What We Promote:
How - Political
Finding a workable plan to develop passenger railroad service
has been difficult in this country. This begins with a crucial difference
in how railroad infrastructure is funded and developed.
Unlike highways, airports and waterways railroads are owned and
maintained by private entities. This has created a more stringent
standard for measuring financial performance. It has also made the
variety of taxes and low cost borrowing tools that are available
to airports and highways unavailable to railroads.
As a result, railroads have not made the infrastructure investment
required to run fast, frequent and dependable passenger trains feasible
(nor fast freight trains, for that matter).
Policy makers in the 1960's were unable to come to grips with this
problem and created Amtrak in 1971. Throughout its life, Amtrak
has not been provided funds nor the ovesight needed to provide an
adequate level of service.
Since then, Amtrak has served as a diversion, an excuse to avoid
the fundemental questions: What kind of railroad service do we want
and how are we going to pay for it. The resluting stalemate has
been difficult to break.
We need to create a program, structured like the federal highway
and transit programs, which will finance the needed track and structures
while protecting the interests of both the public and the owners
of the railroads. It would also need to 1) Retain Amtrak as the
national operator, 2) provide appropriate oversight, and 3) give
states or other entities the opportunity to provide unique services.
The challenge has increased over the last several years since gas
taxes have not been large enough to meet existing highway and transit
needs. While finding a solution will be difficult, it is essential
that we do so.
The Association has chosen to work through this policy stalemate
with a three pronged approach. 1) Creating a big vision for what
railroads can do for the region 2) supporting the continued "brick
by brick" improvement of service at the local level 3) promoting
the development of a model corridor to demonstrate the potential.
Association Executive
Director served on a National Association of Railroad Passengers
committee that developed a more in depth analysis of the issue and
proposed one potential federal framework.
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