Your March 24 editorial titled “A promising transportation plan” is fairly commendable, but it misses the point completely with Amtrak. The clean-air programs, highway efficiency, rail and road safety are all programs that will continue to absorb tax dollars year after year with no end in sight for their subsidies. Amtrak is the only transportation plan that has a goal of ending subsidization. Since the ’70s, Amtrak has steadily rebuilt its inherited, broken-down plant to an excellent, viable form of transportation for thousands of customers.
With the deterioration of the quality of air transport, this alternative is sorely needed. It is indeed within the realm of probability that with continuing support for a few short years, Amtrak, like Conrail and Chrysler Corp., will join the ranks of a self-supporting, profitmaking form of transportation that is now and will continue to be a credit to quality travel.
I’d suggest your editors take an overnight trip on Amtrak for an experience that may alter their view of the need for quality long-distance surface transportation in the United States.
