ST. LOUIS---This was a purpose-driven conference, if there ever was one.

From early on the morning of January 28 through the afternoon of January 29, more than 100 paying registrants, speakers, and sponsors assembled by the National Corridors Initiative, with the help of virtually all of the nation’s major transportation and advocacy organizations, heard call after call that the Presidential candidates of both parties take a substantive stance on the issue that had brought us together in St. Louis, and then together issued a joint statement addressed to those candidates, saying, in part:

“The American people need rational choices when it comes to transportation, and those choices must be adequately and intelligently funded and maintained to make it all work. In particular, an efficient transportation system and robust rail, air, coastal/riverine, port, and highway components will sharply reduce both our dependence on foreign oil, and the high price we pay for it. Highly fuel-efficient, environmentally-friendly transportation modes, such as rail, should especially not be overlooked.”

Starting with Opening Keynoter Wisconsin Transportation Secretary and National Surface Transportation Commission Vice Chair Frank Busalacchi, through former Amtrak Chairman John Robert Smith, 1988 Presidential Candidate and long-term Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis (on speaker phone), American Public Transportation Association Vice President Art Guzzetti, AASHTO President Pete Rahn, ARTBA Vice President Larry Russell, Norfolk Southern Vice President Craig Lewis, American Airlines long-time CEO Robert Crandall, and ending with Closing Keynoter AASHTO Executive Director and Former Assistant Secretary of Transportation John Horsely, the two day event was studded with powerful speakers “each one of whom,” said NCI President Jim RePass, “could have been the keynote speaker of any major conference, anytime, anyplace.”

Photo NCI         Wisconsin Transportation Secretary and National Surface Transportation Commission Vice Chair Frank Busalacchi

The conference was assembled at the suggestion of former Federal Railroad Administrator and long-time Bi-partisan transportation advocate Gilbert Carmichael, and located at St. Louis on his request. “I named the conference for Gil --- over his objections --- in his honor because few Americans of either party have had a greater role, or made a more sustained effort, in working to bring America back to the forefront of world-class transportation,” stated NCI President Jim RePass. “The energy, the feeling of urgency underlying every speech and every conversation, the need to address the biggest issue --- America’s future --- was striking,” observed Connecticut Sierra Club Transportation Chair and national committee member Molly McKay. “It’s more than just another recession which experts say comes around in seven-year cycles, it’s more than the loss of jobs, the frustration of gridlock on our highways and in the air, the pathetic absence of good passenger rail service, the need for more freight rail capacity. There is a palpable sense that our nation is in an absolutely needless downward spiral to becoming a second rate economy with a third rate quality of life; the public feels there is something terribly wrong, but they don’t know what to do, and the candidates have been less than articulate on this subject. And yet, it is addressable, and solvable.” As the joint conference statement said: “The silence of those now running for the office of President on the growing crisis in our nation’s transportation infrastructure is deafening. We have all heard about the crisis in the economy, and changes in the earth’s climate brought on by global warming, but we have heard nothing about one key element that underlies both of those issues: the movement of goods and people, our very freedom of mobility. Yet, few national issues offer a greater opportunity for imaginative change.” “We speak to those candidates now, today. We are from both political parties, and from no political party. We are from New England, and California, and Louisiana, and Illinois, and places in between, gathered this day in St. Louis for the inaugural Carmichael Conference on the Future of American Transportation, to advocate for the renewal of that infrastructure.” As speaker after speaker noted, it’s not just a crisis. It’s now an emergency. More than one observed, “If it weren’t so tragic, it would be laughable.” A single example, raised by one speaker, on the subject of international plans for high speed rail: China has committed to adding 28,000 km by 2020; Europe is adding 9,000 km; The U.S., which has only 300 miles of HSR ---- has firm plans to add ZERO miles to the system. In China, 9% of their gross domestic product (GDP) is spent on transportation compared to 2% in the United States.

“We convened this conference in order to break the deafening silence on this emergency, to get such a powerful message to the candidates that they can no longer ignore the specifics and slide along on generalizations and loosely defined promises. And we convened this conference to bring people together, not as Democrats and Republicans, but as Americans,” said NCI’s Jim RePass, “to weld together a bi-partisan coalition of citizens across this country and get America moving again.”

