Steve
Vogel, President |
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Founded
1979 |
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THE DOT GETS CONNECTED It was exactly what the nothing-but-roads crowd didn't want to hear. Speaking at a luncheon sponsored by the pro-road, anti-rail Georgia Public Policy Foundation, recently named Georgia Transportation Commissioner Dr. Gena Abraham delivered a bombshell. She declared that it's "unrealistic" to believe the Atlanta area can build its way out of congestion with roads and bridges, and she said the State Transportation Board is "very, very excited" about moving forward with commuter rail. These are things no previous Georgia transportation commissioner has ever said before, and they describe a stance no State Transportation Board has ever taken before. They appear to reflect a very real, very long-awaited change in attitudes at the Georgia Department of Transportation and the Board that oversees it. The chairman of the Board's Intermodal Committee, Larry Walker, definitely gets it. After fact-finding visits to study three US commuter rail operations, Walker says he sees "no other option but for us to move forward" with commuter trains. Even though it was the Georgia DOT that first proposed running trains between Atlanta and Lovejoy, it never appeared to be very enthusiastic about the idea before now. But after years of being little more than a highway department, the new Georgia DOT finally appears to be ready to embrace change. That could be very significant as the discussion of Georgia's transportation future continues to evolve. IS THE LEGISLATURE NEXT? Now as before, the main stumbling block to getting commuter trains up and running is long-range funding for operations. Just like roads, commuter trains require operating subsidies, and Atlanta-area commuter trains will be no exception. Two months after the Georgia General Assembly adjourned without passing a funding plan, there's been an outpouring of anger. It's not just four-dollar-a-gallon gas, although that's a big factor. It's also the growing realization that Atlanta's national reputation for quality of life is getting badly tarnished; perhaps permanently tarnished unless the legislature does a quick about-face. Just in the past few weeks, Forbes magazine ranked Atlanta's traffic congestion as the worst in the country, and made a special point of noting that the MARTA rail system "doesn't service the entire city, and thus fails to relieve the pressure." Another survey tarred Atlanta as a haven for road rage, with the sixth-most-discourteous drivers in the country. And in his nationally syndicated New York Times column, Paul Krugman offered an unfavorable comparison of Atlanta and Berlin, writing: "Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin, but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars." Those very public black eyes are bad for business, and Atlanta's business leaders know it. "In the six weeks since the legislature imploded and departed Atlanta," wrote Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Political Insider" columnist Jim Galloway, "Georgia's business community has moved from denial to anger to outright depression." Galloway continued, "This fresh Republican administration, a governorship and two legislative chambers, had advertised itself as a best friend to commerce, but has been unable to deliver what commerce needs most -- a strategy for breaking through metro Atlanta's traffic congestion so that goods and people can move from one side of Georgia to the other." Another AJC columnist, Jay Bookman, concurred, declaring, "If Georgia Republicans don't find a way to address metro Atlanta's transportation problems, they will find themselves replaced by someone who will." 2008 is an election year. PARTY IN THE STATION The Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers helped Amtrak
celebrate National Train Day last month with a pair of receptions
at the Atlanta Amtrak station. GREEN FOR THE BLUEPRINT Seven months after the US Senate endorsed a long-term funding blueprint for passenger rail, S. 294, the House of Representatives is discussing its own version of that legislation, H.R. 6003, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008. Like the Senate bill, the House measure would authorize Congress to appropriate billions of dollars for passenger rail over a multi-year period, but there are many differences, and if the House version passes, it will have to be reconciled with the Senate version before Congress can take final action. H.R. 6003 is far too complicated to explain in detail here, but one provision is of special interest to