Steven P. BarrettFUND AMTRAK: WE NEED IT NOW MORE THAN EVER, PART TWO
June 21st 2008 01:40
WILL CONGRESS STOP WHAT NEW ENGLAND WINTER CAN'T?
AMTRAK is a relatively new notion in American transportation history; not to mention an almost “un-American” abomination to some free-market conservatives who believe passenger rail didn’t deserve any governmental help because there wasn’t any public demand, and it’s not in the “taxpayer’s” interest to subsidize “losing propositions.” Moreover, it’s birth couldn’t have come at a more difficult time since the price of a gallon of gas was still under thirty cents a gallon, and the Interstate Highway System was nearing completion.
With (some) thanks to President Eisenhower, we took the Germans' original concept of a nationwide four-lane highway system (the Autobahn) and effectively killed both passenger rail and some whole urban neighborhoods torn down to make way for massive highway projects. The railroads never took up nearly have as much land or created such wide swaths of urban destruction and dislocation. No doubt the airlines, concrete and asphalt industries and their lobbyists made out well. Ike complained about the "military industrial complex," but he didn't say much about what the road builders and airline industries were doing with our money.
The Germans, however, not only rebuilt their old Reichsbahn system, renamed it Deutsche Bundesbahn, (now just Deutsche Bahn since reunification) but they also expanded their original Autobahn with great sensitivity towards leaving the original cities as they were following their miraculous reconstruction after the war. The old joke about Americans wondering who won the war after seeing Germany’s formerly destroyed cities restored to new life while ours were left to rot, (much like our passenger rail systems) is more of a sad commentary on the “victors” greed and sloth than any joke.
In 1971, Amtrak started out with a grab-bag of locomotives and rolling stock from varying companies and resembled Woodstock more than a professional-looking nationalized railroad befitting the most powerful nation on earth. And, much like that proverbial locomotive that kept saying “I think I can, I think I can,” it certainly did prevail. But it would often be left wheezing than chugging after many budgetary battles on Capitol Hill with some very stingy Republican politicians. The stingiest among them came from Arizona and is the presumptive heir of George W. Bush. You know whom I’m writing about now: John -- gonna starve AMTRAK to death -- John McCain.
Washington, DC's Union Station
Even in the face of ever rising gasoline prices at the pumps, increased environmental concerns and public demands to fund more public transportation, McCain and his party remain obdurate. Although I’m sure they don’t have any plans to let Washington DC’s Union Station and the new Moynihan/Penn Station to deteriorate and start looking like Munich’s station (shown in Part One), I wouldn’t put it past them to look a gift iron horse in the mouth as it’s racing straight towards them with an OPEC minister at the controls. He’s not the only politician who’s missed the train so far on this: both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama have at best given only a modest amount of support.
That should change with the outrageous spike in gasoline prices we’ve been hit with recently. According to the blog Peaknik,
neither has voiced the righteous outrage at Amtrak support that McCain has at every opportunity. Someone should mention that 12 states that control 180 of the 270 electoral votes needed for election are highly dependent on Amtrak.
Does McCain dare to snub his nose at this city?
Watch McCain “get religion” as he did recently with his flopped attempts to curry favor with evangelical Christians, yet another bloc he’s treated with his sandpaper in past campaigns and disputes. Again, Peaknik:
The business is there. Gas prices, clogged skyways and air travel hassles have driven more customers to Amtrak, hamstrung as it is. Business is up 11 percent nationally, and almost 20 percent on the rickety line from Buffalo Niagara to Manhattan.
The Democrats, Peaknik sadly admit haven’t done a lot for AMTRAK despite the fact it’s a win/win proposition. True, we love our cars and the freedom that comes with driving them to where and when we want to take them. They sure fit our cowboy personality as much as any cowboy’s horse did. Those days are gone forever. Forever except in certain wide open places and our fantasies (if we live in crowded cities.) There is hope, said Peaknik, in the form of legislation introduced by Buffalo Democratic Congressman Brian Higgins. His bill “offers $24 billion in tax-exempt bonds and 80 percent reimbursement to states for high-speed rail construction . . .
... What is needed is an unapologetic presidential commitment for a nationalized passenger system on the scale of the Interstate Highway program. President Dwight Eisenhower, who built it, was no communist.
(Peaknik)I’m not sure what Ike was at heart other than a pragmatist. But sometimes even pragmatists can be stick in the mud, as Ike often was concerning other matters, the race to space being one of his most notable “slow moments.” We can’t afford to be slow and we can’t afford to have slow learners in Congress when the world, and especially OPEC is handing our heads back to us in self-automated cold-sandwich “dining cars.”
Let the public be served and to hell with privatization!
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