Former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall

“It is my belief,” he continued in his remarks,” that the people here today, the people in this room, can be the vanguard of a new day in America, a day where we get our energy needs from renewable resources that don’t despoil the earth or kill our children or pollute the air, a day when we operate a transportation system that is fast, efficient, safe and reliable, and accessible to all Americans, not just those on the coasts or in high-density corridors.” Speakers and attendees from the four corners of our country and in-between, from Paris and London, from the private sector [highway, rail and airlines], from the environmental community [national Sierra Club, Conservation Law Foundation], from business, industry, and government contributed their time and knowledge to the St. Louis event. Over the next several weeks we will present some of the addresses heard at St. Louis; to do so here all at once would take perhaps 1000 pages of type, and be too cumbersome to digest However, we will do this in a way that gives good exposure and focus to all those who contributed to this event,” said RePass. “In this issue of Destination:Freedom we will feature the fiery speech of American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall, a famous, outspoken leader in his field who, like many of us, can not understand why the greatest nation in the world can not get up off its backside and get moving again.” Some brief excerpts for today’s issue of Destination:Freedom: Craig Lewis, Vice President Corporate Affairs of Norfolk Southern, spoke eloquently of the need for cooperation and collaboration between passenger and freight rail. “We are all in this together,” he said. It’s essential that we sort out our differences and work together. “If we are not united in moving forward, we will fail.” Larry Russell, Vice President and National Field Director of American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), when asked if his people would be just as happy building rail as roads, said, “Absolutely!”

Photo NCI         Former Assistant Secretary of Transportation John Horsely

He warned the group about the impending deficit of the Highway Trust Fund, that a predicted shortfall of $4 billion could end up being $16 billion. Key note speaker Frank Busalacchi, Wisconsin Secretary of Transportation and Chair of the Passenger Rail Working Group of the just-completed National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission outlined the Commission’s vision for significant new investments in additional transportation options. A crucial pro- rail section of the Study Commission’s report, written by Paul Weyrich and mysteriously missing from the full report, was presented at Jim RePass’ request by President Rick Arena of the Association for Public Transportation in Boston, with support also from William Lindley of Arizona Rail Passenger Association. Illness prevented Mr. Weyrich’s personal attendance, but his thoughts on the need for a light rail renaissance in the American city were received with enthusiasm. The Hon John Robert Smith, mayor of Meridian, Mississippi, left the audience awestruck by his inspiring speech (to be reproduced in full in Destination:Freedom) at the first day’s luncheon. Mayor Smith spoke for Governor Michael Dukakis who was unable to attend the conference because of a family emergency, but who participated nevertheless by speaker phone from his home in California In the final hours of the conference, the entire group participated in crafting and wordsmithing the St. Louis statement on transportation which is being forwarded now to the presidential candidates in particular and political leaders at all levels of government around the country. The final version appears in this newsletter, and will stay on the website until further notice. “I ask that all our readers and supporters make use of the St. Louis Statement, and get it out to every political candidate, no matter what level, running for office, not just the Presidential candidates,” said RePass. “This is a beginning of a new wave of activism, a wave that will not slow down until our leaders, whoever they may be, commit to action that will make America the great nation that it once was and can be again,” said NCI’s RePass. In the words of Robert Crandall “In transportation we depend on government for both sound policy and active participation, since there are some things that only government can provide. No conference or commission will have much real impact until we succeed in persuading the public, and the country’s political leadership, that America cannot sustain its living standards or remain a great power without a first rate, world class transportation infrastructure.” (See complete text of his speech elsewhere in this edition). Here is a complete list of speakers, sponsors, and supporters, of the Carmichael Conference on the Future of American Transportation:

Speakers:

Rick Arena, President, Association for Public Transportation, Boston
John Businger, Co-Chair, North South Rail Link Commission
Douglas Alexander, President, InTrans Inc.
Frank Busalacchi, Chair, Passenger Rail Working Group, US Congress’ National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission; Chair, States for Passenger Rail; Secty WiDOT
Gilbert E. Carmichael, Former Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration; Senior Chairman, ITI Board of Directors, Intermodal Transportation Institute, University of Denver
James Coston, Chairman, Corridor Capital LLC
Robert Crandall, former CEO, American Airlines
Rod Diridon, Chair Emeritus, California High Speed Rail Authority
Michael S. Dukakis, Presidential Nominee, Democratic Party (via speakerphone)
David Foster, Executive Director, Rail Solution
Tim Frank, Chair, Sierra Club of the United States Livable Communities Committee
Art Guzzetti, Vice President for Policy, American Public Transportation Association
Rick Harnish, Executive Director, Midwest High Speed Rail Association
John Horsley, Executive Director, AASHTO
Cynthia Hoyle, Committee Member, Sierra Club of the United States Livable Communities Committee
NARP Assistant Director David R. Johnson
Laura Kliewer, Executive Director, Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission, for the ill Rep. Charlie Schlottach (94-MO), Chair, MIPRC and
     Chair, House Appropriations Committee for Transportation and Economic Development
Craig Lewis, Senior Vice President, Norfolk Southern
Todd Alexander Litman, Executive Director, Victoria Transportation Policy Institute
Pete Rahn, President, AASHTO, and Director of the Missouri Department of Transportation
James P. RePass, President, the National Corridors Initiative
Larry Russell, Vice President, American Road and Transportation Builders Association
Hon. John Robert Smith, founding Chairman, Reconnecting America; former Chairman, Amtrak
The words of Paul Weyrich, Chairman, Free Congress Foundation (Via a Representative Due to Illness)
Mark Yachmetz, Associate Administrator, the Federal Railroad Administration

