Amtrak Advocates Rail against Extensive Subsidy Cuts for 2006
The Bush administration’s proposed cuts to Amtrak have many groups wondering why the U.S. has no problem subsidizing other forms of transportation, but not passenger rail. As the Surface Transportation Policy Project’s STPP Anne Canby notes in an article by Timothy Spence for Hearst Newspapers, “Nobody blinks at giving them [the airline industry] however many billions of dollars to save that system.”
And as the article notes, the issue of Amtrak subsidies is not likely to end anytime soon, as signs–rising oil prices and ongoing financial trouble in the airline industry–indicate that passenger rail could have an even more important role in the nation’s transportation system going forward. It certainly proved its worth during the days following 9/11.
As CNT’s Scott Bernstein notes, “It’s a really good time to be taking a look at what [transportation investments] we are financing and how we’re financing it.”
Read the article.
