President-elect Joseph Biden has yet to take office and already has disappointed some rail passenger advocates.
His $1.9 trillion COVID-19 pandemic relief plan released last week contains not a dime for additional Amtrak funding or, for that matter, airlines or intercity bus companies.
All of those modes of transportation received some funding from a pandemic relief bill adopted by Congress in late December.
At the time, the incoming Biden administration had said it considered that package to be a prelude to another round of pandemic relief in the spring.
We’ve now seen what that next aid package will involve. The Biden proposal does contain $20 billion in assistance for what the president-elect has described as the hardest-hit public transit agencies.
Although those were not named, they are likely to include systems based in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.
The plan noted that these systems have been devastated by lost ridership and revenue.
Of course a similar scenario has played out with intercity rail, air travel and intercity bus travel.
The Rail Passengers Association issued a statement in response to the Biden plan praising it for proposing aid to public transit.
However, RPA stopped short of criticizing the proposal for ignoring Amtrak.
Instead RPA called for amending it to including funding to enable the intercity rail passenger carrier to resume operating its long-distance trains on daily schedules by next summer.
The Biden proposal is just that, a proposal and not a guarantee. It will be up to Congress to approve the plan, which is subject to change as it makes its way through the House and Senate.
There is no guarantee that Congress will adopt another pandemic relief plan at all. Biden’s Democratic Party controls both house of Congress by thin margins.
There will Republican opposition and not all Democrats will necessarily be on board with everything the new administration is proposing.
Biden, who is known by some as “Amtrak Joe” because of how he used to commute to Washington by train has just given rail passenger advocates a reality check.
Some advocates, including RPA, have hailed the possibilities of what might happen with a president who supports passenger rail.
A letter I received from RPA last week claims Biden has a vision for a “second rail revolution” and “will be looking far beyond just paving roads to secure our transportation future.”
That was last week. This week RPA was writing on its website that the Biden plan falls far short of the “resources needed to tackle the immediate crisis.”
By that RPA means a billion dollars to restore long-distance trains to daily service.
The Biden administration has signaled that it will release another plan a few months from now that will propose infrastructure improvements.
Presumably, that proposal will benefit rail passenger service by providing capital dollars for such things as new equipment and route development.
In the meantime, Amtrak and the rest of the transportation network looks to remain much as it has been of late with fewer flights, fewer intercity bus services and less-than-daily Amtrak service in many places.
Airline industry observers have been writing for months that they expect it will take up to four years for the air service network to return to the level it was in early 2019 before the pandemic took hold and the travel market all but collapsed.
Rail passengers may not like it, but the Biden pandemic relief plan has shown them that restoration of suspended Amtrak services may be following a similar track.
Less-than-daily trains and fewer corridor services are likely to be with us for a while longer and maybe quite a while.
The Biden administration might be thinking that public transit has higher priority because it enables people to get to work. For some workers, it is their only option to get to work.
Much of the Biden aid package is oriented toward bolstering state and local governments. The thinking appears to be to take care of that first and as the economy recovers and the pandemic is tamed then travel will recover as business travel resumes and pent-up demand for leisure travel explodes.
Only then will we be seeing more flights, more bus service and more daily Amtrak trains.
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‘Amtrak Joe’ Offers a Reality Check
January 17, 2021President-elect Joseph Biden has yet to take office and already has disappointed some rail passenger advocates.
All of those modes of transportation received some funding from a pandemic relief bill adopted by Congress in late December.
At the time, the incoming Biden administration had said it considered that package to be a prelude to another round of pandemic relief in the spring.
We’ve now seen what that next aid package will involve. The Biden proposal does contain $20 billion in assistance for what the president-elect has described as the hardest-hit public transit agencies.
Although those were not named, they are likely to include systems based in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.
The plan noted that these systems have been devastated by lost ridership and revenue.
Of course a similar scenario has played out with intercity rail, air travel and intercity bus travel.
The Rail Passengers Association issued a statement in response to the Biden plan praising it for proposing aid to public transit.
However, RPA stopped short of criticizing the proposal for ignoring Amtrak.
Instead RPA called for amending it to including funding to enable the intercity rail passenger carrier to resume operating its long-distance trains on daily schedules by next summer.
The Biden proposal is just that, a proposal and not a guarantee. It will be up to Congress to approve the plan, which is subject to change as it makes its way through the House and Senate.
There is no guarantee that Congress will adopt another pandemic relief plan at all. Biden’s Democratic Party controls both house of Congress by thin margins.
There will Republican opposition and not all Democrats will necessarily be on board with everything the new administration is proposing.
Biden, who is known by some as “Amtrak Joe” because of how he used to commute to Washington by train has just given rail passenger advocates a reality check.
Some advocates, including RPA, have hailed the possibilities of what might happen with a president who supports passenger rail.
A letter I received from RPA last week claims Biden has a vision for a “second rail revolution” and “will be looking far beyond just paving roads to secure our transportation future.”
That was last week. This week RPA was writing on its website that the Biden plan falls far short of the “resources needed to tackle the immediate crisis.”
By that RPA means a billion dollars to restore long-distance trains to daily service.
The Biden administration has signaled that it will release another plan a few months from now that will propose infrastructure improvements.
Presumably, that proposal will benefit rail passenger service by providing capital dollars for such things as new equipment and route development.
In the meantime, Amtrak and the rest of the transportation network looks to remain much as it has been of late with fewer flights, fewer intercity bus services and less-than-daily Amtrak service in many places.
Airline industry observers have been writing for months that they expect it will take up to four years for the air service network to return to the level it was in early 2019 before the pandemic took hold and the travel market all but collapsed.
Rail passengers may not like it, but the Biden pandemic relief plan has shown them that restoration of suspended Amtrak services may be following a similar track.
Less-than-daily trains and fewer corridor services are likely to be with us for a while longer and maybe quite a while.
The Biden administration might be thinking that public transit has higher priority because it enables people to get to work. For some workers, it is their only option to get to work.
Much of the Biden aid package is oriented toward bolstering state and local governments. The thinking appears to be to take care of that first and as the economy recovers and the pandemic is tamed then travel will recover as business travel resumes and pent-up demand for leisure travel explodes.
Only then will we be seeing more flights, more bus service and more daily Amtrak trains.
Tags:Amtrak, Amtrak funding, Biden administration, commentaries on transportation, COVID-19 pandemic, Joe Biden, On Transportation, pandemic relief aid, posts on transportation
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