Hotline #731
July 24, 1992
Balanced-transportation activist Sam Stokes died July 18 at Keene, N.H. He was 70 years old and put up a long struggle with Lou Gehrig's disease. Sam was a former vice president of NARP and long-time board member and executive committee member. He was the first and only recipient of the Amtrak Consumer Advocate Award in 1990. Sam was a tireless supporter of our causes and though he was frustrated by his debilitating disease, neither his work nor his determination was diminished. Sam's contributions will be sorely missed by our community.
It looks like the Senate Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee will take up 1993 funding on July 30 or later. The chairman, Frank Lautenberg (D.-N.J.) would like to see more budget authority for transportation, as was found at the last minute in the House, but it is not clear how that will work out in the Senate. Call your Appropriations Senators to ask them to do more for Amtrak capital and the Northeast Corridor than the House did.
The Amtrak Board met July 22 and approved $4 million to modify, import, and test a Swedish X2000 train set several months from now. Amtrak lost about $14 million in revenues the week of the strike in June. Amtrak expects a 1992 cash deficit of about $37 million, probably to be covered using Amtrak's credit line with several banks.
Commuter service on the Virginia Railway Express to Fredericksburg began July 20. Nearly 1,900 people rode VRE that day, almost evenly divided between the new line and the month-old Manassas line.
Though Ross Perot dropped out of the presidential campaign last week, one interesting detail has emerged from the plan his advisors created to balance the federal budget, but which Perot never adopted. The plan included a phased-in, 50-cent-per-gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax -- something NARP would definitely support, provided rail transportation alternatives were provided to the public at the same time. Governor Clinton, during this spring's primaries, harshly criticized Paul Tsongas for proposing a similar gas tax increase. In fact, just this week, a Clinton staffer, commenting on the Perot proposals, said, "[Clinton] doesn't think we can afford a 50-cent gas tax ..."
The wasteful $30 billion tiltrotor program being pushed by the Marines, the FAA, and Rep. James Oberstar (D.-Minn.), about which reported last week, was dealt a blow on July 20 when a prototype crashed into the Potomac River near Quantico, Va., killing all seven aboard. Of five prototypes built, two now have crashed in the last year. Though this is a tragedy in terms of loss of life, we hope this accident will kill support for this unnecessary program. Nevertheless, the FAA told the Washington Post that the tiltrotors are safe and that the accident will not slow down their research program.
The Wisconsin Central has offered to pay half the $24 million in track improvements thought necessary to restore passenger rail service to Green Bay. However, that is contingent on its acquisition of area short lines going through; and someone else, perhaps the state, paying the other half.
The German government said last week that, after spending over $1 billion on the maglev test project there, it would stop all maglev funding. However, a highly optimistic private consortium led by Daimler-Benz and Siemens think they can build an airport-to-airport maglev between Hamburg and Berlin for $5.4 billion of their own money. That amount is surely still speculative, as no one yet knows where the new Berlin airport will be located.