rail advocates in the Southeast. It would require Amtrak to draw up a plan for restoring service between New Orleans and Florida, suspended since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. Restoring New Orleans-Florida service is a "top priority" of Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Florida), one of the authors of the bill. HIGH SPEED TO ATLANTA? At the first committee hearing on H.R. 6003, a comment by Amtrak President Alex Kummant caused some ears to prick up in Georgia. He said that if Amtrak had $10 to $20 billion to spend on passenger rail corridor development, "one of the first things I would look at, actually, is going south." He praised the work Virginia and North Carolina have been doing to promote a high-speed corridor from Washington, DC to Charlotte, then raised the possibility that high-speed trains could operate all the way down to Atlanta. Later, Kummant floated the same trial balloon while speaking with an Associated Press reporter. Similar plans have been discussed before. In 2004, state transportation officials in North Carolina and Georgia released a study of possible corridor service between Charlotte, Atlanta and Macon. They endorsed a proposal to spend $1.1 billion to upgrade existing tracks to accommodate three daily round-trips at speeds of up to 90 miles an hour. That plan has never been funded, and Kummant's notion, involving trains operating at up to 110 miles an hour, is even more ambitious. Atlanta-Charlotte rail travel options may be limited to the 79-mile-an-hour Crescent for some time to come. But with gas prices rising and airlines raising fares and cutting service, you can expect to hear more and more about higher-speed corridors in the future. CLIMBING ON BOARD The Atlanta Journal-Constitution carried two stories of special interest to Amtrak advocates last month. An Associated Press story about airline travel hassles mentioned train travel as an alternative, and another story focused on several families riding Amtrak because of rising gas prices. Amtrak's national ridership soared 11.7% during the first half of fiscal 2008, and all four of the Amtrak trains serving Georgia contributed to that surge. The New York-Savannah Palmetto was the biggest winner, posting 16.6% upticks in both ridership and ticket revenue compared to the first half of 2007. The New York-Atlanta-New Orleans Crescent also performed well, recording a 13.8% increase in ridership including a 29.7% surge in sleeping car patronage. The Crescent's overall ticket revenue rose 8.4%, and sleeping car revenue was up 10.9%. On the New York-Savannah-Miami route, the Silver Meteor had 7.6% more riders producing 4.4% more revenue; sleeping car patronage rose 1.6% and sleeping car revenue was up 0.4%. The Silver Star enjoyed a 7.0% boost in ridership and a 4.4% increase in revenue, but in the only asterisk to Amtrak's Georgia success story, the Star's sleeping car operations slumped a bit, attracting 1.3% fewer riders and bringing in 3.8% less revenue. MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME Last month's Peach State XPress reported that during fiscal 2007, all four of Georgia's Amtrak trains ran late more frequently than they ran on time. Now new figures are available for the first half of fiscal 2008, and they show signs of progress: three of the four Amtrak trains serving Georgia usually ran on schedule. The best performer was the Crescent, which completed its trips "on the advertised" 73.2% of the time. Next came the Silver Meteor, completing 68.5% of its trips on time, and the Palmetto, posting an on-time figure of 56.0%. The only Georgia Amtrak train that failed to top the 50% on-time mark was the Silver Star. The Star had a 42.3% on-time figure during the first half of fiscal 2008, still an improvement over its dismal 23.8% record during fiscal 2007. Prospective passengers can now consult Amtrak's web site, www.amtrak.com, to find out how well the train they're planning to take has been performing. For instance, a recent visit to the Crescent's "route performance" page reveals that the Crescent completed its trips on schedule 81.7% of the time during April. BELT TIGHTENING Writing in the Journal-Constitution last month, Georgia State University President Carl Patton called on citizens to get involved with efforts to make Atlanta's Beltline dream a reality. Beltline officials are still making plans to build the park-and-rail-transit loop around downtown Atlanta, but a recent Georgia Supreme Court ruling has at least temporarily narrowed funding options. The court said tax allocation districts -- such as the district being used to fund the Beltline -- can only sell bonds