Amtrak studying Pioneer route return January 30, 2009
Posted by Logan Nash in Amtrak.Tags: eastern oregon, pioneer express
10 comments
Here’s some brighter news from Oregon.
Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that political leaders in eastern Oregon have convinced Amtrak to study the feasibility of a return to the Pioneer running from Salt Lake City to Portland. The route was closed in 1997.
Warner says Amtrak would either have to build more tracks or negotiate a better deal with freight shippers.
Still, Warner hopes with enough political will, even that problem could be solved.
Fred Warner: “If it was easy, people would use it now, $4 a gallon gas makes it a real viable option now.”
That’s why Oregon Democrats Ron Wyden and Earl Blumenauer teamed with Republican Greg Walden.
The bipartisan delegation pushed Amtrak to study what it would take to reopen the Pioneer Route.
Amtrak says it’ll publish the report later this year.
And from there, lawmakers will decide whether to put the Pioneer Route back on track.
Sounds like a bit of a longshot in our familiar anti-rail political climate, but this is the kind of smart infrastructure that should be a key part of the federal stimulus package. Too bad it isn’t. Some smart “steel on the ground” investments today would provide for stimulus well into tomorrow.
Surprise! Amtrak isn’t recession proof January 30, 2009
Posted by Logan Nash in Amtrak, Passenger Rail Politics.1 comment so far
Here’s a few snippets of recent rail events before you all head home for the weekend. First, some bad news. Amtrak ridership for the first quarter of 2009 is below expectations. This is a slight dip from the same period last year and 5% percent below expectations, according to the Associated Press. CEO Joseph Boardman told a House transportation subcommittee that lower fuel costs were leading some riders to return to their automobiles.
Surely our experienced Amtrak naysayers are going to jump all over this, giving the usual spiel about how the system is a waste of money and should be privatized AKA closed. Forget that Amtrak has seen unprecedented ridership growth in the past couple of years, provides green jobs, and stimulates the economy. Here’s a very specific case in point from Vermont’s ongoing battle to save its popular Ethan Allen Express route:
Rutland City Republican Peter Fagan said even the specter of the proposed Amtrak cut has had an impact on economic development. A condominium project slated for the old Sunshine food store lot has been placed on hold, pending the outcome of the Amtrak negotiations, according to Fagan.
“That’s an economic driver the city would like to take advantage of,” Fagan told the House Transportation Committee. “If the train is funded, they’ll continue on. If the train is not funded, that project is in doubt.”
Seems like the private sector is willing to embrace smart growth, if the public will provide the means for it.
Tell your congressman January 28, 2009
Posted by patlynch in Amtrak, Passenger Rail Politics, Passenger Rail Transportatio Policy, Regional USA Passenger Rail.1 comment so far
It’s not quite groundhog day, but I have emerged from my stack of theological books (and thanks to Logan for keeping up). I did not see my shadow, but I did see politicians doing what they always do. The disturbing truth is that this kind of stagneant unimaginative play-it-safe policy making is part of what has gotten this country in such a mess.
Good rail transportation is just prudent policy.Here is a note from the Midwest High Speed Rail Associaiton.
Tell Congress and Obama:
Put high-speed rail in the stimulus packageMomentum is building for a new stimulus package. Passenger trains have been absent from the debate. Help change that by sending a message today.
President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders are working on a stimulus package to invest in a green economy and create millions of jobs.
The amount of money that could be spent is huge: more than $800 billion.
Investing in fast, frequent and dependable passenger trains will help restructure and strengthen our economy by reducing transportation costs and bringing cities closer together.
Unfortunately, our D.C. sources say that the “marker” for fast trains is small – just $1.1 billion.
California’s high-speed rail project alone will require at least $15 billion from the federal government. How can Congress even consider spending only $1.1 billion for the entire nation on state-based rail investment?
We could miss this opportunity if we don’t act now.
The stimulus package is being debated right now.
Act Now! Tell your Member of Congress to invest at least $5 billion in high-speed rail in the $700 billion stimulus package.
