February 1, 2022
Representative Peter DeFazio
Chairman, U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Dear Representative DeFazio.
We are once again writing on behalf of our members, as well as the millions of Americans who depend on public transportation on a regular basis to travel to work, see relatives, seek medical attention, food and other necessities of life.
Amtrak management is causing riders and potential riders to think twice before considering taking a rail journey – whether for leisure, business, medical appointments or anything else. This could affect appropriations, as public support for Amtrak is paramount in getting routes – whether national or state-supported, running. Since its inception during the Nixon Administration, Amtrak has operated on a federal budget designed to barely keep it alive, much less flourish.
Evidence from the past suggests that this was intended to promote the idea that passenger rail still existed while allowing the host railroads opportunity to disengage from their own passenger operations and free them to operate only as a freight operation, along with operating at most, one daily Amtrak passenger train. It was expected that Amtrak itself would be gone within five years. Obviously, passenger trains not only did not go away completely, but have gained in popularity over the last fifty years of Amtrak’s existence.
Last year, during the Covid epidemic, Amtrak, not knowing it would receive federal financial assistance, elected to reduce its service by having all trains nationwide, with only two exceptions, running only three days a week. By reducing the frequency of service, Amtrak was also able to reduce their staffing significantly, both on and off the trains.
We advocates advised them not to do this because when funding was secured or when ridership returned, they would be unable to meet that need to return to daily service. Needless to say, we were correct. Amtrak attempted to return to operating most of their routes on a daily basis, but found that many of its furloughed employees had found work elsewhere and/or would not be returning for this or other reasons. Amtrak had also furloughed their hiring and training departments during this time, again ignoring our advice. This has caused an additional severe disruption in its ability to crew the trains, so, Amtrak has, once again through its shortsighted mismanagement, decided to reduce daily service by nearly a third and run its route five days a week or less. This comes after an unprecedented allocation which was given Amtrak last year to get them through the government-mandated business shutdown – $66B ($22B to repair existing equipment and to purchase new equipment, and $44B to improve and expand the state and national network.) was expected to be used for these improvements.
Where Amtrak continues to operate, trains are often leaving their terminals late after experiencing equipment breakdowns. Also problematic, Amtrak has declared that they have insufficient crews to staff their trains so late trains are often made even later because of staffing issues. Why should this be, when Congress appropriated money to support Amtrak when ridership was reduced by government mandates? This is not only unacceptable, but it is a slap in the face of both Congress which provided this public money, as well as the traveling public, who depend upon and use or attempt to use the service. Congress, being the entity holding the purse strings, providing the operational funding for Amtrak, is the proper and responsible body to hold Amtrak accountable for this egregious mismanagement of both public monies, as well as the public trust supporting them.
We are also deeply concerned that Amtrak has unilaterally violated the statutory mandate that it refrain from reducing service on its long-distance trains without giving 210 days’ notice to members of Congress from the affected areas, as required by Section 22210(d) of the newly-enacted infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
We believe this provision was enacted in response to Amtrak’s unilateral act of slashing service on all long-distance trains to three days per week in 2020, and that service on the other four days would not have occurred if Congress had not intervened. Amtrak is now disobeying the spirit and the letter if that Congressional mandate.
We understand that subsection (c) allows a service reduction in case of an emergency, but such railroad emergencies normally involve service disruptions beyond the railroad’s control. Amtrak’s unilateral act of discontinuing many of its runs for a ten-week period (including some shorter runs in the East and Midwest) is within Amtrak’s discrepancy constitutes an abuse if it. If Congress does not direct Amtrak to restore all of these runs no later than March 27 and never to reduce service unilaterally and on short notice again, the daily service that Congress ordered might never run again.
It is important to also understand passenger trains for their transportation needs. While these reasons are singular and personal to each individual rider, overall, they range from purely business to purely leisure reasons and cover an infinite number of variations or combinations depending on that individual traveler’s needs at why Americans want their passenger trains. There are a myriad of reasons why people want and use that time. In general people want to be able to conveniently, quickly, and safely get to their destinations. They want to be able to get to or from work, shopping, or just visiting family or friends. They want to able to avoid traffic and the dangers that traffic often presents while traveling within it. People also want to be able to use this travel time more effectively while they are traveling.
When available, train travel allows the wise traveler aboard to be able to continue working, or enjoy time with friends or family, or just plain rest and relax while safely traveling. Trains also provide environmental benefits such as reduced emissions both on its own and by reducing the number of individual auto trips which would be otherwise required, and, at the same time freeing up traffic lanes for the automobiles remaining on the highway. By opening these lanes, traffic flows more freely thus also reducing stress on those drivers. This economic gain produced by passenger rail is an important part of the basis for this letter. Wherever passenger trains operate, they produce a community vitality which is very much measurable in real dollars and quality of life for that community. With all these preventable issues at hand, we again request that Congress demand answers from Amtrak as to their reasons for these grave cuts in service, which may turn riders (& future riders) off from utilizing our national rail system, which in many ways – pays for itself.
Sincerely,
Richard Rudolph, Ph.D. Chairman, Rail Users’ Network