A Reawakening for Rail: Cities Get Back on BoardBy Jane Holtz Kay "Thank God, Men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth," wrote Henry David Thoreau. Little did he know what the future held. Though wary of the locomotive, the bard of "Walden" had no idea how flying and driving vehicles would not only lay waste to soil and sky, but plunder the nation's pocketbook. Certainly, his heirs do. As gridlock, winglock, white-knuckled flying and earth-clawing destruction of the last chance landscape assault America, many have begun to cast a critical eye at today's high-cost and high-anxiety mobility. With airlines now in the red and road warriors stuck on jammed and crumbling highways, many are sounding the anthem for a renaissance in rail. Evidence of that resurgence is at hand. Amtrak ridership has risen four percent above last month's while domestic airline's has skidded down fourteen. Light rail lines are elongating. And the reversal of fortune becomes ever clearer as both light and heavy rail lines grow from coast to coast. Passenger rail's promise is reflected in the success of its Acela train in the Northeast, and high speed rail initiatives across the country. Likewise, the streetcar - its lighter, more urban peer - records mounting numbers on Los Angeles' greenline, charts construction advances on Mineapolis' Hiawatha line, and accomplishes city-building in Denver and Dallas. New transit-oriented developments in Sacramento, Portland, Phoenix and other cities are centering around trolley lines that run through the heart of shopping, office, and residential districts to counteract the auto-centric, sprawl-inducing approach that decimated post-war urban America.
Rail could reverse that. Rail is the lynchpin that allows for urban proximity. It is the environmental panacea that sustains our lives and landscapes and promotes walkability, stopping the spread that destroys 1.2 million acres of farmland and 60,000 acres of wetland per year. Without civilized rail, we are stuck in traffic, circling in terminals, and breathing bad air. Unfortunately, the brake is being applied to all this energy. A report this month by the pro-highway, pro-privatizing Amtrak Reform calls for dismantling the so-called "money-losing" system. That dispersal would deprive hundreds of cities, and hundreds of thousands of passengers from being served by trains. The Council's biased rendering was anticipated and comes at a bad time. Despite the fact that Amtrak has affected a resurgence in rail, it has mere months to make itself solvent or disband-- a state of financial balance demanded of no other government or transportation agency. That bottomline bromide is a misreading of both linguistics and politics. "Money-losing" is the prefix applied to rail, struggling to survive on the government's paltry $520 million. No such financial epithet applies to petrol-swilling, road-based forms of mobility -- planes, cars, and trucks -- which secure $46 billion dollars yearly from the federal trough, and consume 60 percent of the nearly 20 million barrels of oil that Americans use every day. To be sure, creative thinking doesn't always come easy to U.S. rail operators grown weedy with neglect. Amtrak's service and promptness are mixed, its coffers low. Still, the east coast's "quiet car," a divine zone that silences cell phones; plus fresh air and stretching room throughout, make the space for "getting there" fit for human habitation. To be sure, too, the lack of tracks to carry more people as well as goods creates problems. "Amtrak trains are tenants of freight railroads that probably aren't compensated nearly enough for hosting them, and that they have little control over," complains William Vantuano, editor of Railway Age, the industry trade publication. But why can't freight lines cooperate and tote their railroad peers? Despite such criticism, Amtrak is not yet dead. Even as the nation's passenger rail begins to cut staffers to meet its fiscal obligations, the trend has turned. "The best-kept secret is that Amtrak is making money," said Michael Dukakis, acting chairman of its board, noting the $180 million profit on the Acela line. In fact, even President Bush provided space for intercity passenger trains in his February budget proposal. A newly-formed "Reconnecting America" campaign has begun to join environmental groups and rail-enthusiasts nationwide, says Hank Dittmar who sees the "buzz" from his post as chairman of the Great American Train Foundation. The states, too, have begun to step in where Washington wimps out. Local governments are mindful of high speed rail's swelling ridership in Chicago and the far west, and Acela's success in the East, with a new rail spur from Boston to Maine. They see scrubbed up terminals across the country and the forthcoming showpiece of a new Penn Station in New York. In fact, most of us mere mortals are far ahead of the Washington mindset. As long waits and fear of flying combine with the logic of rail, awareness grows. With half the trips from airports a mere 400 to 500 miles; and a quarter under 200 miles, an easy rail trip could replace many of the scary air shuttles. In light of post-9/11, the time has come to re-think the Third World status of U.S. trains. In 1902, our newly-industrialized nation laid 6,000 miles of track across the continent to link its citizenry. A century later, we should measure up to those ancestors--if not Thoreau, then the everyday heroes who hammered out a united nation. Syndicated by the Elm Street Writers Group, week of February 22.
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