And tell President Barack Obama the same thing: at least $5 billion for high-speed rail.
Click here to send a message
Our PrioritiesFund $500 million in ready-to-go Midwest railroad projects.
Build the South-of-the-Lake Reroute.
Finish the Chicago – St. Louis Lincoln Heritage Corridor.
Help us build the list.
If your city or town has a passenger rail project in the works that is waiting for funding, such as a new railroad station, please click here to tell us more.
Obama: Bla bla, energy, cars, bla bla (not rail) January 27, 2009
Posted by Logan Nash in International High Speed Rail, Passenger Rail Politics.Tags: energy, environment, obama, stimulus
6 comments
So we keep hearing bad news about the stimulus and its lack of rail provisions. And worse, the Overhead Wire has a good piece about why the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership seem to be squelching attempts to make any progress in the matter. Apparently it has to do with current Obama adviser, former energy secretary, and infrastructure-hater Larry Summers.
Amidst all this, Obama released a new statement on energy today. It actually might come across as nuanced and well-thought out, except for the glaring lack of anything rail or even transit related.
Year after year, decade after decade, we’ve chosen delay over decisive action. Rigid ideology has overruled sound science. Special interests have overshadowed common sense. Rhetoric has not led to the hard work needed to achieve results. Our leaders raise their voices each time there’s a spike in gas prices, only to grow quiet when the price falls at the pump.
I haven’t seen any definitive proof here that special interests still aren’t overshadowing common sense, but okay. Oh, there’s more.
Finally, we will make it clear to the world that America is ready to lead. To protect our climate and our collective security, we must call together a truly global coalition. I’ve made it clear that we will act, but so too must the world. That’s how we will deny leverage to dictators and dollars to terrorists. And that’s how we will ensure that nations like China and India are doing their part, just as we are now willing to do ours.
Not sure we need to be patronizing China about climate change when we’re going to be building loads of new highways while they invest billions in high-speed rail (via the NY Times).
I certainly haven’t lost hope in the idea that Obama will be bringing “change” to transportation in this country, but we haven’t seen much delivered yet. Even if the stimulus is all highways and tax cuts, we can still look forward (and keep on working) towards change in the “highway bill” coming up this year.
Secret Service forgets that Union Station is for trains January 23, 2009
Posted by Logan Nash in Amtrak, Travel Woes.Tags: Amtrak, inauguration, washington union station
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Matthew Harwood over at the Huffington Post points out what seems to be a hiccup on inauguration day that everyone ignored. Obama’s final ball of the evening, the Eastern States Inaugural Ball, was held in the grand hall of Washington’s Union Station. It’s a beautiful place. That makes sense. Except that this was one of the busiest travel events Washington has ever seen and people need to use the station for such frivolous things as, you know, catching a train. From the Huffington Post:
In the end, average rail travelers using Union Station got the same treatment they always do when their interests cross those of our nation’s elite: They were told to be patient and calm and to wait in line.
“And for what,” asked the New York businessman, “so someone could have champagne tonight?”
If you were lucky enough to get into the Eastern States Inaugural Ball, according to the Boston Herald, you could see a few Kennedys, Congressman Barney Frank, and the Senator John Kerry’s brother and sister, before the Obamas made their entrance.
Enthusiasts and critics of Obama are right: maybe this is the new Camelot.
The wrong place to put high-speed rail January 22, 2009
Posted by Logan Nash in Travel Woes, United States High Speed Rail.Tags: airports, high speed rail, hsr, o'hare
9 comments
I drew it out for everyone.
Conde Nast’s Joe Brancatelli has a few suggestions to Obama about transportation. One of them involves building a high-speed rail network (yep), but he gets something wrong.
What the nation needs is a titanic investment in high-speed, short-haul rail service between heavily populated major cities. What we need is inter-modal solutions that create express rail links between major airports, nearby suburbs and city centers. Recreating the 20th Century Limited between New York and Chicago isn’t the answer. Creating a 21st Century Amtrak that links Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to tens of millions of travelers in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa and Indiana is.
