I knew I'd never make it back to work in time, so I went back to work and bought the ticket online. When I got back to the station at 4:40PM, the lines at the automated ticket kiosks were so long that I barely got my internet ticket in time to get on the train. Luckily the line to the train was so long that I made the train with maybe only 20 or so people behind me. The people waiting to find a seat on the train were still standing when the train started moving and I panicked and thought 'My god I can't get back off now, am I going to have to stand the whole way'. The line suddenly stopped in the direction we were moving and word came back that no seats were available, so everyone turned back and headed for the other end of train where apparently there were still some seats. The first vacant seat available had soda spilled on it so nobody took it. The second empty seat was located by the window next to a man in a business suit who had a beer on the the empty seat's tray. Apparently nobody ahead of me wanted to bother Mr. Suit so they went forward hoping for a better spot. Determined not to stand, I asked politely if the seat was available and Mr. Suit gave me an annoyed stare, but nevertheless gruffly got up and moved his beer.
After we left the first station stop (where more people got on), there was at least one person standing at the end of my car.
In my opinion, this is tame compared to what is coming in the not too distant future if Amtrack is not given more funding.
The important thing is that people are beginning to talk seriously about restoring the U.S.'s once world-renowned rail system.
Its gonna be a big project.
Think of restarting the steel manufacturing systems, just as one example.
A huge effort, and at the end we need to slow production down to an unmarketable (in current schemes) trickle in order to minimize environmental impact and over-dependence on an unsustainable industry economically.
There are old fashioned public and "mortal" corporation funding structures that could work this way, and there is still a fair bit of iron ore in the ground, but still, success is by no means guarunteed.
But the Word is spreading, and that is a hopeful sign.
-matti.
I would love to have rail here. In the old days, they had some trains for carrying sugar cane. You can still see a few of the old tracks and trestles. I have yet to ride a train in my life, and I hate flying. But somehow I just don't think the Island of Hawaii will be getting one any time soon.
i grew up in chicago and have been living in the puget sound area for the last 5 years. it blows my mind that there is no transit system here. sure there are buses, but they're extremely unreliable unless there is a train system to compliment them. i've heard about the "interurban" system that they had back in the day, that connected bellingham to olympia that was disposed of in favor of the car. due to the geography of the region, there are only so many ways around here, and everyone is dependent on their own vehicle. living in chicago, i didn't even get a driver's license until i was 26. i didn't need it. i find it hard to comprehend that an area as progressive as the puget sound still demands that people drive everywhere. there's money to expand roads, but when it comes to a transit system, nobody wants to chip in. it's a catch 22, noone wants to invest in transit 'cause not enough people use it, but people don't use it 'cause there's no investment in it and it's inefficient.
this country needs to look at how transit systems work in the big cities, and the rest of the world for that matter, and get out of their personal vehicles and realise that it's only for the better. drive where you want to go, but commute to work at least.
Its already happening in the Philly and NYC areas. The old hub-spoke rail and light rail lines have the best ridership in memory. So do the buses. Amtrak service from Richmond to Boston is preferred to flying or driving by many, but NJ Transit rail costs a lot less from Philly to NYC.
Jet aircraft produce huge amounts of CO2. Something had to be done about this, even if fuel prices remained low. Back to the future with local and intercity electric rail and high speed ships abroad!
Gandhi used to tell his people not to hate the British. "They didn't take your country", he told them, "You gave it to them."
For God's sake brothers and sisters, at least Faust got something in return for his soul. We gave our birthright away because we were too lazy to pay attention to its maintenance.
Few symbols of early America are as stark as that of the train! Seems it'll be a future symbol as well. Makes sense - when a twenty-lane highway's still not enough, a different system is needed.