Sponsors/Supporters:

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
American Public Transportation Association
Association of American Railroads
Association for Public Transportation
Bombardier Transit
Connex/Veolia Transportation
InTrans Incorporated: A New Direction in Transportation Advocacy
Midwest High Speed Rail Association
The National Association of Railroad Passengers
The National Corridors Initiative
National Association of Railroad Passengers
Norfolk Southern Railroad
Providence & Worcester Railroad
The Sierra Club of the United States
The Surdna Foundation
Train/Riders NorthEast
Victoria Transportation Policy Institute
Washington Group/URS

Amtrak’s “Pioneer” May Come Back to Life

IDAHO --- Amtrak’s “Pioneer”, which served a huge area of the United States on a route running from Seattle-Portland to Chicago via Boise, Salt Lake City and Denver and Omaha but was discontinued in 1997, may be headed back to life.

Legislation is soon to be presented in Congress to bring back the Pioneer, U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, (R-ID), told the Idaho State Journal, according to a report in the Seattle Times this week.

The Pioneer was discontinued in 1997 at a time when a part of the GOP-controlled Congress was attempting to shut down all of Amtrak; the death of the Pioneer was one of the prices extracted by GOP anti-Amtrak forces to allow funding to go forward for the rest of the system.

The Associated Press reported that the train was “losing” $20 million a year at that time, a half-truth which continues to appear in Associated Press stories nearly every time it covers an Amtrak story, despite the fact that no passenger transportation system in the world makes money on its own, without significant government investment. The Interstate Highways that serve the same cities as the Pioneer will if it returns to service cost far more than $20 million a year to maintain and operate, because gasoline tax revenues do not come close to covering the costs of highway construction and maintenance. Congress has made no effort to close any Interstates, despite that fact.

What Simpson has proposed is language in the House version of the Amtrak reauthorization bill that would direct service to resume; the Senate language in the same bill merely calls for a study of the route. The 11.4 billion Amtrak re-authorization bill --- the Lott-Lautenberg Bill --- would provide significant capital over a period of six years, and allow Amtrak to engage in long-term planning to improve service while reducing per-passenger operating costs. In the past Amtrak has never known, from year-to-year, what amount of Federal support it would get --- and one year, President Bush proposed “zero” funding, an action which caused the almost immediate shutdown of Amtrak as credit card companies and other vendors looked to protect their interests in light of what they saw as possible imminent closure. Again, this is a far different system than that enjoyed by the Federal highway program, which can count on $25-$30 billion every year from the taxpayer-financed Federal Highway Trust Fund, plus billions more from state gasoline taxes.

According to the AP report, “Simpson said Congress has changed its mind about requiring Amtrak to pay for itself as the cost of gasoline continues to rise and airline ticket prices soar: “The Pioneer went away because the ridership didn’t measure up to the cost to do it,” Simpson said. “But that was back when gas was a buck a gallon. I’d think that now you’d see an increased use of the Pioneer from when it was there last,” the AP quoted Rep. Simpson as saying. It reported that Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) also said he would prefer legislation to bring back the Pioneer, rather than a feasibility study of the route.

One issue to be resolved is equipment to operate the trains, Amtrak said: demand for rail service is so high that all of its equipment is in use on other routes.

Amtrak Maintenance Will Close
NEC Four Days in June

After an extended period of maintenance woes, Amtrak began work on the Thames River Bridge in Groton, Connecticut a few years ago. The end objective is to replace the entire span with a new vertical-lift structure.

