When a conductor punched Joseph Marie”™s Acela Express ticket in Connecticut this month, little could he have known that it might be the symbolic equivalent of punching his future Amtrak timecards.
Marie, Connecticut”™s new transportation commissioner, appeared in mid-March before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs to emphasize the need to invest in public transportation, testifying on behalf of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
AASHTO members include New York Department of Transportation Commissioner Astrid Glynn, who in mid-March unveiled the first comprehensive update to New York”™s rail strategy in more than two decades. The department”™s proposals include:
”¢Â   doubling passenger traffic between New York City and upstate New York;
”¢Â   creating a third track providing high-speed service between Albany and Niagara Falls;
”¢Â   increasing freight rail use by 25 percent and allowing freight cars into the New York City region;
”¢Â   establishing at least three intermodal facilities to transfer freight between trains and ships; and
”¢Â   creating the first “green” short-line fleet in the nation.
Even as Marie addressed the Senate committee, the Obama administration announced $1.3 billion in federal support for Amtrak through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), on the heels of former President Bush signing into law last year the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act and the companion Rail Safety Improvement Act, improving signaling to prevent collisions and derailments.
The new spending comes even as Acela passenger counts continued to brake sharply in the recession, with Acela cars carrying some 50,000 fewer passengers in January than Amtrak officials had expected, off 16 percent from earlier projections.
Amtrak finished its 2008 fiscal year with a net operating deficit of nearly $400 million, a figure it expects to worsen this year.
Amtrak blames cuts in business travel budgets for the Acela drop off, and this month slashed fares 25 percent on its Acela trains in response. The lowest fares between New York and Washington, D.C., are now priced at $99 through June.
Marie took Amtrak”™s Acela train to Washington, D.C., the fifth time he has made the run in recent months, which tops out at 135 miles per hour.
“I spent the time gazing out the windows at the cities and towns that we serve,” Marie said. “Investing in transportation has a good return on investment, will create jobs and stimulate the economy. It also results in an unusual dichotomy: improving connectivity exposes us to a larger world while at the same time making it all the more intimate.”
Officially known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp., Amtrak increased its passenger count in both New York and Connecticut 9 percent last year, slightly below an 11 percent increase nationally.
Amtrak”™s station in New Rochelle is the busiest in Westchester County, with some 87,000 passengers boarding or alighting in the 2008 fiscal year, an 11 percent increase from 2007. Yonkers handled nearly 19,000 passengers, matching the statewide 9 percent increase; Croton Harmon station managed just a 2 percent increase in tickets to just under 40,000 total.
Given the significant traffic on its Northeast corridor, which runs 140 trains through New York daily and nearly 50 through Connecticut, Amtrak reserved its single-largest ARRA investment for the Nutmeg State. In a $105 million project, the organization will replace a century-old drawbridge in eastern Connecticut. Officials fear a malfunction that could leave the bridge stuck aloft, and are on the cusp of imposing significant speed restrictions as the bridge ages. Amtrak is also beginning work on the final design of a new crossing over the Connecticut River.
New Yorkers will benefit from millions more being spent to upgrade signaling apparatus and electrical facilities. The organization”™s economic impact on New York extends well beyond one-time projects ”“ Amtrak employs more than 1,550 people in the Empire State, who made $66,000 last year on average.
