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Bush: Give the $100 tax rebate to Amtrak
(The following editorial, "Rallying for rail," appeared May 2, 2006, in the Brattleboro, Vt., Reformer)
President Bush has proposed giving Americans a $100 tax rebate to help deal with the rising cost of gasoline.
Never mind that this amount is laughably small and is dwarfed by the billions of dollars of tax breaks and subsidies that the oil companies get. Most people see that this is a scam.
If Bush wants to really take a step toward dealing with increased energy costs, here's one thing he could try -- start giving more money to Amtrak.
This week, Amtrak marks its 35th anniversary. It's not a happy one. It's been underfunded and badly run since its creation in 1971. The private railroads were happy to dump their antiquated equipment and worn-out infrastructure on the federal government.
Republicans have long wanted to kill off Amtrak, citing the billions of dollars of government subsidies the rail service has needed to stay in business. Never mind that many more billions in subsidies have been spent on highway building and bailing out bankrupt airlines over the past 35 years. In the minds of Republicans, anything that is government-run is bad.
As a result, the nation has rail service that is an embarrassment compared to other nations. We have one daily Amtrak train, the Vermonter, which stops in Brattleboro. A trip to New York City takes nearly six hours to cover 200 miles.
Despite all the technological advances of the past 70 years, rail service is worse than it was in the 1930s. A glance at a Boston and Maine Railroad timetable from September 1938 shows that there were six trains daily from Brattleboro to New York and all but one got a passenger to Grand Central Terminal or Penn Station in under six hours. Two of those trains allowed one to connect in Greenfield, Mass., for a Boston-bound train.
Getting sleek trains like the Acela -- the high-speed electric train between Boston and New York -- is but a dream in the Connecticut Valley. But steam trains routinely ran at speeds up to 100 mph back in the 1930s and 1940s and fast, frequent service was the norm until after World War II, when Americans abandoned trains for automobiles.
Now we've come full circle. Driving to New York or Boston is expensive, inconvenient and not very enjoyable. But there are few other transportation options.
Despite all its problems, Amtrak carried more than 25 million passengers last year. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, rail patronage has steadily increased, particularly in the Northeast. Rail service is an important part of the transportation mix and should not be overlooked.
In France, you can go from Paris to Marseilles in three hours. That's the same distance as going from Boston to Washington, a rail trip that even on the Acela takes up to eight hours. France is one of 14 nations that have made substantial investments in high-speed rail service, while the United States balks at spending money on public transit.
The states have had to pick up much of the slack. Vermont's two trains, the Vermonter and the Ethan Allen Express, would not exist if not for the state helping to pay for their operation. And last week, Connecticut's Legislature approved a transportation plan that includes $250 million to improve rail service between Springfield, Mass., and New Haven, Conn.
The plan calls for eight trains daily linking the two cities. More is needed. There is talk of a unified New England rail initiative to get all six states to join together to improve freight and passenger service in the region. For example, a 2002 study found that only 1 percent of freight shipments in Vermont were handled by rail. Perhaps that will improve once the Bellows Falls rail tunnel is upgraded to handle modern supersized freight cars, but it seems like the potential is there to get more freight off the highways and onto trains. Rail service is less polluting, less energy dependent and more land conserving than highways. And most of the rail network that was built a century ago, or at least in some cases, the rights of way, is already in place. Why not more passenger service? Why not better freight service? Why can't state governments, aided by the federal government, create not a rail network on par with other industrialized nations?
There are many other things we can do to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel, but improved rail service in New England is a idea that certainly is workable and could have a huge positive impact on our region's economy.
May 2, 2006
(The following editorial, "Rallying for rail," appeared May 2, 2006, in the Brattleboro, Vt., Reformer)
President Bush has proposed giving Americans a $100 tax rebate to help deal with the rising cost of gasoline.
Never mind that this amount is laughably small and is dwarfed by the billions of dollars of tax breaks and subsidies that the oil companies get. Most people see that this is a scam.
If Bush wants to really take a step toward dealing with increased energy costs, here's one thing he could try -- start giving more money to Amtrak.
This week, Amtrak marks its 35th anniversary. It's not a happy one. It's been underfunded and badly run since its creation in 1971. The private railroads were happy to dump their antiquated equipment and worn-out infrastructure on the federal government.
Republicans have long wanted to kill off Amtrak, citing the billions of dollars of government subsidies the rail service has needed to stay in business. Never mind that many more billions in subsidies have been spent on highway building and bailing out bankrupt airlines over the past 35 years. In the minds of Republicans, anything that is government-run is bad.
As a result, the nation has rail service that is an embarrassment compared to other nations. We have one daily Amtrak train, the Vermonter, which stops in Brattleboro. A trip to New York City takes nearly six hours to cover 200 miles.
Despite all the technological advances of the past 70 years, rail service is worse than it was in the 1930s. A glance at a Boston and Maine Railroad timetable from September 1938 shows that there were six trains daily from Brattleboro to New York and all but one got a passenger to Grand Central Terminal or Penn Station in under six hours. Two of those trains allowed one to connect in Greenfield, Mass., for a Boston-bound train.
Getting sleek trains like the Acela -- the high-speed electric train between Boston and New York -- is but a dream in the Connecticut Valley. But steam trains routinely ran at speeds up to 100 mph back in the 1930s and 1940s and fast, frequent service was the norm until after World War II, when Americans abandoned trains for automobiles.
Now we've come full circle. Driving to New York or Boston is expensive, inconvenient and not very enjoyable. But there are few other transportation options.
Despite all its problems, Amtrak carried more than 25 million passengers last year. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, rail patronage has steadily increased, particularly in the Northeast. Rail service is an important part of the transportation mix and should not be overlooked.
In France, you can go from Paris to Marseilles in three hours. That's the same distance as going from Boston to Washington, a rail trip that even on the Acela takes up to eight hours. France is one of 14 nations that have made substantial investments in high-speed rail service, while the United States balks at spending money on public transit.
The states have had to pick up much of the slack. Vermont's two trains, the Vermonter and the Ethan Allen Express, would not exist if not for the state helping to pay for their operation. And last week, Connecticut's Legislature approved a transportation plan that includes $250 million to improve rail service between Springfield, Mass., and New Haven, Conn.
The plan calls for eight trains daily linking the two cities. More is needed. There is talk of a unified New England rail initiative to get all six states to join together to improve freight and passenger service in the region. For example, a 2002 study found that only 1 percent of freight shipments in Vermont were handled by rail. Perhaps that will improve once the Bellows Falls rail tunnel is upgraded to handle modern supersized freight cars, but it seems like the potential is there to get more freight off the highways and onto trains. Rail service is less polluting, less energy dependent and more land conserving than highways. And most of the rail network that was built a century ago, or at least in some cases, the rights of way, is already in place. Why not more passenger service? Why not better freight service? Why can't state governments, aided by the federal government, create not a rail network on par with other industrialized nations?
There are many other things we can do to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel, but improved rail service in New England is a idea that certainly is workable and could have a huge positive impact on our region's economy.
May 2, 2006
