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Amtrak not on track
AMTRAK NOT ON TRACK
Derail proposal to put gasoline tax money into railroads; only nostalgia buffs want to ride trains anymore.
By: Stephen Chapman
Found in Friday's May 16 Oregonian.
Chicago's Union Station is one of the grand cathedrals of the Age of the Railroad. With its cavernous waiting room, towering Corinthian columns, statues of Greek goddesses and soaring vaulted skylight, it could serve as the railway museum for a city built on the steam locomotive. In fact, it remains a bustling train depot, handling over 100,000 passengers a day. But the station does include one museum piece: a concourse for Amtrak, the taxpayer-financed national passenger railroad.
On a weekday morning, a visitor risks being trampled by crowds of commuters streaming out of the building on their way to work. But no danger exists in the Amtrak Lounge, where barely two dozen people can be found. During a typical day, fewer than 6,400 intercity travelers pass through the terminal.
Like the horse-drawn carriages that traverse North Michigan Avenue every evening, Amtrak serves mainly to acquaint moderns with a form of transportation that belongs almost entirely in the past.
Congress is considering whether to shut off the flow of tax dollars to Amtrak or to give it a permanent tap on the Treasury. Railway buffs want to award it a share of the federal gasoline tax, which currently goes entirely to finance roads and bridges used by the motorists who pay the tax.
But there is no good reason to extend additional help to a government-sponsored venture that was supposed to achieve self-sufficiency a quarter of a century ago.
Amtrak was created in 1970 in an effort to rescue passenger train service, which had been steadily declining since the end of World War II. The attempt has failed.
In 1950, railroads accounted for more than 6% of intercity travel. By the time of Amtrak's founding, the figure was down to 0.9 percent. Today, it is 0.5 percent.
Americans have abandoned trains for vehicles that are faster (airplanes), cheaper (busses), or more convenient (cars), and nothing is going to reverse this trend.
Unlike these other types of transportation, Amtrak is a heavy burden on taxpayers. In 1996, it needed $635 million in federal outlays. Over the years, it has swallowed up $19 billion in subsidies. In 1970, Americans were told that the new corporation would soon make a profit, but not a single Amtrak route has ever broken even.
We end up having to bribe people handsomely not to travel by road or air. If you want to go from Chicago and St. Louis and back, for example, the Federal Government will spend $113 just to keep you from laying your own cash for a $46 bus ticket or a $94 air fare. Taxpayers could save a lot of money by giving rail passengers free tickets on the bus company or airline of their choice.
Incurable devotees of train travel insist that cars and airplanes also get bushels of government money. In fact, as a recent report by the Congressional Research Service notes: "Intercity buses receive no federal financial assistance. Autos pay at least the full cost of federal assistance to highways. Airlines receive far less federal financial assistance. per passenger mile, than Amtrak.
Only a fully private railroad, force to compete to survive, has any hope of furnishing rail service that pays its own way, and then only in the rare places where such service makes sense. Outside the densely populated Northeast Corridor, hardly anyone wants to travel by train anymore.
Contrary to myth, Amtrak makes only trivial contributions, if any to reducing pollution, traffic congestion and energy use.
The age of the railroad is gone, and it's not coming back, except in dreams of nostalgia addicts. Federal support for Amtrak makes about as sense as subsidizing a revival of the Conestoga Wagon. We can face that reality, or we can deny it, but facing it is a lot cheaper.
Lloyd Flem's Response to Article
This is our executive director's response to the above article. It was printed on May 31, 1997 in the Oregonian.
May 20, 1997
Letters to the EditorOregonian
1320 SW Broadway
Portland OR 97201-3499
To the Editor:
Stephan Chapman's May 16 Oregonian anti-Amtrak blast goes beyond the erroneous claim that "unlike other types of transportation" Amtrak is uniquely costly to taxpayers to the absurd proposition that "hardly anyone wants to travel by train anymore."
Concerning Amtrak's alleged high subsidy, Chapman's quoted portion of a recent Congressional Research Service report is simply a summary of undocumented assertions made by Amtrak's enemies. The same report contains the pro-Amtrak case, too! In reality, the Federal Highway Administration showed nearly 39% of the $84 billion spent on U. S. street and highway construction and maintenance in 1992 came from federal, state and local general funds, property taxes and other non-user sources. Airports are nearly all publicly funded; the air traffic control system is not paid for the airline passengers. The commercial vessels using the Columbia River navigation system pay about 10% of their cost. The rest is "subsidy." I don't oppose general public support of roads, air and water transportation, but simply regret a singling out of passenger rail for attack as "not paying its own way."
Intercity passenger rail's market share is small in the U. S. This differs from other advanced capitalist democracies for one fundamental reason: for 70 years public policies at all government levels have relentlessly favored highway and air transportation. In western Europe and Japan policies and investments have always included passenger rail as part of an economically and environmentally sound balance of road, air, waterway and rail for the movement of goods and people. Switzerland has the highest per capita public investment in passenger rail, the world's best passenger rail system and a high and stable rail market share.
Chapman's ignorance of the continued investment in modern high speed trains in Europe and Japan predicts his ignorance of the state of Washington's bipartisan support for an increased role for intercity passenger rail. Citing safety (trains are 10-15 times safer than cars, per million passenger miles), comfort, fuel efficiency and environmental soundness, Washington state investments have yielded a doubling of our Amtrak patronage since 1993.
"Hardly anyone want to travel by train anymore!" In France and Germany, high speed trains have taken market share from international flights and the autobahn. In Washington state, an independent 1995 poll showed "more and faster trains" as the single most desired transportation improvement statewide, significantly ahead of increased highway building.
The Age of Railroads never left in most of the world's industrial democracies. And it will hopefully achieve a rightful place in North America again. Better get off the track Mr. Chapman!
Sincerely,Lloyd H. Flem
Executive Director
2516 Thurston Ave NE
Olympia WA 98506
360 943-8333
Response to Lloyd's Letter
Lloyd:
great letter in response to Chapman's column in the Oregonian today. As someone who actively promotes the need to fund so-called *alternative* forms of transport -- I rather dislike that term -- I'm continually impressed by the effective brainwash the highway lobby has performed, with the not altogether tacit cooperation of government, to convince the public that our highway system was built and is supported by user fees (gas tax / registration dollars). You know you're in trouble when an alleged libertarian, who ought to know a subsidy when he sees one, is unable to see outside the well-constructed highway lobby box.
I was intrigued by your reference to the FHWA quantification of funding for street and highway construction at 39% from non-user sources. Can you point me to this FHWA study? It sounds like good ammunition.
Keep up the good work.
Jeff Smith
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