Stimulus Money for Amtrak
Flanked by Congressmen and Senators, largely from the rail-heavy Northeast corridor, at Washington, D.C.‘s Union Station on Friday, longtime Amtrak rider and advocate Vice-President Joe Biden announced that some of the stimulus spending will go to Amtrak. “For too long, we haven’t made the investments we needed to make Amtrak as safe, as reliable, as secure as it can be. That ends now. The funds in the Recovery Act for Amtrak will help create jobs and at the same time, repair and update critical needs of our nation’s infrastructure,” said Biden.
Years of under-funding have left Amtrak with severe problems in its infrastructure, causing massive delays and thus discouraging ridership, which lowers revenues and perpetuates a downward spiral. The stimulus investments, such as $105 million to replace a decaying movable bridge over the Niantic River on the Northeast Corridor in Connecticut, will help stanch the bleeding. But more substantial and forward-looking investments will be needed to bring the United States to a respectable level of train service for a developed nation. As I’ve previously reported, the Obama administration is showing the right tendencies when it comes to that. But the amounts, numbering in the hundreds of millions and single-digit billions, are a drop in the bucket compared to what we have spent on the Interstate Highway System. Restoring inter-city passenger rail to a respectable level of service is essential to re-building urban America, especially in the decaying urban precincts of the Northeast and Midwest. Hopefully, these funds for Amtrak are just the tip of the iceberg.
Ben Adler reports on Republican and conservative politics and media for The Nation as a Contributing Writer. He previously covered national politics and policy as a staffer at Newsweek, Politico and the Center for American Progress. Ben also writes regularly about urban and environmental policy, and he was a 2008-2009 urban leaders fellow at Next American City.
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Urban Sociologist on Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 9:10am
I have never rode amtrak, but should we be focusing on how to fix transportation within the cities first. It is great that we are tring to fix this problem nationally, but we still have people in certain cities that have bearly any transportation. The type of tranportation that needs to be created is cost efficient and fuel efficient. I completely understand Biden’s viewpoint but I do not think that bailing out Amtrak is the answer
Rail4All in Connecticut on Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 8:44am
I agree with Urban Socialist on the need to upgrade/fix transportation in many of our cities. Hartford, CT is desperately in need of something to alleviate its traffic problems. Poor highway planning in the greater Hartford area leads to horrendous congestion at rush hour and there are few easy ways around it. Light rail is the answer for Hartford. Baltimore has, over the past 10-15 years, developed a fine light rail system. The State of Connecticut, in cooperation with Amtrak and the State of Massachusetts, have had a plan in place for years to upgrade the Springfield Line (Springfield, MA-Hartford-New Haven, CT) to support commuter service (“heavy rail”). With stimulus money comming to Connecticut, this plan is back on the fast-track. This is a start. Rhode Island, served by Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor and the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) is developing plans for its own commuter service to serve from Providence to Woonsockett and Providence to Westerly (Providence is served by MBTA commuter trains from Boston over the Norheast Corridor). Massachusetts is also looking to expand service across the state. MBTA from Boston serves as far west as Worcester. Springfield, MA has better connections to New York City (10+ departures daily) than it does to Boston (1 departure daily; Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited which departs Springfield for Boston after 6PM and often runs late, given that the train is comming from Chicago).
But Amtrak needs these funds. Years of underfunding have forced Amtrak to delay maintainence, sideline equipment, and opperate short-handed. The Northeast Corridor (Boston-New York-Washington) is the busiest and fastest piece of railroad in the western hemisphere. The right-of-way itself dates back about 150 years. Most of the major bridges are over 80 years old (Connecticut River, 1910, Thames River, 1908, Susquehanna River, 1920s, the Penn Tunnels under the Hudson River, 1902). Clearence restrictions in a tunnel outside the Baltimore station limited traffic to one train at a time. Clearence restrictions in the Penn Tunnels also limit the size of equipment that can be used on the Corridor. Amtrak’s fleet used in the Northeast is also very old. The types of cars used here (the Amfleet) were delivered new to Amtrak in the late 1970s and in their best condition are limited to 110mph. Long distance trains like the Lake Shore Limited have been without their dinning cars for over a year because the “Heritage Fleet” cars pre-date Amtrak (created in 1971), and are falling apart. The Acela Express high speed trainsets, with are capable of 200mph, are restricted to a top speed of 150mph because of Federal Railway Administration (FRA) regulations limiting their speed because they share the tracks with slower trains (This is why France built dedicated lines for the TGV and Japan built dedicated lines for the Shinkansen or “Bullet Train”). ANd the Acela can only reach this 150mph speed in Rhode Island where traffic is lightest and the line is very straight. Here is something to ponder. If you have to go from downtown Manhatten to downtown Chicago by air it takes about 7 hours. One hour to get from downtown Manhatten to JFK then 2-3 hours going through airport security (if you’re lucky). Then it’s about a 2 hour flight (assuming no delays), and an hour from O’Hare to downtown Chicago. Add it up; 6-7 hours. If a dedicated, all high speed line were built between New York and Chicago, the estimates are that you could go from Penn Station in downtown Manhatten to Union Station in downtown Chicago in about 7 hours. No hastling with airport security, you could get up and walk around the train, full meals at a sit-down table in the dinning car, and no hastle driving to and from the airports. Imagine.