Okay, I realize that lately some airlines in Europe have actually been supporting HSR and even getting into the biz themselves, like Air France. This is great. What we can’t do, however, is make the mistake of seeing high-speed rail as merely some replacement for short-haul connection flights. Trains [probably] won’t ever be as fast as planes, so it’s critical that we don’t remove from them one of their best advantages over flying: being able to leave and arrive right from the city.
For one thing, this makes things easier for travelers. Airports are generally located in the far-flung fringes of an urban area. The trip to and from the airport after the plane has landed can be long, expensive, and cumbersome for travelers. This is true for drivers and doubly true for users of mass transit. If you’re lucky, the city has a rail transit connection to its airport. If you’re not, get ready to put up with a more confusing bus ride or a pricey cab fare. Even if there is a connection, like the CTA’s Blue Line at O’Hare, those trains are usually neither suited for luggage nor the long suburban distances. It’s much more practical to have our trains arriving and leaving in the cities themselves, where they are well served by local transportation and close to urban amenities and destinations. The UK is looking at having Heathrow be the hub for a national HSR scheme, but Heathrow already has an express rail connection to London, and as part of the plan will be getting an even faster one. I don’t envision the political will ever materializing for something like that in the United States. Transit connections will always be “good enough.”
This also dips into the realm of urban policy. Focusing our tax money on airports will encourage more development in those far-flung suburbs. Conference centers and hotels will thrive out there while struggling in the cities. More subsidized sprawl is the least thing we need when we should be weaning ourselves off of oil and heading towards a greener economy. Missing the forest for the trees is part of what got us into our current transportation mess. We can’t afford to let that happen again.
And the right-of-ways for bringing trains into the city have existed for a long time. Improving these existing links and giving Amtrak the improved capacity is desperately needs should be our first priority. Refocusing our rail system onto the airports is a foolhardy waste of money. A better suggestion for Obama would be to get to work on improving the extensive infrastructure we already have and making it look at least a little bit like it might be the rail system of a first-world country. The Midwest HSR project would, as always, be a very very good place to start.
VT Amtrak supporters take it to the street in rally January 20, 2009
Posted by Logan Nash in Uncategorized.add a comment
It’s all about America today (yes, even here in Britain, believe it or not) so here’s a little reminder of what that really means. As bloggers, it’s easy to focus on the grand national squabbles over big projects like high-speed rail, but forget about the communities and riders that depend on rail for the vitality of the town and the livelihoods of their citizens. We’ve talked about Vermont’s foolhardy idea to cut Amtrak service in the state before and noted that ridership of VT’s lines has only increased in recent years. News reports continually come out of the state about how citizens are against the cuts. Well, at a rally today at Rutland’s rail station, supporters of the line made sure their voices were heard. Here’s the excerpt from the Rutland Herald:
With the Ethan Allen Express in jeopardy as the Legislature contemplates budget rescissions, the juxtaposition of train riders and advocates Monday was confirmation of what the county’s business and political leaders have said since the possible cut was announced – the service is vital to the community.
One of many elected officials in attendance, Rep. Steve Howard recalled Sen. Jeffords’ fight to hold the state to its promise that if the region did not get an interstate, it would get train service.
“This is about jobs today and about jobs tomorrow,” he said. “Nobody understood that better than Sen. Jeffords.”
Eight-year-old Ian Suddarth, a second-grader at Barstow Elementary School and the youngest member of the Rutland Railway Association, earned the loudest cheers from the crowd when he shared his train-riding experiences.
“Every time I get on a train it feels like I’m starting a new adventure,” he said, as he intermittently peeked over a “Save the Ethan Allen” sign nearly as tall as he is.
The rally was organized by the Vermont Action Rail Network as a build up to a Wednesday evening public hearing before the Legislature, when all are invited to share their thoughts on the Douglas Administration’s proposal to trim $1.4 million from the Fiscal Year 2010 transportation budget by replacing Rutland’s train service with an Amtrak-operated bus route.
