Just when you need a comprehensive national passenger transportation strategy…

Not entirely unexpectedly, the Trump administration’s budget proposals for the next fiscal year, if passed by Congress in their entirety, would almost certainly leave America without long-distance Amtrak passenger trains. In addition, many existing transit agencies would see little to no federal funds, and transit TIGER grants would disappear.

I like to remind conservatives and liberals alike that this is an opening bid, negotiating from the ends to the middle, not the final form of transportation funding for the entire Trump presidency, whether that be four or eight years. It also is not anything that looks like a comprehensive plan for nationwide mobility. Not even close.

In my mind, such a comprehensive plan would allow for at least four convenient modes of transportation between any two city pairs of reasonable size. Let’s say for the sake of argument that reasonable size is a metro area greater than a population of 1 million or a city larger than 300,000. The four modes would be, in no particular order, airline, railroad, highway bus, and personal automobile. Coastal or Great Lakes metro areas should easily be expected to have a fifth mode, marine shuttle craft.

Such transportation choices should be available, convenient, and taken at the choice of the user based on personal considerations, not based on whether any government deems them environmentally or politically appropriate. There should be at least one non-stop air route between each metro pair per weekday, and at least two trains per day serving each metro area in each direction. Each train route would be expected to serve intermediate cities where demand warrants.

Currently, it appears to be public policy to subsidize all modes but rail, and that should change. Because of the way in which passenger rail has evolved (or failed to evolve) in America, it would be understood that many of the trains would initially be operated by Amtrak or some other subsidized entity. Once policy regarding city pairs and access to modes is established, risk levels will go down for private enterprise. I would expect the business world to jump in and provide service for a profit when profit can be made. Profitable routes for all modes would be easily and early identified, making lovely data for Congress, the bread and butter of political argument, to gradually reduce subsidies where private enterprise can do the job.

Policy should also include incremental future improvement in all modes when demand warrants it. Let’s start with air. The air traffic system is old, and could be updated, possibly in a manner profitable to private operation. The demand is there now, but mostly because there aren’t many other fast choices to get from one place to another.

The highway system is old. The future for highways should include separate freight-only lanes and self-driving lanes, initially in areas where the route structure is not complex. While private enterprise should subsidize addition of autonomous-only lanes, public money should be used to give the private passenger vehicle a boost, particularly in the area of accommodating all-electric operation.

The rail infrastructure is old. However, the above city-pair service could be accomplished with existing infrastructure, even though the freight railroads will whine about it. Despite the often given impression that freight railroads need more capacity, there are lines out there with trees growing between the rails. We should, as a nation, eschew the trend to turn railroad rights of way into parks and hiking trails.

When high-speed rail is considered, it should be city to city with no interference by any other mode, and, once again, where the profit is to be made, private enterprise will step in and fund it. As city pair use increases, government policy should encourage private investment in feeder lines, light rail, and rail rapid transit.

If and when we get a national passenger transportation policy.

Mr. Trump's budget goes the wrong way. Tearing up Amtrak now, pulling money from transit, and ignoring the fact that private enterprise will not step in to fill the void overnight, leaves citizens with only two choices: 1. Air—hamstrung by outdated systems and inefficient security measures. 2. Highway (bus or auto)—made dangerous by heavy trucks and failing infrastructure.

It’s not the way to go.

Unfortunately, since I started writing this piece, the Republican Congress has shown its distaste (or disdain) for any big policy gestures—which national transportation policy would be—by withdrawing the Obamacare overhaul “for the foreseeable future.” When Congress uses this phrase, it usually means at least until the next election; which, in the case of Congress, comes next year! Yes! That’s next year folks!

I’m thinking, politically speaking, heads need to roll.

©2017 – C. A. Turek – mistertrains@gmail.com

(Charles A. Turek is a writer and novelist based in Albuquerque, NM. After four decades working in areas of the insurance industry related to transportation, he now writes on all aspects of American railroading. Charles is a political conservative but believes in public funding of passenger rail as a part of the federal government’s constitutionally conservative obligation to provide for defense and public infrastructure so that private enterprise may flourish.)