WASHINGTON — Amtrak President Richard Anderson took repeated opportunities Thursday to highlight how a failure of aging Northeast Corridor infrastructure near New York “would effectively shut down economic activity in Manhattan” and “cut off (rail travel) from Maine to North Carolina and down to Florida.”
But testimony from other panel witnesses and questioning from members of Congress at a day-long House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing made it clear that passenger rail investment of any kind will compete with equally pressing highway, waterway, port, and airport needs.
Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) called the event, the first for the committee in the new Congress, “The cost of doing nothing — why investing in our nation’s infrastructure cannot wait.” Besides Anderson, committee members heard from former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and representatives from the Charlotte, N.C., water board, Washington State port system, United Parcel Service, Spokane International Airport, transportation labor, and the Aerospace Industries Association discussing urban air mobility.
Anderson, along with discussing the need to address funding to replace New Jersey’s Portal Bridge and the 1908-vintage North River tunnels under the Hudson River, also raised questions about the future of Amtrak’s Beech Grove (Ind.) Heavy Maintenance facility during his testimony.
Rep. Robert Gibbs (R-Ohio) — who voted in September 2017 for legislation that would have cut Amtrak funding — wondered, “How did Amtrak let an asset like [the Portal Bridge] get depleted … and didn’t take care of it, (or) put a new bridge in?” The bridge over the Hackensack River has become a frequent cause of delays for Amtrak and NJ Transit trains. [See “New Jersey officials ask Coast Guard for relief from rail-bridge problems,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 5, 2018.]
Anderson replied that the federal government has never had “an appetite to invest in the infrastructure up and down the Northeast Corridor. When you look at the [age of] the asset base we have, the winner is the Baltimore tunnels that were dedicated by President Grant in 1873. That’s typical of what we see in the Corridor, the spine of the Northeast.”
Anderson added, “We are ready with designs and environmental approvals [to replace] the Portal Bridge and have preliminary construction underway.” On the tunnels, he said, “we have continued the design process and the environmental approval is right now at the Department of Transportation. We are fortunate at Amtrak to have as our [board of directors)]chairman Tony Coscia, who is also chairman of the Gateway Development Corp.” That non-profit organization was created to oversee the tunnel replacement and other infrastructure work, known collectively as the Gateway Project.
Anderson said Coscia and Amtrak Senior Executive Vice President Stephen Gardner, “who knows more about this project than anyone on Earth, are the leaders of that effort for Amtrak. There’s an inevitability that this is going to get built … so why [do] we spend all this time gyrating around? It’s not a Republican or Democratic issue, it’s an American issue, and what we ought to do is just fund it.”
Anderson’s comments about Beech Grove came in response to Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), whose district includes the Amtrak facility. “Over time, we have to re-fleet the Amtrak rolling stock,” Anderson said, “… and over the longer term we have to figure out where we are going to do our maintenance work.” He said that the P42 locomotive fleet is being replaced and “it is maintained there.” [This isn’t completely true; Beech Grove handles wreck repair and complete overhauls; prime mover replacement and periodic maintenance is generally done in Chicago and at regional facilities.]
Anderson told Carson that Amtrak has major maintenance facility construction going on now at Seattle; Oakland, Calif.; New York’s Sunnyside Yard; and Washington’s Ivy City Engine Terminal. “I think the footprint is going to change over time,” he said, “because we’re moving to more modern equipment.” But he said there are no plans to close Beech Grove or institute layoffs.
“There are changes we need to make in our network and the way we do business to modernize from a ‘70s railroad to a railroad that will meet the demand of Millennials today,” Anderson said, “but as we go down that process we have to be very mindful of its impact on our people.”
Most of the 20 House members who questioned witnesses on Anderson’s panel asked about deficient highway bridges, deteriorating municipal water systems, lack of trained air traffic controllers, and inadequate harbor maintenance funding.
Let us not forget about the issues of dealing with NIMBYs who fight and object to every proposal and plan to modernize or rebuild or replace ancient intrastrutcture that is crumbling or only one accident or failure from a tragedy or disaster. A perfect example is the Baltimore Tunnels that are in far worse shape and even older than the Hudson River Tunnels. There are plans on the books to build and replace the ancient tunnels with modern safe and environmental acceptable tunnels but the good and perfect citizens of Baltimore have been fighting any new plans or proposals to build new tunnels. Seems like they are concerned about their quality of life issues and their property values being ruined or destroyed by construction and any temporay disruption of services andtheir way of life. Also the same issues can be applied here in New York and New Jersey. We have Nimbys here also fighting and trying to stop any construction. NIMBYS and enviromentalists are also a problem and a stumblingblock to any much needed reconstruction, rehabilitation and replacement of our rails, roads bridges and waterways. Whatever happended to the good old days when you built something that was wanted and needed and not yield to political pressure, special interest groups NIMBYs and whoever else had selfish narrow minded views and their own personal interests. This country was built on people with a pioneer spirit and willing to take chances and forge into the unknown. The present intrastructure of this country was built over a century ago by men and women who built and created the rails and roads that this generation is using and has allowed to collapse and decay because today nobody has a vision or plan but rather chooses to fight and squabble over petty and nonsense issues. Remember the old saying ? “Fiddling while Rome burns” Same thing is happening now in this country and we are only one major disaster or accident from resulting in a tragedy with great loss of life and injury. Mankind never learns
Why should the federal govt take more money from you & me when they cannot manage the taxpayer they already take in?2 trillion dollars of debt has been added in the past 2 years since Trump took office
Very True Troy. When was the last time our gas tax was raised? I don’t mind paying another $5 per tank of gas to support our infrastructure. Also, how about we cut the immense spending on defense? There is plenty of money out there we just are spending on other things
There is justification for increasing border security. If we didn’t give way so much money to foreign countries we could easily spend 5 billion on a wall and also 5 billion on infrastructure improvement.
Geeee…I wonder what 5 BILLION plus dollars would do for the northeast corridor…instead of a freekin wall in nowhere land? Anyone? And then the rest of the money he wants to spend on The Wall? Stupid people throw money at stupid things….
I like what I’m reading here. Sounds like he is saying the right things. Whether it has any impact is yet to be seen. And if nothing happens, most of the blame needs to be placed on our government. Let’s get some people elected that will change our priorities and shift cash to our infrastructure.
There is no doubt in my mind that our country needs to spend more on infrastructure, the big problem is that nobody is willing to step up and say who will pay for it. Our government is running huge deficits but and everybody seems to want to spend government money but nobody seems wants to raise taxes to cover the spending.