House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA); T&I Ranking Member Peter DeFazio (D-OR) introduced The Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2015, or PRRIA (H.R. 749).
Like a similar to a bill with the same name approved by the T&I committee last fall, this bill would authorize Amtrak and other intercity passenger rail service for the next five years at only $1.8 billion per year. For Amtrak, that will mean the next five years will see (at best) stagnant service levels.
I’m not as negative on this for the following reasons…
Amtrak is becomming increasingly successful at getting states to contribute to not only infrastructure projects but with equipment purchases.
This is how the bill has been introduced and it has not gone through either house of Congress yet nor has it had amendments heard.
If you make the argument that HSR is the future of Amtrak and that HSR cannot happen everywhere and that your against the LD part of the Amtrak system does that not imply that Amtrak should then be predominantly regionally funded by the regions that most directly benefit from the HSR…instead of it being a Federal program?
Actually Shuster & Co. are fairly Amtrak friendly compared to most of the other republicans. The norm over the years when the Reps controlled the House is for a bill to come out with ZERO for Amtrak.
“Kill Amtrak”, or “zero out Amtrak” used to be a top ten Rep talking point. That chatter has pretty much vanished. Even the Mica circus has faded away of late.
The regional vs national point of view is interesting. Traditionally, regional projects were put in place by the Feds. (TVA, for example) We really don’t have any institutional mechanisms in place for regional projects. States have great difficulty acting in unison on anything. Downeaster, for example (hello, NH?) Heck, the counties that make up SEPTA have difficulty agreeing on anything.
So, while it may make sense to do regional intercity rail project, the reality is they have less chance of success than the Articles of Confederation!
I think we are getting close to the point of determination to ask, is Amtrak a National Program or Regional Program and at which level should be the majority of the funding. I think we should keep some funding at the Federal Level and kind of keep Amtrak a standards body so that we don’t have different parts of the country buying different equipment and systems. It’s not that now because we have different and probably somewhat non compatible HSR equipment being picked out and purchased. It is cheaper on the National level if we just set a standard for the entire country and work from that standard vs every state or region inventing their own.
I am really surprised but it does look like Amtrak is going to pull it off with getting states along the line to pay for the current Southwest Chief route upgrade.
Likewise in Texas, Amtrak and external Passenger Train interests have almost made a case for Texas going along with extension of the Heartland Flyer service North (eventually to Kansas City).
They failed with the Dallas to Shreveport, LA idea, primarily because the Casinos in LA kept waffling on if they would pay for part of the service or not. They never even funded a demo train and it’s fallen to the back burner again.
Just to illustrate the problems of non-federal support, The state of Texas had to loan Amtrak money to keep the Texas Eagle going in the mid 90’s for a portion of a year following the Mercer cuts that were later partially undone, but I don’t think any of the other route states joined.
Some states, such as NY, CA and IL, have been major contributors to the Short Corridor State-Sponsored group. But when borders are crossed, it is much harder to get regional services involving several adjacent states.
Michigan, va and north Carolina as well. Here a question for the group, does north Carolina pay for Virgina’s portion of the carolianan or does Amtrak pay for it as well as it NEC portion of the trip?
Most of the Ethan Allen runs Thur new York, it is likely that its jointly supported by NY and vt.
The Ethan Allen is an extension of what was a NY - Albany service, which was and is supported by NY State as part of its contribution for the Empire Service in general. Vermont had to pick up most of the costs involved in the extension, possibly all.
The point of the thread was that Amtrak faces once again the likelihood of an inadequate budget. Since the current political climate is likely to be with us for at least two more years, is that not just one more reason why Amtrak should stop making foolish choices such as purchasing baggage cars, a concept largely abandoned by modern passenger rail everywhere else?
Dave if I recall a few year back the Ethan Allen was in trouble because vt did not want to pay its portion of the route although NY was paying for its portion. Today’s empire service is NYC - Albany- Niagara falls. It does not include the Ethan Allen or Adirondack, even though it is an extension via Schenectady, Saratoga and Mechanicsburg.
The old 403b method of starting service was a great deal for the states. They only had to ante up a small part of the subsidy for the a period of years.