Earlier this week, Amtrak began notifying communities north of New Haven, Connecticut of a planned four-day rail outage between New Haven and Boston associated with the replacement of that bridge. The multi-year project will culminate in the installation of the new span during the four-day rail closure of the bridge in mid-June of 2008.

The bridge outage will also provide the Amtrak engineering department an opportunity to conduct a nearly around-the-clock repair and maintenance “blitz.” Taking the rail out of service between New Haven and Boston will enable crews to complete about a year’s worth of maintenance work in just four days. Operations of the Shore Line East or the MBTA’s commuter services are not expected to be affected by the effort.

The capital improvement blitz, which is unique in its magnitude and scope, will improve the overall reliability of the infrastructure and reduce the need for future service disruptions due to track outages for maintenance work. The additional work will involve tie replacement, surfacing at interlockings, electric catenary maintenance, road-crossing panel replacement and other bridge, track and platform work at various locations.

Amtrak will continue to communicate with cities and towns north of New Haven, and will be briefing local leaders on the scope of work and the service suspension itself in the coming months.

MBTA Announces Wifi Services
On Worcester Commuter Rail

BOSTON – At the beginning of last week, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray announced the MBTA has launched a pilot program that will make free Internet WiFi services available to riders on the Worcester/Framingham Commuter Rail Line.

The WiFi Commuter Rail Connect test program will allow MBTA customers with laptop computers, cellular phones, PDAs, or other WiFi enabled devices to access the Internet during their commutes to and from South Station.

The “T” as it is called locally, is also planning a purchase of 38 diesel locomotives and 75 bi-level passenger coaches to augment its rail expansion plans as well as replace some of its existing aging fleet.

New York Chapter of National Railway Historical Society meets February 7

NEW YORK CITY--- The New York Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society meets this Thursday, February 7, at Seafarers and International House, 123 East 15 Street, at the NE corner of Irving Place, for a presentation on Japan’s railways by Chapter Membership Director Gary Kazin, who will present slides of his recent visits to Japan.

Two separate visits are involved, both involving visits to Kazin’s daughter, who teaches English on the rarely visited northern island of Hokkaido. Gary’s travels involved the Shinkansen “bullet trains,” and he reports seeing several of the original 1964 models as well as the latest 500 and 700 series equipment. Local electric and subway lines in Tokyo were used, and Gary experienced an overnight trip from Tokyo to Hakkodate using conventional equipment with first electric and then diesel power. Hokkaido provided various types of diesel MU equipment, including Budd RDC equivalents and tilt trains. Gary also reports riding a steam-powered train at a museum in Kyoto.

Chapter events are free but non-members attending are asked to make a donation at the door.

To my fellow NARP members in Regions 1 through 4:

Delaware Valley Association of Railroad Passengers, Region 3, is hosting a conference on the full Boston-Washington Northeast Corridor (NEC) on February 16th-17th 2008 in conjunction with the annual Region 3 business meeting.  The conference will be held on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, approximately _ mile from 30th Street Station.  The Region 3 portion of the meeting will start at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, with the full NEC portion starting with a luncheon at 1:00 p.m.  The registration for the full conference will be $100, which will include two luncheons, a continental breakfast on Sunday, and snacks at breaks.  For those wishing to attend only the Region 3 portion, the fee will be $30, which will include the luncheon on Saturday. 

[ Ed Note: Over the next few weeks we will be presenting excerpts of speeches and various commentaries on the First Carmichael Conference on American Transportation held in January of 2008. These will be presented within the pages of Destination: Freedom and will also be broken out into a Conference Archive section at our web site.]

Text of Major Address by Robert Crandall,
former Chairman and CEO of American Airlines
To the Carmichael Conference, St. Louis

Thanks to you all for being here today.

I am delighted to be part of an effort to attract political attention to the gathering crisis in American transportation, and to have had an opportunity to hear others confirm the concerns I have long had about the atrophication of our rail system and the deterioration of our highway system. It’s late in the game, and we are far past the time when our national leaders should have laid out, debated and implemented an integrated, carefully thought out and effective national plan for developing and deploying an optimized national transportation system.

Unhappily, we live in a time – as Joe Klein observed in his recent and excellent book ‘politics lost’ – in which “the very notion of planning, especially planning for the common good, seems vaguely socialist.” that reality underscores the fact that we must do more than merely describe problems and recommend solutions -- we must also persuade our political leaders that those problems deserve the attention of our government. We must either persuade lots of folks who don’t want government in the game to change their minds or, alternatively, change the leadership in favor of those who will pay attention!! And that, of course, is what politics is all about.

