According to the Rail Passengers Association, Amtrak’s response to COVID-19 will drop a $2 billion “bomb on Flyover Country.”
Testifying before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads and Pipeline, RPA’s president and CEO Jim Mathews said Amtrak’s plan to reduce service on its long-distance routes would be a major low to 40 percent of the country’s small and rural communities the rail line serves.
Amtrak received emergency funding through the CARES Act, but that legislation expires on Sept. 30, absent action by Congress on another stimulus package. Without further federal aid, Amtrak said it will cut service on 12 of its 15 long-distance routes to three times per week to save money.
Mathews said that while the cuts will save Amtrak money, they will cost the U.S. economy.
“[Rail Passengers Association has] modeled a preliminary, high-level analysis of the economic consequences of Amtrak’s decision to cut its daily intercity passenger services back to only three runs per week,” Mathews said. “Unfortunately, even the most conservative assessment is dire: to save $213 million, Amtrak’s nine months of daily service cuts could drop at least a $2.3 billion bomb on Flyover Country, a figure that could rise above $3 billion if the cuts remain in place for the full year.”
Even the cut-back service requires Congressional funding, Mathews said, and that failing to provide any financial relief to Amtrak would result in even more problems for the U.S. transit network.
“I understand well that Amtrak faces real and difficult choices and that without financial aid, there are far greater risks to the network than thrice weekly service for long-distance routes—we could lose entire corridors, permanently,” said Mathews. “Amtrak is a taxpayer-supported public service. Its object is not profit, but to serve the Nation,” Mathews concluded. “It cannot fulfill its mandate by cutting service for half the country during one of the most severe economic crises our nation has experienced and during a pandemic that has made air travel a perilous gamble for millions of Americans.”
RPA said routes like the City of New Orleans, which travels through Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, would result in a direct loss of $35.6 million to those states’ economies, and indirect losses of over $52 million. The group estimated that on that route alone, that over nine months, the economic losses would mount up to $66 million for communities along that route.
For routes like the Southwest Chief, which travels through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, the economic losses to the communities that line serves could add up to $239 million over nine months.