The Right Track

By Randy Garbin

Few things enrage me more than the current crisis over Amtrak funding. Any regular reader of this magazine and our website knows all too well how much I love to ride trains, and of my level of support for passenger rail in this country. But, sadly, the current debate rarely focuses on the more essential aspects of Amtrak's potential role in this country's sorry excuse for a transportation policy.

All things being equal, I'd almost rather ride the train. Though my love of the extended road trip along the back roads continues unabated, the sheer transcendental experience of traveling on a train pointedly reminds me that I am part of a civilized society. All romance aside, the real issue regarding rail travel has more to do with economics and sustainability than attempting to vicariously relive scenes from "North by Northwest."

Frankly, I don't particularly care whether or not Amtrak lives or dies. But if we do kill it, then let's replace it with a fully modern, state-of-the-art rail passenger system for any part of the country with a high volume of short-range intercity travel. And then get rid of this hopeless notion that it must make a profit. No passenger transportation system anywhere in this country makes money.

Acknowledge, then, that the idea using fuel-guzzling jets for 300-mile hops is an insult to anyone's intelligence. A trip from Boston to New York – a popular air route – may only take a half-hour in the air, but the Boston Globe proved that the actual point-to-point travel time differed only by a few minutes. Meanwhile, the train passenger enjoyed a much more relaxing ride, utilized much less in resources, and paid much the same in total costs.

And if I couldn't get more frustrated by this debate, the libertarian Cato Institute declares rail travel over-subsidized and obsolete. This think tank usually hammers loudest against government subsidy, yet cowardly fails to go the extra mile citing the outlays and subsidies applied to highways and airports. By their logic, we should also privatize the transportation business altogether – an idea not without merit. If indeed we bravely leveled the playing field, I'd bet my parking space on the future of rail.

Still, we're left with Amtrak, a bastard-child federal agency responsible for the festering dregs of a rail system choked near to death by a century of governmental strangulation. When ardent opponents such as Arizona's Senator McCain bemoan Amtrak's paltry subsidies, I picture those federally-financed dams plugging up the Colorado River, allowing Arizonans to turn a scorching desert wasteland into a climate-controlled paradise.

The complaints about Amtrak's financial woes miss an important point: Rail, alarmingly underutilized now, could serve as a vital pillar in our national transportation infrastructure. In light of this, I regard the $15 billion loaned to the airlines after the 9/11 tragedy with hardly a bone for Amtrak as an irresponsible governmental giveaway. As Andy Rooney said, if you're going to spend that kind of money on the airlines, you might as well own them.

In reality, I'm afraid politics will dictate the outcome of this debate, not economics. If Amtrak could somehow afford to eliminate its fares altogether, I guarantee you they'd build such a huge constituency that no politician would dare to vote against their next appropriation. Imagine hopping a train whenever you want, to whatever destination you choose, free of charge, and riding to your heart's content. Do that for a year and see how you feel when some politician tries to take it away from you.

For now, just give Amtrak what it wants. Give it what it needs to become a rail system worthy of a country as great as ours, and make us, once again, the envy of the industrialized world. Give the public a genuine choice in transportation options, and help us get the oil monkey off our backs. We'll all be better national – and world – citizens for it.

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