Amtrak, the has-been passenger railroad headed by a has-been politician, went to Capitol Hill last week with a has-been idea: Give us another $1.2 billion subsidy or we’ll shut down at least 18 of our long-distance passenger lines.
Demands for ever-larger subsidies indeed are nothing new to Amtrak, which has consumed approximately $44 billion in public funds since it was founded in 1971.
As for threats to cut grossly unprofitable long-distance routes, Congress ought to shrug and say “Go ahead!” Most if not all of those long-haul routes are remnants of a has-been transportation system that–like trans-Atlantic steamer ships–ought to be phased out or offered as a luxury service for those willing to pay for it.
A week after the latest demands for subsidies, the Amtrak Reform Council recommended breaking up Amtrak into three components and opening up operations to competition. Amtrak chairman Michael Dukakis, former Massachusetts governor and Democratic presidential candidate, harrumphed that Congress should reject the ARC recommendations out of hand.
Quite the opposite. Congress ought to endorse the ARC report, which offers a good baseline from which to rethink passenger service in the United States.
Congress created ARC in 1997 as part of an overhaul of Amtrak that also set a deadline of Dec. 2, 2002, for the railroad to wean itself from government subsidies for operations or be liquidated. Self-sufficiency clearly is not in the cards, so it’s up to Congress to decide what to do next.
ARC’s plan would split Amtrak into three pieces. One would own the enormously costly infrastructure–rails, bridges and tunnels–along the Northeast Corridor, from Washington, D.C. to Boston, that Amtrak inherited in 1976 when the freight company that owned it went bankrupt. Elsewhere in the country, Amtrak runs on privately owned freight tracks.
The second piece would be a relatively small federal agency that would oversee passenger rail service, much like a smaller-scale Federal Aviation Administration.
A third piece would be an operating company that would run trains for another five years and then begin bidding out operations of particular lines and other services to private contractors. ARC hopes that this injection of competition will improve service and save money.
Upgrading the Northeast rail infrastructure will be costly–tens of billions of dollars. States served and the federal government will have to eat those costs, just like they pay for roads, bridges and other transportation essentials.
However, removing that albatross will free up a smaller and more limber passenger train corporation to operate more efficiently, particularly as it contracts out some lines.
Good as far as it goes, but there also ought to be mechanisms to ensure there is market demand for the remaining rail lines. One would be to require that a certain percentage of the cost of operations be covered by fares, much like Chicago’s Regional Transit Authority. That would introduce a realism to train service: More and better service would attract more customers. Lousy service and no demand, adios.
Ultimately, rail service should be regionalized, with states and localities paying a good portion of whatever subsidies are required. States in the Midwest, for example, would take the lead in determining whether high-speed service between Chicago and Detroit makes sense–by easing demands on other transportation methods, facilitating commerce or whatever–and be willing to foot part of the bill. That would work in favor of developing a more rational train service driven by market demand to replace the non-functional relic–running on fumes of politics and nostalgia–that exists now.