backed by city and county tax revenues, not school tax revenues. Georgians will vote in November on a proposed constitutional amendment that would reauthorize the use of school tax revenues, but as a result of the court ruling, Beltline planners will have significantly less bond money to work with than they anticipated, and they're looking for ways to economize. The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority recently agreed to loan the Beltline project $5 million to help pay for an environmental impact study on the transit aspect of the plan, this despite the fact MARTA is facing a financial squeeze of its own. The sagging economy is reducing revenue from the one-cent sales tax that funds MARTA, and MARTA may cut 180 staff positions to compensate. THE INTERNATIONAL VIA Rail Canada is offering free tickets to members of the Canadian armed forces during July... VIA's Vancouver-Toronto train, the Canadian, was quarantined in a small Ontario town for more than ten hours after one passenger died and several others reported flu-like symptoms; doctors later determined the illnesses were unrelated... A German court has found two track managers guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with a deadly 2006 accident involving an experimental magnetic levitation train... Japan's Wakayama Electric Railway has made a 9-year-old cat an honorary station master; the cat -- wearing a black uniform cap -- greets passengers at the railroad's Kishi Station. NATIONAL LIMITED American Financial Group, which acquired 5.2 million shares of Amtrak common stock from the old Penn Central railroad, has filed a suit seeking millions of dollars for its holdings; Amtrak, which for all practical purposes is owned by the federal government, contends that American Financial's stock is "essentially worthless"... Campaigning at the home of an Amtrak machinist in Indiana, Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama declared that the America "should be expanding rail service," adding, "It is a lot more reliable and it is a good way for us to start reducing how much gas we are using"... Facing record-high ridership, Chicago's Metra commuter rail system is buying back some old equipment it sold to Virginia several years ago; it will add cars to weekday rush-hour trains and add trains to its weekend schedule... New Mexico's Rail Runner commuter line will offer Saturday service through Labor Day... Station construction has started on Minnesota's new Northstar commuter rail line, scheduled to open next year... Despite objections from the University of Minnesota, the Minneapolis City Council has endorsed a cross-campus alignment for a new light-rail line to downtown St. Paul...Salt Lake City's TRAX light-rail system has broken ground for a new line to the suburban Daybreak community; it's ordering 77 new railcars, which will more than double the system's equipment roster... The Federal Transit Administration has restored funding for plans to extend Washington, DC's Metrorail heavy-rail line to Tyson Corner, VA and Dulles International Airport... The Oklahoma City Council has endorsed proposals to extend the route of Amtrak's Fort Worth, TX-Oklahoma City Heartland Flyer into Kansas... Amtrak's Coast Starlight has resumed service along its entire Los-Angeles-Seattle route for the first time since a January landslide severed the line... Six northeastern governors are protesting Amtrak's decision to halt New York-Boston service during a four-day bridge installation project this month.... Two streetcars collided in suburban Boston May 29, killing the operator of one of the streetcars and injuring about a dozen passengers; a day earlier, a Chicago Transit Authority "L" train derailed, injuring 14 passengers; operator error is suspected in both accidents... Seattle's Sound Transit opens a new commuter rail station in Mukilteo, WA this month... New Jersey Transit's Hoboken Terminal has an illuminated clock tower again; the original tower was dismantled after a 1950 storm, but it's been rebuilt as part of a $113 million renovation... Amtrak engineers marked Memorial Day by sounding their horns at 3 PM... Amtrak is asking photographers to submit pictures for its 2009 wall calendars; the winning photographer gets a $1,000 travel voucher. DIXIE FLYER North Carolina has announced plans to fund a third daily Amtrak round trip between Charlotte and Raleigh... Florida legislative leaders are asking Amtrak to draft a proposal for regional train service between Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami and Tampa... The Florida legislature has adjourned without providing funding for an Orlando-area commuter rail line; it