BY MIKE WUSSOW
You don't have to be a rail expert or even a student of transportation to know that wholesale reform of America's so-called passenger rail system is years overdue. The popular face of that system--the pseudo public-private entity that is Amtrak--now is approaching four decades of mismanagement and poor performance. Although ridership has been on the upswing for most of the last several years (it's down now in part because of the economy), its growth trend still compares unfavorably with other transportation modes, especially airlines. Amtrak carries about 25 million passengers each year, not much more than the 21 million it did at the close of its first decade in 1979. On the other hand, during the same time period, airlines grew their numbers nearly five-fold, from 170 million passengers to close to 800 million.
The politics of rail is complicated, convoluted and not very pleasant. Into a political stew, it mixes entrenched freight and passenger interests, powerful committee chairmen in Congress and labor interests. Add side orders of inexact dictates and expectations from the beginning of Amtrak's charter in 1971, congressional infighting, and competition from air and road vehicle travel. Even the heartiest soul might get a case of heartburn. It's no wonder that America can't pull itself away from the dysfunctional rail table to create a real system that works to ease the nation's overall travel strains, reduces pollution and oil dependency and is moderately sustainable.
Enter President Barack Obama, the first president in decades whom rail advocates think actually cares about the issue enough to do something about it. (His decision to ride into Washington for his inaugural on a train from Philadelphia was quaint political theater, but it actually pointed out something more. One reason he probably didn't ride with his family all the way from Chicago is because the rail system is too slow and the connections too unreliable.)
Mr. Obama supposedly knows about all this. So, too, does Vice President Biden, who has been riding the rails as a high profile commuter--from Wilmington to Washington--for decades.
On the campaign trail, President Obama spoke of investing in infrastructure, including rail. Using his gift for rhetoric, he made believers of rail advocates. And last month, as part of the $787 billion economic recovery package, $8 billion was put toward high-speed and intercity passenger rail. There are a few more billion slated for subsequent years. And in his 2010 budget proposal, President Obama has penciled in another $5 billion. Even in Washington and even amidst the biggest collective bailout this country has ever seen, that seems like real money.
But it is not all that much, really. The transportation elements in the stimulus bill are far less than states and localities expected, and it is doubtful whether there is enough there for rail--yet--to bring about a thriving passenger rail system in our lifetime. It would behoove the Administration to try to do a little reprogramming now to get this project on track.
It is precisely because of the tough economic situation that--maybe the first and last time--a modern American president has the opportunity to recreate a national passenger rail system. But to create a real system--one that connects the entire country and its municipalities, not just a handful of corridors pocketed in several continental corners--requires thinking much differently about how to invest in the "green" change the president says he believes in. Ironically, it is on such an initiative that he would be able to get some of the bi-partisan support he always talks about.
Rail advocates are probably not going to pressure him about this, however. They have gotten into the habit of thinking small. They spend years advocating simply for an additional line in one corridor or another, when they are not trying to stop further reductions in service. You can't really blame them--that's what they've known.
And what is now known of President Obama's plan for rail money seems to enable that mentality by focusing on a few corridors in the country. By its design, that process doesn't elevate discourse on national rail to a "national" challenge. It Balkanizes it instead.
But instead of thinking in terms of corridors that benefit only those regions savvy enough to scrounge for the money, President Obama should use the presidency and create a new approach and a new system.
That system should be dramatically ambitious, seeking to make a true increase in the amount of passenger trips that proceed by rail. In terms of development, it should draw lessons from the European model, especially the lesson that state-owned railroads cost too much and can't keep up with the marketplace in carrying passengers and freight.
Because of inefficiencies in its state-owned systems, the European Union in the early 1990s set in motion a radical restructuring, separating infrastructure from operations, separating the passenger business from the freight business, and introducing competition to bring the private sector's initiative, efficiency and bottom-line discipline costly rail operations. The results have been impressive and positive. Great Britain, for example, reorganized its national monopoly, British Rail, into a successful hybrid public-private rail operations that even labor unions favor. Government support now goes mostly into improvements in infrastructure managed by a not-for-profit government-chartered corporation.
The point? To change America's system will require a radical restructuring, a new perspective, and political leadership unafraid of traditionally entrenched rail interests, of which there are plenty. (A larger program ultimately will bring them around.)
I regret to say too that it'll require greater government investment up front. Except for national defense and foreign policy, I tend to look suspiciously at the federal government throwing money at problems; we live in the United States of America--not the United State of America. But another exception is transportation. A real national passenger and intercity rail system is like the interstate highway system, a valid public purpose. It will require a national perspective and federal money strategically invested not just regionally along certain corridors but nationally. It requires what the president's current strategy doesn't yet provide.
The President still has a chance on this. He can set into action a transportation improvement long overdue, and one that helps address congestion, environmental concerns, business and commerce. Let's hope that the economic challenges creating this opportunity never come again. If the President wants a transportation legacy, this could be it. Politics or not, it could be a change we could all believe in.