We have had the good fortune during the last couple of days to hear from a number of people well qualified to comment on, and offer solutions to, our rail and highway problems. As you all know, my background is in the aviation sector – so let me spend a few minutes talking about what has gone wrong with our aviation system, why I think it is important for us to fix it, and what I think should be done. Then we can come back to the importance of working to develop an integrated approach designed to optimize the contribution all our transportation capabilities.

In my view, the deterioration in our aviation system has its roots in the badly conceived airline deregulation act of 1978. Myself and many others were fiercely opposed to the bill, and did all we could to defeat it.

While I was opposed to the deregulation bill we got, it was absolutely clear that some modifications to the regulatory scheme then in effect were need. Moreover, it is clear that deregulation has had some favorable effects.

Absent deregulation, the industry would likely have moved much more slowly towards optimization of the hub and spoke methodology which has worked so well to connect the many dots that make up America, would have taken far longer than it did to develop the automated reservations and operational systems now used throughout the industry, would have been far slower to create fare and load factor management tools like yield management and almost certainly wouldn’t ever have launched the frequent flyer plans which are so ubiquitous today. The competitive juices that opened the way for these and other innovations were sorely lacking in the airline industry of 1970’s, and it is clear that deregulation was a great stimulant.

Indeed, absent deregulation, it is very doubtful that American Airlines – my alma mater – would be anything like the size it is today. Because we grasped the nettle more quickly than our competitors, we gained a first mover advantage in many areas and were able to translate that leadership into a dramatic growth and profitability advantage throughout the 1980 and early 1990’s.

Unhappily, all that good news is belied by the sad state of affairs of our present air transportation system, which isn’t much of an endorsement for the presumed virtues of unrestricted competition. While the industry’s decrepit state can’t be blamed entirely on deregulation, the devil has proven to be in the details. The economists and academics who fathered the idea – and whose forecasts of probable industry responses were wildly off the mark -- cannot have imagined that their successors in government would be neither as indifferent to the need for fine tuning, nor as abjectly inept as they have proven to be.

Thus, while most who opposed deregulation would acknowledge that competitive freedom has brought many benefits to an industry that certainly needed changing, I am sure many would share with me some sense of vindication from the headlines and stories so frequent in today’s press.

Consider these few examples:

• During the first nine months of 2007, the airline industry lost – at least temporarily – one of every 138 checked bags, as compared to one of every 155 the year before and far fewer ten years ago.
  
• At one of our leading airlines, the number of involuntarily bumped passengers – that is, people denied boarding despite having a reservation – rose by 50% in the summer of 2007 as compared to the summer of 2006. Industry wide, involuntary bumping was 22% worse than last summer.
  
• Airline on-time arrivals have fallen to less than 75%, and the number of delayed flights has risen by more than 600,000 from ten years ago. At some major airports – particularly Kennedy and Laguardia – the numbers are far worse
  
• On November 25, an article in the New York Times proclaimed “flying … has become an increasingly miserable experience. Legroom is practically nonexistent. Passengers are more tightly packed together. Hot meals have been eliminated. Ditto pillows and blankets. All of which has created a generation of fliers who now view getting on a plane as roughly akin to entering the ninth circle of hell.
  
• And finally, and in the long run most importantly, U.S. Aviation leadership is a thing of the past. While both Boeing and airbus are building and selling lots of new planes, the fleets of the major U.S. Carriers are growing steadily older. It has been many years since any U.S. Airline has warranted a place on any list of the world’s best airlines.

The industry’s impact on our collective well-being is profound. Numerous studies have shown that aviation accounts for more than a trillion dollars – 10% plus – of our GDP and drives about 11 million jobs. Taken together with the economic implications of inadequate rail and highway structures, these numbers imply ever-deepening troubles ahead.

Think back, if you will, to the second presidential debate of the last campaign. A woman in the audience inquired of the candidates how America could sustain its standard of living if more and more good jobs are flowing to places where wages are low. Neither candidate, in my view, gave much of an answer.

But there is a good answer, which is that all jobs do not flow to those places where wages are low. Instead, jobs flow to those places where the total costs of production and distribution are lowest. Thus a country like America – where wages are not as low as in many other places – needs to be good at all the things that contribute to production and distribution leadership. Among those things are efficient capital markets, outstanding educational institutions, a strong information technology and telecommunications sector, and efficient transportation systems able to move materials, people, and finished goods quickly and cheaply from place to place.

