Olver Calls for More Funding for Intercity and National Rails
AMTRAK
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Danny Lauridsen
Boston University Washington News Service
3-28-07
WASHINGTON, March 28 – U.S. Rep. John W. Olver (D-Amherst) Wednesday criticized the Bush administration’s proposed funds for Amtrak, saying the president “would allow Amtrak to wither on the vine.”
In an Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development hearing, Mr. Olver said an increase in population has brought about congestion problems that the country couldn’t fix with only roads and airways.
The 30 largest metropolitan areas now account for almost 45 percent of the country’s total population, said Mr. Olver, who chairs the subcommittee, and this boom has caused “congested highways and airspace, increased travel delays and environmental degradation.”
“The challenges created by this growth are clear,” he said. “It should also be clear that we cannot build our way out of these mobility problems with new roads and airspace alone.”
The subcommittee heard from Amtrak President and Chief Executive Officer Alex Kummant and Federal Railroad Administration chief Joseph H. Boardman, both of whom who said that while Amtrak has made improvements greater funding is still needed.
“We see the demand for intercity rail routes,” Mr. Kummant said. “Our statements are following the demand. We have an aging fleet.”
Mr. Olver expressed his hope not only for sufficient funds for Amtrak to keep current rails running and begin fixing backlog problems on the Northeast Corridor, but also enough to begin the first stages of implementing a high-speed intercity rail system in several corridors nationwide.
“With a modest capital investment, we could implement higher-speed rail in a number of corridors in this country,” he said, adding that the administration has failed to provide “the necessary investments for a robust passenger rail system.”
The Bush administration’s budget proposes $900 million for Amtrak next year, a $400 million decrease from this year. Two weeks ago, the Department of Transportation’s inspector general testified before the subcommittee that Amtrak could not function at that level of spending.
But Mr. Olver’s office said he was confident Amtrak would receive more. The office estimated that the final amount would be $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion but said it was entirely too early in the allocation process to say for sure because the subcommittee will not mark up its part of the budget until May or June.
“Each year the committee has funded Amtrak well above what the administration has proposed,” Olver said. “We will do the best we can.”
Amtrak plans to put its first high-speed railways on the West Coast between Los Angeles and Oakland and in the Northeast between Washington and Boston, but Mr. Olver has also worked to get the Boston-Springfield-New Haven route included as a high-speed rail planning route, and he said he would like to upgrade commuter rail service between Worcester and Boston.
Mr. Olver said trains between Worcester and Boston currently run at about 30-35 miles per hour, taking about one hour and 20 minutes, and he would like to see the commute time drop to one hour.
“There are big, big improvements needed on the Northeast Corridor,” he said.
U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Worcester) has also worked to increase Worcester-to-Boston commuter rail service. Michael Mershon, Mr.McGovern’s press secretary, called this route a “primary focus” for his boss.
“There are a myriad of issues with that,” he said. “This is something that’s been an issue in Worcester for a long, long time.” He added that Lt. Gov. Tim Murray has done “a lot of heavy lifting” on increasing service for that route.
“I am concerned with making sure that we have passenger rail as part of the balanced transportation system,” Mr. Olver said, “and I would like to see us get over the hump and finally do something in the high-speed rail area.”
While the allocated funds will not be nearly enough to implement high-speed railways across the country, Mr. Olver and Mr. Kummant said they were confident they could begin laying the groundwork for such a system.
“I think we can get there in steps,” Mr. Kummant said, citing Amtrak’s ability to run trains at 80 miles per hour before moving to 120 and 200 miles per hour, like the true high-speed rails of Europe and Japan. He said these systems got to where they are now using similar steps.
Mr. Olver said Western European governments invested more than $100 billion in their intercity rail systems throughout the 1980s, while Japan continues to invest billions in high-speed rail infrastructure.
“With the current budgetary climate in the United States, we could never invest the capital needed to build the types of dedicated intercity high-speed rail systems found in the rest of the world,” he said.
But he said a little overspending now on modest track improvements would make major track improvements – required to make the switch to high-speed trains – much easier and less expensive in the future.
“We need to move this debate forward,” Mr. Boardman said. “We need to have national rail in this country.”
###