also failed to approve a permanent revenue source to fund operations on Miami's Tri-Rail commuter line... Ironically, Tri-Rail recently enjoyed its second-busiest day ever; it carried 15,871 passengers on May 8, the day of a parade celebrating the Miami Heat's NBA Championship... Charlotte's new Lynx light-rail line has been so successful, business leaders in Cabarrus County, NC want the line extended to their area... Amtrak's City of New Orleans was involved in three separate grade-crossing accidents in Mississippi and Louisiana in late May and early June; there were two deaths and two critical injuries on the road, but no serious injuries on the train. THE GEORGIAN Former Georgia State Senator Steve Farrow of Dalton has been chosen to fill the State Transportation Board seat vacated by Mike Evans... Gov. Sonny Perdue has signed controversial legislation allowing passengers to carry guns on MARTA trains and buses... Google has added MARTA to the list of transit systems included in its on-line trip-planner... Primary elections in Gwinnett County next month will include non-binding votes on whether MARTA service should be extended there... Writing about a recent fact-finding trip to Denver by Atlanta-area civic leaders, Journal-Constitution columnist Maria Saporta suggested that Denver's successful campaign to expand transit could be a model for Atlanta... The Journal-Constitution printed an op-ed essay, "I want my commuter rail," by Kennesaw resident Cara Aliek... In a Journal-Constitution "City Life" essay, Paul Snyder of the Georgia Brain Train Group argued that the Atlanta-Macon and Atlanta-Athens proposals should remain the top commuter rail priorities... A Macon Telegraph editorial endorsed Atlanta-Macon rail service, but expressed a preference for the somewhat unlikely and impractical approach of using magnetic levitation trains. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP Journal-Constitution columnist Maria Saporta quoted GARP President Steve Vogel in a column about rising gas prices; Steve noted that higher prices make drivers "do what they should have done anyway: use alternative means of transportation and your good ole two feet"... In the Journal-Constitution's "Gwinnett Opinions" section, GARP's Jan David Jubon proposed building an intermodal passenger transit center in Duluth that would serve Amtrak's Crescent, future commuter and regional trains, buses and taxicabs... The AJC printed a letter from GARP's Dick Hodges blasting Georgia's political leadership for its failure to deal with transportation problems, and it printed a letter from GARP's Jim Dexter calling on Georgia voters to demand action on commuter rail... Thanks again to all the GARP volunteers and Amtrak personnel who helped to make National Train Day such a big success in Atlanta! NEXT MEETING: Saturday, June 14, 10 AM PLACE: Towne Square Condominiums Club Room, 225 East Ponce De Leon Avenue, Downtown Decatur, between Church St. and North Candler St., 1/2 block from the Decatur MARTA station. Building entrance is beside the Subway shop PARKING: Parking available on the streets and elsewhere. If you park in a metered place, feed the meter - the City says they are checked on Saturday. Parking in the Towne Square building parking deck IS NOT FREE - driveway is beside the Natural Body Spa COST: Kindly contribute $ 1 toward the cost of refreshments Copyright © 2008 Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers, Inc. |
GARP
volunteers greeted hundreds of passengers and Amtrak workers with
coffee, doughnuts and cookies in the morning, and with cookies,
soft drinks and a huge cake in the evening. GARPers talked about
passenger trains and passenger train advocacy, and distributed engineers'
caps and coloring books to children, while giving everyone NARP
and GARP information and National Train Day stickers. Steve
Vogel, Alan Yorker, Jock Ellis, Jerry Wolff and Tim Wolfe worked
the morning shift; Jim and Diane Dexter, Dick Wise and Dick Hodges
worked the evening reception, and Rick and Julie Clarke took Amtrak's
Crescent to Birmingham, AL and back, spreading the word about
National Train Day all along the way. Atlanta Amtrak personnel enthusiastically
supported the event and GARP appreciates their help. Our Georgia
event was one of dozens across the country commemorating the 1869
completion of America's first transcontinental railway. Other
celebrations included a Harlem Globetrotters basketball exhibition
at New York's Penn Station and a tribute to Pullman porters at Chicago's
Union Station. This was Amtrak's first National Train Day celebration,
and the enthusiasm it generated suggests it will become an annual
event.