Amtrak on Parade

Parade Magazine this weekend highlighted passenger rail’s future and the debate over Amtrak funding. Many Amtrak press articles end up being way off base, either making Amtrak out to be a saint persecuted by the Eeeeevil Bush Administration, or to be a big pork-barrel project that exists solely to put public money into union employee pockets. Amazingly, the Parade article is neither, and gives a very balanced if brief view of the situation.

(The comments section I can’t say as much about. To be honest I didn’t even read it. Internet comments may be one of the least useful inventions in journalism.)

A snippet:

“‘I’m amazed at the rancor about our numbers — they are so small,’ says Alex Kummant, Amtrak’s CEO. ‘It costs about $1.50 for every man, woman and child to sustain this network — one cup of coffee per person. Look at highway congestion, environmental issues, the capacity of airline travel. For city-to-city transportation, we need passenger rail.’

As our airways and highways have slowed down, demand for train travel has been increasing. In fact, Amtrak ridership was up for the fifth year in a row, reaching record levels — despite the fact that a third of trains arrived late last year. In the Northeast, since Amtrak introduced higher-speed Acela trains in 2000, the railroad’s share of 10,000 daily commuters between Washington, D.C., and New York City increased from 45% to 54%.“

A worthy read, and top-notch work by Parade