Here's what I don't understand. The feds just reaffirmed that the most energy-efficient way to travel is Amtrak (a bit better than commuter rail and rail transit, much better than airplanes and cars). Transportation emissions are about a fifth of the climate change problem.
And somehow most of the advocacy for climate change (like the Sierra Club's ad next door) avoids Amtrak and transit as a solution. Most environmentalists promote renewable energy and higher automobile fuel-efficiency (which are great), but the persistent blind spot on embracing and advocating for Amtrak and transit as a climate change solution is a problem.
On the electoral front, this ought to be a great issue for the Democratic majority, but strategists apparently aren't including significantly increased funding for transit and Amtrak in the budget playbook.
Transit properties around the nation are cutting service and raising fares, throwing more people into cars and accelerating global warming. Amtrak trains during the summer are often sold out and we could pull far more people out of planes if we ran more trains -- particularly with capital investments so they had faster average speeds and better on-time performance. But the silence on advocacy for transit and Amtrak is (to borrow a phrase from the Chicago Transit Authority President) deafening.
I don't really know why transit and Amtrak aren't fully embraced by either the Democratic majority or most environmental groups as a core, first-tier policy priority. I understand why the pro-oil White House is hostile to both. But for tens of millions of Americans, transit and Amtrak are a daily reminder of government working for them, bringing them affordable, energy-efficient travel in ways that makes their community better than a lack of government action ever could.
The Baltimore Sun in a good editorial today gets it.
Fuel-sipping trains
Originally published June 11, 2007
With energy prices high and likely to go higher in the years ahead, it would make sense for the nation to embrace a transportation policy that puts a premium on energy efficiency. Transportation, along with electrical power generation, is the country's biggest consumer of fossil and renewable fuels.
[snip]
Yet Amtrak continues to be treated as little more than an afterthought in national energy and environmental policy discussions. President Bush has proposed spending just $800 million on Amtrak in fiscal 2008. That's a half-billion dollars less than was spent the year before.
The general public has been far more supportive. Ridership has increased each of the last four years, and Amtrak officials note that it's up again this year
Amtrak and transit are political winners, waiting for a champion (perhaps a presidential candidate) to pick them up and capture the allegiance of tens of millions of riders frustrated by a lack of attention.
(Full disclosure: my firm works for the Regional Transportation Authority in Chicago and lobbies for the Midwest High Speed Rail Association. This diary is exclusively my view and does not necessarily reflect the views of any of my clients.)