These activities have catalytic impacts on many other businesses, and are thus key drivers of superior economies. In the U.S., each of these things has made a big difference.

• America’s educational institutions are a prime reason the United States has had a commanding lead in new patents for many years -- although we are now losing momentum as we make it more difficult for students to come here and even harder for them to stay after they graduate.
  
• the remarkable information technology and telecommunications developments of the 90’s made an enormous contribution to the productivity growth our overall economy has realized in recent years, and are something we should be able to count on in the years ahead. However, if we continue to make it difficult for the best and the brightest to come here, our leadership will gradually wither away.
  
• In the early years of the telecommunication revolution, everyone looked to America for leadership. Today, many countries have superior cell phone service and in lots of places around the world, what we call high speed access would be regarded as rather pokey.
  
• Finally, in years past our superior aviation system made it lots easier to do three cities in one day in the U.S. Than is was in Europe and Asia, which meant it was easier to put a deal together or run a business here than it was there.

In all these areas, our government ought to be doing everything possible to sustain America’s advantages --to be sure that higher education, information technology, telecommunications and transportation remain areas of U.S. leadership -- because continued leadership in these areas is the only way we can hope to sustain our present standard of living.

While leadership in some areas requires only policy leadership from government, with the private sector carrying the burden of execution, transportation is different. In transportation we depend on government for both sound policy and active participation since there are some things that only government can provide.

Safety regulation is one such activity, and in this area, at least as it relates to aviation, the public and private sectors have worked quite effectively together. Everyone involved in aviation safety – the FAA, the airlines, and the front line folks who make it happen every day – can be rightfully proud of the extraordinary job they have done in making commercial flight ever safer.

Unhappily, despite Herculean self-help efforts by the industry – including the bankruptcy of almost every legacy airline – not much else has gone well. Given the reality that things could – and probably will – be even worse unless we do something different, I think it’s about time for government to come to grips with our pressing need for new aviation policies. During the course of the last couple of decades, there have been numberless conferences, commissions, conclaves, papers and speeches – but damn little action.

In my view, it’s pretty clear what we need to do:

• We need to change our bankruptcy laws to prevent failed carriers from operating under the protection of the bankruptcy court for extended periods of time. Allowing failed ventures to continue, while gaining huge cost advantages relative to more successful competitors, serves as a fail safe for imprudent managements and reckless unions and denies successful competitors the pricing leverage essential to restoring financial health. Denying failed ventures this unique protection would allow the survivors to rationalize their route structures and exercise sufficient pricing power to recapture the costs of the hub and spoke system so essential to small communities across the country. Moreover, and perhaps most important, the specter of liquidation would provide real incentives for labor and management to work together to avoid failure.
  
• We need to change our deeply flawed labor policies. As far back as the 1930’s, while grappling with vastly different problems, the government mandated pilot pay rates which, when incorporated into union contracts, have made it impossible for the airlines to capitalize on the remarkable aircraft productivity gains of modern times. Then, in 1978, the congress stripped the airlines of the right to mutual aid, and finally, in 1985, denied bankrupt companies the option of abrogating labor agreements, which removed any incentive for unions to moderate their contract demands. The cumulative impact of these policies, has been to drive airline labor rates far above those paid for comparable skills in other industries.
  
• We need to reconsider our government’s view that low prices always trump the interests of producers and employees. In the years since deregulation, the U.S. Has made a series of policy choices which handicap the ability of our legacy carriers to create strong market positions. These policies stand in sharp contrast to the policies of other governments, and account, to a considerable degree, for the fact that foreign legacy carriers have done far better in recent years than their U.S. Counterparts.
  
• We need to re-examine government policies regarding taxes and fees levied on travelers. Today, about one fifth the cost of a single connection round trip within the united states -- more than $60 – goes for taxes and fees. The federal government taxes travel – which is economically important to every person in the United States – more heavily than it does tobacco, alcohol, or guns and ammunition. Does that make any sense???
  
• We need to re-consider the policy of asking aviation --- and every other form of transportation in this security-sensitive age --- to shoulder the cost of its own security. The extraordinary burden of fees and taxes I have already mentioned includes billions of dollars of security costs – which should, in my judgment, be financed by all taxpayers, as are other national security costs. To cite a very contemporary case, are we going to levy the costs of border security only on the residents of border states – or on all Americans?? The answer, of course, is that we all benefit, and we should all pay.
  
• We need to provide the FAA with the resources it needs to modernize the air traffic control system and enhance the productivity of its employees. Back in 2003, the congress passed a plan to do both, but in the years since, the administration and the congress have failed to provide the needed funding. Moreover, the administration continues to propose ever smaller general fund contributions to FAA operations, which has set in motion a ferocious political struggle between elements of the aviation community as to how future system improvements – if they occur at all – will be financed.
  
• We also need, as I said at the outset of these remarks, to work towards better integrating the capabilities of all our transportation capabilities. Let me touch on just a couple of ways in which rail and air could be far better used for everyone’s advantage.

As I suspect all of you know, landings and takeoffs at Laguardia airport are limited and airspace in and around New York is very crowded. Nonetheless, a substantial number of flights still leave Laguardia bound for Washington d. C. And Boston, both places to which railroad track already runs. If I were the King of Spain – that is, if I could do whatever I wanted to do – I’d prohibit flights to either Boston or Washington from Laguardia while simultaneously upgrading the rail system – tracks, equipment, power and whatever else is needed – to assure maximum running speed and minimum elapsed time. By doing so, we would better use the railroad asset and would free airplanes, airspace and airport facilities for flights to places that cannot be conveniently reached by rail. Once that was accomplished, I’d move in the same direction in and around Chicago, thus relieving the pressure on O’Hare and on the west coast, thus relieving pressure at Los Angeles and San Francisco.

While we’re on the subject, I should also mention that I am mystified as to why most European cities can operate high speed trains from their airports to their city centers while we can’t, and equally mystified as to why the Europeans are so much better at linking airports and local rail systems than we are.

In a cynical age, it is widely thought naïve to suppose that past practices can be radically changed --- and specifically, that anyone will be willing to think through and then implement the important policy changes needed to fix not just the aviation system, but the transportation system as a whole. Unless someone does, however, things will only get worse in the years ahead --- and the public’s growing dissatisfaction may well be a ray of hope.

As load factors and fares rise, terminal congestion worsens, flight delays proliferate, available seats grow scarce and frequent flyers seats become more and more unavailable, there is more and more gnashing of teeth, and our politicians – unwilling to provide leadership but always fearful of the publics wrath – have at least begun to propose stop gap measures, however ill conceived. A few weeks ago, even our famously laissez-faire administration got into the act by opening underutilized military air space off the east coast for commercial use during the thanksgiving traffic peak.

But stop-gap measures won’t solve the long term problem -- which won’t go away until the U.S. Department of transportation – with the help and support of the congress – steps up to its responsibilities and creates a comprehensive transportation master plan that integrates solutions for both passenger and freight traffic with optimized use of all our aviation, rail and highway assets.

The thought and effort that has gone into this conference may well make a difference – but no conference or commission will have much real impact until we succeed in persuading the public, and the country’s political leadership, that America cannot sustain its living standards or remain a great power without a first rate, world class transportation infrastructure.

None of what’s needed is rocket science. We know how to do what is required --- all that’s needed is the will and determination to recapture the excellence that was once the hallmark of all things American.

America deserves better – and we should be leading the way towards getting it

Thank you very much.

A Rail Rider Remembers George Warrington

As an advocate for the riders on Amtrak and New Jersey Transit, I knew George Warrington fairly well. It is always a saddening experience to learn that somebody you know is dying at a young age and from such a ravaging disease, so I was shocked when I received the news. I first heard it ten days before he actually died. Although NJT did not disclose it to the public, many of the advocates and transit managers with whom I spoke that day had heard it from somebody else just before I called.

George and I were not friends, but we were frank and polite with each other, with mutual respect. We often disagreed on policy issues, and he was not shy about stating his opinions, whether or not we liked what he said. He appeared at meetings of the Lackawanna Coalition and the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers (NJ-ARP) about once a year, and he always had plenty to tell us. I believe he personally liked the advocates who represented his riders, although he seldom implemented any of our suggestions.

He was a controversial man, both at Amtrak and later at NJT. On the plus side at Amtrak, he restored to daily operation several trains that had been reduced in frequency as part of the infamous “Mercer” cuts which were implemented by Tom Downs in the mid-1990s. He eliminated two trains, the Desert Wind and Pioneer, both of which operated three days per week. At the same time, he reinstated the daily operation of the Empire Builder, California Zephyr, Texas Eagle, City of New Orleans and the portion of the Crescent between Atlanta and New Orleans that had been cut to less than daily service.

