Watching the Sausage Get Made

Amtrak ridership is down by 87 percent, so Amtrak needs a $2.9 billion rescue from Congress, the company’s executive vice president, Stephen Gardner, told a congressional subcommittee yesterday. Transit ridership is down 70 to 90 percent, added American Public Transportation Association president Paul Skoutelas, so the transit industry wants a $32 billion bailout from Congress.

Those are just their short-term demands, as was made clear in the hearing held by the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials. Both Amtrak and New York commuter railroads want $20 billion for the Gateway Project, which would replace bridges and tunnels between Newark and New York City. Transit agencies want $106 billion to restore their backlog of poorly maintained rail systems. And even that is only the beginning.

In testimony at this hearing, the Antiplanner pointed out that Americans ride Amtrak an average of just 19 miles a year, which is barely one-tenth of a percent of all passenger travel in the United States. Yet many other speakers waxed lyrical about how vital Amtrak was to the country. I pointed out that even in the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak has only 6 percent of the intercity travel market, with the vast majority of travel taking place on the highways. Yet others took it for granted that the entire Northeast would shut down if Amtrak weren’t running.

Amtrak is still running, but running mostly empty. Gardner admitted that it carried only 13,000 passengers on Tuesday, when in a normal year it would be 100,000. He also said that only 128 people got on board its long-distance trains that day. As far as I can tell, neither the Northeast Corridor nor any other part of the country is shutting down due to a lack of Amtrak riders. Yet Gardner asked Congress for money to restore the frequency of long-distance trains from three days to seven days a week.

The incongruity between asking for more money even as Amtrak and the transit agencies admitted that hardly anyone was using their services is completely typical of these politicized entities. An environmental webcast taking place today notes that “transit systems across the country have seen major declines in ridership” yet they “have not wavered on their climate and sustainability commitments.” What garbage! If they really cared about climate change, they would reduce their operations in parallel with reduced ridership. Instead, many are proud that they have actually increased their greenhouse gas emissions in the name of “social distancing.”

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My testimony pointed out that almost everyone depends on freight shipped by rail but hardly anyone rides Amtrak, so giving preference to passenger trains is putting the needs of the few (who are generally well off) above the many. Yet Gardner didn’t hesitate to ask Congress to give Amtrak the authority to demand that the railroads “share” their tracks with passenger trains on new routes. (It has that authority today but the process is time consuming and the railroads can easily delay it.)

I have to wonder what the current Supreme Court would say about Amtrak “taking” private property for its own purpose. Has Congress granted the power of eminent domain to what is supposed to be a private corporation? Of course, Amtrak would compensate the railroads, but why should money-making freight trains be delayed so Amtrak can run more money-losing passenger trains?

Fortunately, there were some skeptics on the subcommittee. One representative asked if rewarding Amtrak and transit systems with billions of dollars for neglecting to maintain their infrastructure would create a moral hazard, meaning it would encourage other infrastructure owners to neglect maintenance because they expected the federal government to bail them out. Of course, the rail supporters insisted it wouldn’t, but of course it will.

Urban and intercity passenger trains are largely obsolete, and the COVID-19 pandemic makes them even more obsolete. As I’ve said in a recent policy brief, and as Financial Times echoed in an article earlier this week, the number of people working at home is likely to stay high long after a vaccine has proven itself, and this will keep transit ridership 25 to 35 percent below 2019 ridership levels.

Transit and Amtrak officials can piously promise to wipe down handrails, but passengers are likely to view mass transportation with suspicion long after the pandemic is but a distant memory. This will keep Amtrak ridership from ever fully recovering, especially as the increased use of autonomous driving features such as adaptive cruise control make driving less of a chore. The Antiplanner was definitely in the minority at yesterday’s hearing, but at some point people will realize that there is no point in throwing more money at failed systems.