From: sathomas@athena.mit.edu (Stephen A Thomas)
Subject: Re: Amtrak's future under a Clinton administration
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 20:11:09 GMT

|> President elect Bill Clinton has made some grandiose promises about high
|> speed rail.  Will he deliver on these promises.  What projects will be  
|> undertaken in the next four years?

I think we can only bet on the projects that are already underway or in the
serious planning stages (like the upgrade & electrification of the New Haven -
Boston section of the NEC).  Other stuff might get planned, but at least until we
pull out of our economic concerns, who is going to pay for all this high speed
upgrading?  Don't forget this will mean moving freight traffic off rails that
Amtrak now shares with freight roads - 150mph passenger trains and 20mph coal
drags don't mix, just look at how Amtrak forced Conrail to downgrade operations
on the NEC.  So it's not just a matter of welded rail and concrete ties, it also
means upgraded signals, more tracks to reroute freight, completely new engine
and car suspension technology (always with teething pains=expensive).  I praise
Clinton for this apparently foresighted rail promises, but I think the majority of
people are going to be screaming for other programs that will get a chunk of the
money Clinton's administration will be passing out long before high speed rail
will see any new money.  The fact is (and even democrats admit this) he just
can't pay for all of his programs, no matter who he taxes - so which ones will go
first?

Now don't get me wrong, this is something this country NEEDS!  We have to move
medium distance passenger transport away from highways and airways to the rails
where it is more efficient and ecologically sound.  Our rail systems are
drastically underused and our highways drastically overused - it just seems
logical to move as much traffic to the rails as possible.  We have to understand
that the investment in a healthy rail passenger system is a long term one, it is
NOT going to pay off by the turn of the century.  But believe me, when it does
pay off we'll be glad we did it.

I think that the money that has been set aside for building new highways (not for
upgrading existing ones) should go for upgrading rail service on routes that would
take auto traffic away from congested highways.  Los Angeles, it appears, is
finally getting smart about this.

|> How about some  
|> comments from newsgroup readers about what they think will happen, what  
|> regional projects they think will be implemented.  Lets get a lively
|> discussion going!

I'll only guess at the area I know something about, the northeast.

Northeast Corridor Improvements:  Obviously the New Haven - Boston upgrade and
electrification is crucial to improving service and taking the pressure off the
airports in Boston and New York and the highways.  The NEC presently takes a
large share of the ridership between northeastern cities, so why be complacent? 
Raising the speed and/or frequency of trains would logically attract more riders
away from the highways or airlines - 200mph, I think, is the number to shoot for.
The NEC also suffers from poor feeding, that is, feeder lines from areas that
presently have no service, or upgrading poor service should be a key.  I point to
areas in the southern tier of New York (Binghamton, Ithaca, etc), Northeasern PA
(Scranton, Allentown, Reading, etc.), areas in southern Connecticut, Worcester,
Mass.(second largest city in New England, Maine & New Hampshire(lots of vacation
ridership) that have passenger NO rail service but yet have bad highway
congestions problems (you think Maine has no highway congestion problems?  try
driving up Rt 95 from Boston on a weekend).  The other problem up is with
coordinating service between commuter service and intercity service and coming up
with coordinated transportation planning (rail to air, road to rail, regional
transportation centers - rail to bus or trolley or subway or whatever the local
system is).

Selfishly, I'd like to see rail service between Allentown PA and both New York
and Philly.  Lots of people from this area of PA commute to NY and Philly every
day.  Some sort of feeder line I'm sure would see lots of commuter traffic, as 
well as longer distance traffic.  The nearest connection to Amtrak is in Newark NJ
two hours away in traffic.  Personally I'd love to be able to take a train from
Boston to New York, change to the Allentown train, and ride in to Easton when I
go to visit my family.  Allentown is about the same size as many cities on the
NEC, and certainly service to Reading and Scranton could be worked out.  I think
that only by hitting the smaller cities that many commuters head towards at the
end of the day is rail going to impact highway congestion.  Worcester MA has a
similar problem, it's a good sized city, with lots of commuters from the area
going to Boston, but no commuter rail service.

Will this get funded?  Probably not, but only by looking at these kinds of things
are we going to straighten out our transportation problems.  We have to start
looking at congested highways and think about how running a passenger rail line
parallel to it(usually they already exist) would affect the congestion.

STEVE THOMAS

MIT Aero/Astro
Organization: Freshman, CIT general, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA