Hotline #928

Congress went back into session this week with a lot of legislation to pass in the fall session before adjourning for 2015. The bill that’s most important to NARP is the Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy (DRIVE) Act, a major transportation effort that includes provisions from the Senate’s rail reform bill. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said in Politico that it “wasn’t happy news” to hear this week that DOT now predicts the Highway Trust Fund won’t need another refill until the last few months of fiscal 2016. “If we don't get this done when we're scheduled to, we're going to miss a construction season, an entire year. ... I like a sense of urgency," he said.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx agreed, noting that chances for enactment grow slimmer the longer Congress pushes off action on a long-term fix for the trust fund’s perpetual shortfall. Politico reporter Heather Caygle wrote that DOT’s new prediction “could actually be doomsday for highway and transit programs next year.”

NARP has worked with House and Senate staffers to craft a bill that will ensure a dedicated source of funding for Amtrak, along with money for public transit projects. The association believes that not only includes rail, but intermodal investments and service enhancements and local and connecting bus service, along with sensible highway spending an bike and walking paths. All these types of transportation will help meet local and regional needs.

Responding to public statements made by several Class 1 freight railroads, NARP issued a press release on September 10 that called on Congress to preserve access to the safe movement of people and goods by taking appropriate steps to responsibly extend the deadline for implementing Positive Train Control (PTC) beyond December 31, 2015.

NARP has been closely monitoring the situation and became alarmed earlier this summer when partners in the passenger and freight rail industry began contemplating plans to notify customers that they would discontinue service on January 1, 2016. Faced with ending service or breaking Federal Railroad Administration regulations, operators are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

In a statement submitted to the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Surface Transportation in February 2015, NARP offered a framework for responsibly extending the deadline for PTC implementation, which was included in the press release.

NARP members know that Vice President Joe Biden has been a strong and consistent supporter of rail as part of a multimodal transportation system. An article in The Hill notes that if Biden decides to run for president in 2016, it could bode well for Amtrak. “Biden is so much of an Amtrak supporter that he is sometimes referred to as `Amtrak Joe’ or in his former Capitol Hill life as `the Senator from Amtrak,’” wrote reporter Keith Laing.

"He knows more about Amtrak than anybody else running for president, or anyone that is thinking about running for president," AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department President Ed Wytkind said in an interview with The Hill. "He has long-standing personal relationships with the workers...He knows [Amtrak employees] by their first names."

The September 2015 NARP newsletter included a member profile of Thomas Girsch of Massachusetts, who noted the battle in his state to build a new rail link between the North and South stations in Boston. Gov. Charlie Baker said he remains "cautious" about building that rail link despite support for it from two former governors, reports MassLive.com. Michael Dukakis, a Democrat, and William Weld, a Republican, met with Baker to discuss the proposed north-south rail link. The pair penned an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe to advocate for the rail link.

The project has been is estimated to cost $2 billion to $4 billion, according to Baker. Politico reported that the project was last seriously pursued between 1995 and 2003, but it stalled under former governors Mitt Romney and Deval Patrick. And the legislature in 2014 authorized Baker to spend $2 million to study the issue, but he has not decided whether to release the money.

Amtrak this week got support from a pair of conservatives looking to strengthen support from the right wing of the political spectrum for rail. Passenger trains offer comfortable travel the middle class can afford, wrote William Lind and Glen Bottoms in The American Conservative. “These trains represent one of the good things from the past conservatives should work to conserve and expand: at present, passenger rail service in most of the country is a fraction of what it was 50 years ago.

“Last year, House Republicans forced through a measure that drove a knife in Amtrak’s back. They put a legal requirement on Amtrak to end all losses on food and beverage services,” they wrote. “The only way Amtrak can meet the new mandate is to eliminate dining cars. Passengers would have to go on journeys of a thousand miles or more with nothing but a snack bar. Coach passengers may do that, but a great many sleeping car passengers will not.”

Amtrak is currently testing the removal of the Dining Car on the Silver Star between New York and Miami through January 31, 2016. The Dining Car should remain as an option that is included in a Silver Star ticket price instead of looking at food and beverage on that long-distance train as a money maker.

To that end, we are asking NARP members to support our upcoming “This is Not a Dining Car Travel Cooler Campaign” to tell Congress that eliminating this food option on long-haul rail service is not the way to go. Members can pay $50 for a bag or $75 for two bags -- one to you and one to a member of your congressional delegation. Your purchase does two things -- send a message to Congress on the importance of keeping Dining Cars in place and funding future NARP advocacy efforts. We would appreciate your support, and more details on the campaign will come on Monday, September 14.

All four Louisiana governor candidates would support putting passenger rail between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, a plan current Gov. Bobby Jindal does not support, reports NOLA.com. "Nothing is more important to the super region than making sure we have interconnectedness," said state Rep. John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, the Democratic candidate in the race. Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne also backed up the project.

The three Republican candidates echoed Edwards sentiment during a recent gubernatorial forum. Candidates U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said he would back passenger rail, as long as the plan proposed was "feasible,” while Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle said he also supported the rail project, but only if the state doesn't have to "subsidize it."

In 2009, Jindal refused to move forward with an application for $300 million in federal funding for high-speed rail from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, saying there was no plan for the train's operating expenses.

The announcement that Amtrak will add a flag stop at Marks, Mississippi, in the heart of the Delta is already generating quite a buzz in the Delta and beyond, reports Mississippi Business Journal. “This opens the Delta to a different group of people, including those who might fly into Memphis, Chicago or St. Louis planning a trip through the Blues Trail,” said Chip Morgan, executive vice president of the Delta Council. “There will be countless opportunities for those communities along the line now begin marketing different opportunities including Blues Trail attractions. I congratulate the persistence of the Delta officials. It is not an easy thing to get one of the major railroads, Canadian National Railway, a private firm, to designate a flag stop they don’t already have because it interrupts their schedules. It has been a long effort, the railroad and community have come together, and the community put resources forth to make it a pleasant stop that, hopefully, we will be able to sustain.”

It will take more than 50 years for New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to fix all the problems with its 468 subway stations, according to a report released this week by the Citizens Budget Commission. At the current pace of repairing 280 station components — such as staircases, ceilings, platforms or pillars — every year, MTA would finish -- in 2067, reports the New York Daily News.

Southern California's Metrolink is trying to determine whether a design flaw in one of the state-of-the-art cars played a role in derailing a commuter train that injured 27 people and killing the engineer, reports the Los Angeles Times. At the time of the accident, railroad officials were quick to claim that new crash-resistant passenger coaches appeared to save lives and reduce injuries. 0To that end, officials announced that they will restrict the use of 57 of the new passenger cars that have control cabs for engineers and operate at the front of trains when they are being pushed from behind by locomotives.

A $2.78 million federal study of rail planning in the Midwest will include an effort to push to add more rail service across southwestern Ohio, including an Amtrak stop in Oxford, the home of Miami University, reports the Columbus Dispatch. The study could provide southwestern Ohio residents with more options for travel to nearby states and cities, including Chicago.

“We’re disconnected. That’s not good,” said Derek Bauman, the southwestern Ohio director for All Aboard Ohio, a group that advocates for more rail travel in the state. “It doesn’t put our region in a good, competitive position.”

Gov. Brian Sandoval has appointed five people to explore building a high-speed railroad in Nevada, reports the Nevada Appeal. Sandoval said Thursday that Nevada needs to explore options to strengthen the state’s connection with its neighbors. The so-called Nevada High-Speed Rail Authority is charged with leading a thorough discussion on the topic, which Sandoval said is an important part of the state keeping its competitive edge.

Finally, please continue to check our website for the latest updates on NARP’s 2015 Fall Council and Membership Meeting, October 16-18 in Indianapolis. There’s still space available for the Friday tour of Amtrak’s Beech Grove Maintenance Facility, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., including lunch. The tour is open only to NARP members, who must be registered to participate in Saturday’s ‘A Connected America’ Advocacy Day in order to attend.

On Saturday, October 17, members will participate in ‘A Connected America’ Advocacy And Learning Day from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., which will include a keynote address by Ed Ellis, president of Iowa Pacific Holdings. On Sunday, October 18, members will participate in NARP business sessions and will hear a keynote lunch speaker. We have posted information about alternative hotels, since the main hotel, the Crowne Plaza, is sold out. We look forward to seeing you in Indianapolis.