Can Amtrak Survive 3 More Bush Years?

Image by Paul Shambroom, HOMELAND SECURITY SERIES.

Is the title of the upcoming column by Neal Peirce, which will be online within the next couple days. From the column:

The United States needs strong regional passenger rail systems, linked across the country to provide alternatives to highway grids already choked by autos and fast-growing fleets of freight trucks. It should be a matter of simple common sense, patriotism, and high priority. But the Bush administration, never stingy with favors and subsidies to private corporate interests, can’t bear the fact that Amtrak, the only national rail system we have, has been receiving more than $1 billion a year in subsidies* for capital and operations. [*This is another instance of inequality in judging which "subsidies" are acceptable and which are not. The road system is subsidized to the tune of 50% from general fund monies.] ...

Could it, though, make any sense to go the administration’s way, with states obliged to help finance regional rail corporations and private sector firms running the trains? No, says, former Amtrak President Tom Downs, because the states -- unconsulted, for example, on the proposed Northeast corridor spinoff -- would surely resist taking responsibility for operating costs, not to mention more billions for needed capital investment.

And why, asks Downs, would the administration even think of dismembering Amtrak without checking on the “disaster” that occurred after the British Tories privatized British rail a decade ago? The respected British newsweekly The Economist recently summed up the widely held opinion: “The privatization of British Rail has proved a disastrous failure... a catalogue of political cynicism, managerial incompetence and financial opportunism. It has cost taxpayers billions of pounds and brought rail travelers countless hours of delays.”

Surely, Downs suggests, we should “look across the pond and take a serious look at went wrong in the nation with the closest capitalist model to our own. They have multiple rail companies and fares, and trouble even issuing a national ticket.” The advocates of privatization also need to be reminded that it’s not just Amtrak -- that America’s highways, airports and seaports are all heavily subsidized. Airlines and, now even the big auto manufacturers, come running to Washington for one form of aid or another.

It is really a shame that the Washington Post doesn't run Peirce's column, even though the Washington Post Writers Syndicate distributes it. There needs to be more coverage of state-federal interaction in the paper that is the "hometown" newspaper for the Federal Government.

Index Keywords: Amtrak; railroads; transportation