This is heartwarming to say the least. In these economic times, we don’t need to be cutting green jobs and services like Amtrak.
Photo credit: Rutland Herald
Freight and passenger interests form coalition January 17, 2009
Posted by patlynch in Amtrak, Passenger Rail Politics, Passenger Rail Transportatio Policy, Regional USA Passenger Rail.2 comments
Here is the latest from Progressive Railroading.
For the first time, freight- and passenger-rail stakeholders are teaming up to push rail as a key component in any federal infrastructure investment initiative. Ten rail associations, interest groups and other constituents — including two non-rail organizations — recently formed the OneRail Coalition, which aims to promote public policies that recognize rail as a critical element of the nation’s transportation system.
Coalition members include the American Public Transportation Association, Amtrak, American Short Line & Regional Railroad Association, Association of American Railroads (AAR), Building America’s Future, National Association of Railroad Passengers, Natural Resources Defense Council, Railway Supply Institute, States for Passenger Rail Coalition, and Surface Transportation Policy Partnership.
Someone call “Amtrak” Joe: Stimulus shafts rail January 17, 2009
Posted by Logan Nash in Amtrak, Passenger Rail Politics.4 comments
This past week saw lots of wrangling in Congress over the transportation stimulus bill. House Transpo Committee Chairmain James Oberstar had called for a 34/66 split between transit and highway spending, including $5 billion for Amtrak and intercity rail. Unfortunately, the proposal actually revealed by the House cuts back to the traditional 1 to 4 split, cutting intercity rail money to $1.1 billion, as opposed to the $30 billion for highways.
Environmental blog Grist did some muckraking, and obtained some interesting comments about where the directive to make this change came from:
Oberstar’s office says the cuts were the product of the House speaker’s office, the Senate majority leader, and the Obama transition team. “How those decisions were made, I don’t know,” Jim Berard, communications director for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told Grist. “It’s disappointing that our recommendation was not accepted on the whole, but at the same time we got a good deal for transportation infrastructure and we want to keep the momentum going for this bill.”
Berard says that at this point it’s not likely transit advocates in Congress will make too big a deal out of the cuts. “We don’t want to get into a family squabble at this point. I think the imperative is to get a bill going and get it going fast, and get it enacted quickly,” he continued. “I think there’s a lot of arguments to be made for more funding in every category on there. So to slow the process down by lobbying for more money for one particular sector or another may not be productive.”
It’s not the end of the world. Some money is better than no money, and there’s surely more political squabbling to look forward to before we know what the final package will look like. And in 2009 we have opportunities like Kerry’s HSR bill and the 5-year transportation “highway bill” to look forward to.
It’s just that neglecting transportation options capable of reducing carbon emissions and foreign oil usage hardly seems like “change” to me.
More pressure for Sunset Limited restoration January 10, 2009
Posted by Logan Nash in Amtrak.Tags: florida, katrina, sunset limited
20 comments
Unsurprisingly, local governments along the route of the former Eastern portion of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited, from New Orleans to Florida, are clamoring for the service to return. Now of course, fuss created by city councils and whatnot generally doesn’t add up to much, but last year’s Amtrak Reauthorization bill requires the company to study reopening the route, which closed after Hurricane Katrina damaged the tracks back in 2005. The report is due this summer. Yet this article mentions the uncertainty of an actual comeback for the Sunset:
Sunset Limited, particularly the eastern portion, has long ranked as one of Amtrak’s most problematic trains.
In fiscal 2004, the last full year before Hurricane Katrina, the Sunset carried just 96,000 riders, including 37,000 east of New Orleans. The remaining, western portion carried 72,000 passengers in fiscal 2008, making it Amtrak’s least popular long-distance train.
The most popular long-distance route, the Empire Builder that links Chicago with the Pacific Northwest, had 554,000 riders.
The railroad already was discussing whether to discontinue the eastern portion of the Sunset Limited when Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005, The Associated Press reported.
