On Friday, December 4, 2009, the Marshall (Texas) T&P Depot Board held a reception honoring local rail advocate Christina Anderson for receiving Amtrak’s President’s Award earlier this year in Los Angeles. Anderson and her husband, Harrison County Judge Richard Anderson, have been working on rail-related issues for years—including key roles in the saving of the Texas Eagle in 1997. I attended as an invited guest in my very new and very limited roll of passenger rail advocate.
The speeches of the reception can be viewed here: http://www.mars-hall.tv/player/christinareception.htm.
Since the information presented is in the public domain, let me break down some of the main points.
At the local level, Amtrak agent George Cantley reported that over 300 passengers traveled through Marshall in the week before Thanksgiving. This is significant because Marshall only serves the Texas Eagle twice a day—once in each direction—and offers no connections by rail or bus.
Judge Anderson reported that, after years of lobbying, Union Pacific has agreed to a traffic modeling study in preparation for proposed new Amtrak service between Shreveport, LA and Fort Worth, TX. A little background: some of you remember tha
How do the proponents of the expanded passenger rail service between Shreveport and DFW plan to pay for it?
The national debt stands at $12.1 trillion. That works out to $145,075 for every federal income tax payer - only 67 per cent of those who file a federal income tax actually pay any tax.
Likely a shared state-federal financing program comparable to the agreement between the Texas and Oklahoma departments of transportation that operate the Heartland Flyer, though talks aren’t that far yet.
Just for reference, assuming a comparable cost to the Flyer of $3.9 million per year, we could operate the proposed Shreveport-DFW train for 333 years with the money spent on one Space Shuttle launch.
Or, we could double track the entire corridor between Little Rock and San Antonio for the cost of 2 cloverleaf interstate exit ramps.
Yes, millions of dollars are real money, but even throwing out the ratio of revenue to operating expense and assuming that the train would be a 100% loss as far as tax dollars are concerned, that still does not take into account the intangible benefits of increased tourism (and tourism dollars, with the increased local sales tax revenue) for towns along the route, nor the benefits of traffic reduction on the I-20 corridor; not considering any other travelers, the residents of DFW who currently drive and/or take busses to the casinos in Shreveport would possibly be captured by the train. And that’s just the one-way market currently in place.
I’ll believe it when I see it AND I don’t think I will see it. Someone keeps resurrecting this plan but it always dies when it comes time to fund it. [:)]
What do the Shreveport casino associations have to say about this, and how much cash are they willing to put up?