People who don`t own cars, who can`t fly or who travel to rural locations like Marshall, Tex., are not automatically members of ”the middle class”
because they are among the 21 million passengers who used Amtrak in 1985. In fact, they could very well be in the same economically disadvantaged group of low-income or elderly Americans The Tribune in its Feb. 9 editorial urges be helped by a tilt away from defense spending in the Reagan budget.
America needs Amtrak as part of a balanced transportation system. Just because federal, state and local governments subsidize the private automobile with highways and commercial aviation with traffic control systems and tax-free airports does not mean the passenger train is a less worthy travel mode because its subsidy is direct.
Yet this administration line is precisely the message Tribune editorials have been preaching for the last year. What`s worse, Bill Neikirk`s ”news story” on the budget in the Feb. 6 edition lumped Amtrak with federal programs serving the middle class and hinted that it could be sold off or
”privatized.” This would be comparable to trying to sell People`s Express if that commercial carrier had to pay in full for the airports and air systems it uses, for the military-sponsored research and development of its aircraft and for the training of ex-armed forces pilots and mechanics it hires. No one would buy People`s, just as no one would buy Amtrak, because users don`t pay full costs for any transportation mode.
There is no reason government should perpetuate status quo air and highway subsidies without taking into account the important role rail service plays in the overall picture.
It`s time that Amtrak is made a part of a fuel tax-financed
”transportation trust” along with highway, air and mass transit funding
–thereby ending discrimination against those unable to fly or drive.
Americans in this category do not deserve to be penalized anymore–either by the Reagan administration or The Tribune.