Of course, Amtrak ridership has been surging since the closure. I think a well- managed return for the service might very well be a success. What do you all think? Should it be brought back?
Obama press secretary talks about intercity rail in the stimulus January 10, 2009
Posted by Logan Nash in Amtrak, Passenger Rail Politics, United States High Speed Rail.add a comment
Gibbs responds to the transit and intercity rail question at about 2:00 into the video. Here’s a transcript from The Transport Politic:
Today, the Obama team responded to a question asked on its Change.gov website:
“Will transit and intercity rail projects be a major
component of the infrastructure stimulus package, rather than focusing
on highway projects?“
- John B, ChicagoHere’s the response given by incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in a video:
“Yes, John, transit and intercity rail projects will
be a major component of the President-elect’s infrastructure program.
Not only will they provide jobs to help get this economy moving again,
but they’ll reduce our dependence on foreign oil, cut the amount of
carbon in our atmosphere, clean our air, and more importantly, improve
the quality of life for millions of Americans.”
Vague? Yes. But at least they’re talking on the right track. The Transport Politic also points to Congressman James Oberstar’s bill redirecting more of the stimulus money toward rail and transit. Their analysis is quality as usual. Here’s the relevant part for Amtrak and HSR:
- Amtrak would receive $1.5 billion in the bill for the purchase of new equipment, improvements to track and catenary, and service expansion. States would get $3.4 billion
for their own rail projects, some of which would probably go towards
California’s developing high-speed rail system, which is likely to need
start-up funds in the coming months. The rest of the funds would likely
to go to states like North Carolina and Michigan, which have dedicated
rail investment programs.An overview of the bill (PDF)
has been posted on the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee’s website. State Departments of Transportation would have to
develop quick action plans for how to utilize the funds, and would have
to submit various reports to the federal government on their progress (PDF) to ensure accountability (PDF).
In addition, states that fail to define the use their allocated money
within 90 days would have their funds revoked and sent back into the
general pool and to be used by other states. If, for example, Wyoming
decides that it has little to do with the $10 million that is allocated
to it for transit, that money can be reused by other states.
Sounds like a good way to make the stimulus a little more future proof.
UK Labour gov’t wants HSR network AND Heathrow expansion January 7, 2009
Posted by Logan Nash in International High Speed Rail.add a comment
Sorry for the lack of updates recently, but I’m spending this term studying abroad in London, and between jet lag, school obligations, and being sheerly overwhelmed, I haven’t had much time to keep up with rail news. Hopefully being here and traveling this country’s rails myself will shed some light on America’s own passenger train situation on this blog. If not, there will at least be photos.
However, in the spirit of getting back into things, I think it’s appropriate to take a look at some HSR developments going on here in the United Kingdom. Environmental activists and the Conservative opposition have for a while been getting behind the expansion of high-speed rail in the country as an alternative to building a third runway at Heathrow. Now the ruling Labour government is also endorsing the high-speed rail plan, but sees it as going along with further airport expansion. The opposition is wary. From the BBC:
Conservative transport spokeswoman Theresa Villiers said rail would cut Heathrow flights by 66,000 a year, 30% of the planned capacity of the third runway, eventually rising to 44% with a more extensive high speed rail network in the UK.
John Stewart, a campaigner against Heathrow expansion, said: “We do support high-speed rail as an alternative to a third runway but we do not think there is a market for both as they will both be going for short-haul passengers.
“It’s either one or the other.”
The odd part of this plan is that it seems that Heathrow would be the hub of any domestic HSR, with London of course keeping its Eurostar HSR connection to Europe at Kings Cross. I’m all for intermodality, and I think both airlines and passengers have something to gain from high-speed trains. But having the airport as the center of the network? That seems a bit dubious to me, especially with a city as strong as London and the existence of numerous extant passenger stations and routes within that city. Oh well, it’s certainly more promising than HSR news we’ve been hearing on this side of the Atlantic.
patlynch
Logan Nash