On the minus side, he told Congress that Amtrak would become profitable, which was an unrealistic expectation, at best. One school of thought holds that Warrington saved Amtrak by telling Congress what they wanted to hear, so they would not kill Amtrak on the spot. The other side of the argument is that he damaged Amtrak’s credibility so severely that it took several years for his successor, David Gunn, to restore Amtrak’s reputation with some badly needed straight talk. This writer has heard the latter view expressed by rider advocates far more often than the former.

Warrington’s legacy at NJT varies from line to line. He increased service on the Main-Bergen Line (to Suffern and Port Jervis via Fair Lawn or Paterson) to its highest level in history. He increased weekend service on the NEC Line between New York and Trenton as well, although he also used these service enhancements as part of the justification for a fare increase. He planned the first off-peak rail service on the Pascack Valley Line between Hoboken and Spring Valley since 1939. At the same time, he drew criticism for knuckling under to political pressure to refrain from expanding the Pascack Valley project to the point where a higher level of service could have been offered.

On the Morris & Essex lines, he implemented service reductions. He cut service between Hoboken and the western terminals of Dover and Gladstone, most notably eliminating half of the weekend trains on that route in 2006. This was done administratively, without hearings or advance notice to the public. He also knew that weekend service on the Montclair-Boonton Line could have operated from Hoboken at any time, but consistently refused to authorize such operation.

He cared deeply about his railroad and spent long hours watching over its operation. In that respect, he reminded me of the stories I heard about the great “Empire Builders” from an earlier era, such as James J. Hill and Cornelius Vanderbilt. Before he left NJT, he proposed an eight-mile railroad, independent of Amtrak and running from Swift Interlocking on the NEC Line (between Newark and the Hackensack River) to a new “deep cavern” terminal far below 34^th Street in Manhattan. He always argued that the independence of the proposed line from Amtrak would give NJT greater control over its own trains, but rail advocacy organizations in both New Jersey and New York have united in opposition to his plan. The advocates claim that the proposed project would leave riders in an inconvenient place, rather than giving them access to the East Side, and that it would cost so much that there would be no money available to pay for transit improvements in other parts of the state.

George Warrington was always willing to state his opinions, although he was less inclined to engage in debate over them. Still, he did reach out to us on one occasion. He approached the Lackawanna Coalition two years ago and complained about our opposition to his tunnel project. To his credit, he requested the opportunity to present his view in our newsletter, the Railgram. We printed his statement as he submitted it in the Spring, 2006 issue, with a response by Coalition member and NARP Secretary Albert L. Papp. I do not know of any other time when the head of a transit agency asked a rider advocacy organization for the opportunity to publish a statement in the organization’s newsletter. In doing so, he set a precedent that should be followed by other transit heads.

He was also a highly political man. During his final year, he left NJT to form a consulting firm with two prominent political figures. He claimed that he often met with legislators and other politicians in the Garden State and in New York. Still, he raised fares on NJT, even though he never publicly called for an increase in New Jersey’s Motor Fuels Tax. The state’s gasoline tax has not increased since 1988, and part of the revenue from it pays for capital and operating expenses at NJT.

Sometimes George Warrington and I agreed on policy matters, and other times we did not. On one occasion, I convinced him that a change was needed. At the NJT Board meeting in December 2006, I criticized the Board policy of not giving the public enough information to allow us to comment intelligently on issues before the Board in advance of a vote. At the end of the meeting, Warrington told me he wanted to see me in his office in a few minutes. He took time out from his pre-Holiday lunch with senior managers and Board members and told me that public notices of future Board meetings would contain interpretive statements for every item on the agenda. He implemented the promised change the following month, and his successor, Richard R. Sarles, continues the practice.

Even after his life was over, George went out on a note of supreme irony. His funeral was held in Long Valley, N.J., a town that has no transit. Transit-dependent people could not attend the event.

George Warrington made life more interesting for us than it would have been without him. While we still hope to see the construction of the original Access to the Region’s Core project instead of the Trans-Hudson tunnel project with which he replaced it, it remains to be seen how far into the future his strong personality and the policies he championed will reach. Did he save Amtrak or make it more difficult for others to do so? Did he preclude new rail starts at NJT so he could build a costly memorial to himself?

Who will primarily benefit from his policies, political and business leaders, or New Jersey’s transit riders?

We can’t answer these questions now; only time will tell.

David Peter Alan is Chair of the Lackawanna Coalition and a Board Member of the Rail Users’ Network (RUN). The opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of any other person or organization.